New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling • Hacker News Board

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#231

Post by moate » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 1:22 PM UTC

RandomInteger4 wrote: post #194

moate wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Porque no los dos?

That's like saying "Why not both?" to eating healthy and putting your balls in a vice grip. Eating healthy in this analogy is the government making laws regarding actual problems that require government intervention, while the balls in vice grip in this analogy is a pointless law concerning something that doesn't require government intervention just because people have a moral panic over technology allegedly ruining…

No, it's more like saying "why not fix both 'big' and 'small' problems at the same time", because whataboutism is a constant defense of problematic status quos.

I don't know that this bill is a good or bad thing yet, I haven't dug deep into it yet. But the idea of making more designers eliminate dark patterns in software and make more features opt in instead of opt out is a good use of regulation in my mind.

I get it, "regulation ruins innovation" or some other libertarian nonsense. The bottom line is that the software industry has some problematic behaviors that they have refused to self-correct, and this is what happens.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#232

Post by jressey » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 1:24 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #166

jressey wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why hours watched? Because Netflix wants as much of your time as you're willing to give. The more ingrained they are in your life, the less elastic your demand. We've seen them raise prices and remove just about all of the worthwhile content, and they have more subscribers than ever. Stay tuned for more of this.

They didn’t “remove” content. It was taken from them by the owners.

That is an incredibly pedantic statement. They chose not to pay the cost that the owners charged them. Netflix is an equal actor.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#233

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

jressey wrote: post #232

scarface74 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn’t “remove” content. It was taken from them by the owners.

That is an incredibly pedantic statement. They chose not to pay the cost that the owners charged them. Netflix is an equal actor.

There was no “cost” they could have paid Disney (and now Fox), Warner, or NBC Universal to keep their content when they wanted it back to start their own streaming service with exclusive content.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#234

Post by stunt » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

I'm not sure if banning can fix anything. They will come up with different ideas. Every company is heavily focused to optimize digital products for business values now.

Auto-play-video is probably very high on list of things that wasted so much time in human history.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#235

Post by root_axis » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

nichos wrote: post #219

root_axis wrote: post #140

I apologize for making a comment with regard to politics, but I can't help feeling frustrated by the narrative around curbing "addictive behavior" coming from the political party that consistently extols the virtues of "personal responsibility" and regularly characterizes the desire to regulate harmful behavior as the machinations of a "nanny state". I find it especially frustrating in this case because the specifics…

The Republican party is about personal responsibility as much as the Democrats are for ending wars. Both parties are essentially the same now, and have been for several years.

> Both parties are essentially the same now, and have been for several years.

This is very obviously and demonstrably false. I don't understand how anyone can believe this.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#236

Post by root_axis » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 2:51 PM UTC

georgeecollins wrote: post #223

root_axis wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can't have companies such as Google and Facebook claim they are a carrier while they promote and curate content Do you have any examples of google or facebook claiming to be a "carrier"?

Certainly https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/02/facebook-...

The article does not support your position that Facebook claims to be a carrier.

If you want to extract some specific sections of the article that you believe support your position I'm happy to discuss them, but I'm not seeing it.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#237

Post by wolco » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 3:04 PM UTC

vinni2 wrote: post #230

wolco wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could just turn it off in the settings.

How? I don’t see any option in the Apple TV

I have no concept of what AppleTV looks like but login to your netflix account on your phone go to settings.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#238

Post by magduf » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 3:08 PM UTC

telotortium wrote: post #135

magduf wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autoplaying advertisements are one of the main reason autoplay is so annoying. WhyTF would they make an exception for this? This seems like obvious corruption.

Yeah, but they kind of have to autoplay ads. Would you find it less annoying to (1) manually click to start playing an ad, and then (2) manually click after the ad is done to play the video? I hope it would be violation of the regulation to play ads ad infinitum after playing a video.

Yes, I'd find it much less annoying to have to manually click to play an ad, because then I can just not click at all, and read the article without having to listen to some stupid video.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#239

Post by ghostbrainalpha » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

sizzle wrote: post #226

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did being responsible for a feature so important to the growth of Netflix result in a reward or promotion outside of your expected compensation? And as a father with 3 young children, you don't know how much I appreciate what you built. Not having to click next between episodes of "word party" for my toddlers is sanity saving. Also to the people without kids who will be judging this comment, you may not realize that…

Are you condoning replacing children's autonomy and sidestepping parenting responsibilities with incessant dopamine depleting screentime/fostering electronic addiction at such an impressionable young age? Why not read a book and play with some cool science toys and limit screentime? I'm not a father but removing my children's autonomy with tech screentime and encouraging tech/media addiction worries me deeply... Thou…

Before having kids I thought EXACTLY as you do....

But its hard to explain exactly how difficult this is, and how little time discretionary time you have, especially if you have more than one child under five, and I have 3.

I'm not trying to avoid responsibility, but for example there are days when I really have to go to the bathroom at 5:00pm, and that just can't happen until 8:30 when I get them to bed. Also "Word Party" is as about as educational as a 2 year old can handle and assists in learning the alphabet.

And I think letting them watch educational programs during our commute the best use of that time I can think of. There isn't really a lot of cool science toys for when they are in a car seat.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#240

Post by telotortium » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #238

telotortium wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but they kind of have to autoplay ads. Would you find it less annoying to (1) manually click to start playing an ad, and then (2) manually click after the ad is done to play the video? I hope it would be violation of the regulation to play ads ad infinitum after playing a video.

Yes, I'd find it much less annoying to have to manually click to play an ad, because then I can just not click at all, and read the article without having to listen to some stupid video.

Ah I see. This bill seems to only deal with social media / entertainment though (Facebook, YouTube), (unfortunately) not with those super-annoying autoplaying videos on news websites.