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0 pointskotaKat11mo ago0 comments

THIS. THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS.

This has been one of the most frustrating things I run into with Youtube scrolling the page. Can’t leave your cursor on the page while scrolling without managing to have the spacing shift the thumbnails just so slightly so that your cursor lands back into a thumbnail for an autoplay to start and add to the metrics.

0 comments

jtbayly11mo ago

I can’t think of other examples, but this exact problem is a constant frustration for me on multiple sites. I can’t scroll with my cursor on the page without crap happening that I don’t want to happen.

As to the reason, at least with Youtube and Facebook, the answer is obvious: they want to increase their ad revenue by claiming additional “plays” or “interactions” or whatever they want to call it today. I remember realizing several times over the years that I had been conned when I paid for ads. The top-level numbers looked good, but when I dug in, I realized they were all faked.

krisoft11mo ago

> I can’t scroll with my cursor on the page without crap happening that I don’t want to happen.

Same stuff with the mobile youtube app. If you so much as graze the screen anywhere while watching a video the replay speed doubles. This is so sensitive that even a tiny unintentional finger touch, or a water droplet landing on the screen triggers it. Whoever thought that is a good idea as a feature, i can’t comprehend.

Plus they have no data to see how badly their feature annoys me. From a metrics perspective “the user wanted to fast forward for 5s” looks the same as “a careless finger cradling the phone triggered the fast forward and it took the user 5s to realise what is going on and adjust their hold, now they are annoyed at how fragile this app is”. Someone might have even used the statistics of all the inadvertent activations in their promo package to show what a popular feature they made!

eastbound11mo ago

Couple this with the no-bezel iPhones, and there is no way to hold your phone without touching the screen and accelerating the video (or clicking on ads).

3 more replies

jeffhuys11mo ago

You can just... turn it off: https://www.youtube.com/account_playback

I have it turned on, but leave my mouse to the right of the screen if I don't want autoplay. It's habit now.

socalgal210mo ago

It's not sticky. On iOS Chrome at least, I go pick that, within a few days it's set back to autoplay. And yes, I'm paying for premium

SupremumLimit10mo ago

It just turns itself back on in a couple of weeks. Dark patterns ahoy.

saratogacx11mo ago

Put your mouse up in the header on or near the scrollbar, scrolling will flow below to the video list.

gwbas1c11mo ago

It's even worse on mobile. You don't even need to hover for an autoplay video to show in your history.

s3p11mo ago

This may be a dumb question, but when you have video doing autoplay (as in the video starts playing while you're scrolling looking at multiple videos - you haven't clicked on one), does it show up in your watch history?

magackame11mo ago

Just tested. If you hover for 10s+ then it does get added to your watch history.

EDIT: or did you mean on autoplay as in part of a playlist playing in the small player in the corner while you are on the home page?

furrydoge10mo ago

Because of excessive things like this, I often point at my screen with a pen now and leave the mouse alone. Or take notes on a different laptop to avoid this stuff.

jaymzcampbell11mo ago

This drives me absolutely nuts on Netflix too, perhaps more so.

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