Video is popular nowadays not because that's what users want but because that's what generates more ad revenue for media. There are certain cases where video storytelling is better than textual/visual storytelling but very rarely so. In case you have forgotten, there's this thing called "TV" that has been in the video space long before Internet came along. That didn't mean NYT had to turn themselves into CNN. I would never visit a NYT article if they start autoplaying videos on their website, for the same reason I never visit college humor anymore (they used to be a nice fun site but at certain point they started only serving videos, and nobody has time for videos)