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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

Now if I could only get NetFlix to stop it as well.

Is there anyone that actually likes the autoplay when watching Netflix on TV?

Update/Note: This is in the Roku app. I'm specifically talking about previews autoplaying while I scroll though different shows on the main navigation...

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> Is there anyone that actually likes the autoplay when watching Netflix on TV?

I can't think of a single time when I have encountered autoplay and liked it. Not even with video streamers like Netflix, YouTube, etc.

The only time I've found myself wanting autoplay is when it's an obvious playlist, such as TV shows on Netflix or explicit playlists on Youtube.

All of the other times, it's really just irritating, and I've only gotten more annoyed lately because of it. Netflix just promotes its newest shows, and frankly I don't watch that many Netflix originals. Youtube... the recommendations are fine, but the next video selection is very little hit and mostly miss for me.

I honestly like YouTube's autoplay, as I use YouTube to listen to music the autoplay feature allows me to find new artists and songs to listen to. I get a much better "Radio" experience than I have gotten from say Spotify.

Youtube's autoplay (ie, play another video after the current one) will likely continue to work as it doesn't reload the page. You can also enable autoplay on a site-per-site basis if you want it to occur regardless.

Personally I'd rather prefer autoplay being something I give permission for than the site asking for forgiveness (which in 99% of cases I will answer by muting the site permanently).

How'd you mute a site permanently?

I use "MuteLinks" by "Shaxine" from AMO to mute sites permanently.

Revoke JavaScript permission. That's what I do (in case I ever allowed it).

I agreed until recently, but now my music autoplay is very inclined to get stuck in a loop of music I've already heard (did I listen to those tracks too many times?). The additional recommendations can still be good but need more manual intervention than letting it autoplay.

Yeah Youtube's algorithm for playing stuff you will like is pretty good.

Know who else's algorithm has done the same thing for me? Pandora. It's basically my go-to music app. I have groomed a station to be exactly what I love and it just sticks to a formula, automatically adds in new releases by the artists I already follow, and plays music I like.

The weird thing about Youtube's autoplay is that if it is a video you actually want to watch you need to rewind the start when you click on it because there's no audio during autoplay and it starts the video from where autoplay "left off".

That doesn't happen to me. There is audio during autoplay.

Maybe one of us changed a setting. My auto play has closed captions and no audio.

It is so annoying because the reasoning is so insultingly simple and ultimately, the height of irony and stupidity. I can see the middle manager in my mind boasting how this feature increased their key video playback time metric by 5% so it's here to stay!

I don't mind when it autoplays the next episode of something i'm watching. Though i find it stops the autoplay and asks me if i'm still watching at probably the worst times.

I can't stand though when it autoplays trailers or previews or automatically starts something new when i've finished something i'm watching. Scrolling through netflix and having things autoplay as I scroll through is annoying as all fuck.

I find I'm being subconsciously trained to keep moving through the listings before the autoplay triggers. In addition to my distaste for them, they also seem to freeze up the app for a moment while they start; it's less than a second, but it's noticeable.

I assume it's driving engagement with people in general, but it inhibits my engagement.

Which goes back to one of my perennial frustrations with all this tracking and A/B testing bullshit; they're tracking my every mouse movement, they're slicing and dicing pennies in an effort to advertise at me, but when it comes to something I'd actually like, like them noticing that not only do I not "want" these autoplaying ads but that they actually decreased the very metrics they care about for me, suddenly our monstrous tracking machine with seemingly endless resources to stare at me like Sauron's All-Seeing Eye goes all blind on me.

> they also seem to freeze up the app for a moment while they start; it's less than a second, but it's noticeable.

It's extremely noticable in the roku app. It pauses for a couple seconds every time you navigate so you can't really do anything until the autoplay loads. You end up seeing a few seconds of it for every single item you hover over.

I cancelled my Netflix subscription because of the auto-playing previews. I'm surprised people put up with them, let alone that they increase engagement. Half the time the previews are auto-generated. They have a few clips of the show along with some generic music. One of the tracks was reused so often that I started to think of it as the Netflix theme.

I'm surprised people put up with them

I don't like them at all but I do most of my Netflixing on my iPhone, where it doesn't happen.

(When I do go to the Netflix site in a web browser I sometimes temporarily use "Mute site" which is a pretty crazy thing for a site for watching movies to make you want to do!)

I'm _this_ close to cancelling Netflix because of this behavior on Roku. Also the utter lack of closed captions configurability is wearing on my nerves.

Yeah. I've been bingeing a few episodes of the office each night for the last month or so. I like the autoplay.

Guess there's a conflation of terms. I think a lot of people enjoy the "automatically play the next episode after this one ends" feature. Recently, however, Netflix has added a "blast sound out of my TV when I hover over something I might want to watch" which I never want. If I'm interested, I'll click in and watch the trailer. I rarely want it to start playing a video just cause I hovered over the title.

I can't find anywhere on the screen that doesn't make noise (and usually only after several seconds of false security). I've just stopped opening netflix unless I already know what I want to watch

Yes...that's the one I was talking about. Autoplay the next episode is fine.

Autoplay every show I barely hover over? No, thanks.

Particularly when the advert is for their show "sex education"and my young children are in the room!

Ah. Now I understand. I believe there is an option to shut this off. It really annoyed me when that happened and I remember doing some googling and shutting it off. The videos still autoplay but the sound doesnt.

You can block the Netflix autoplay element of the page in ublock. Thus far it seems to have had no other effect.

Ahh, this on my television with a Roku.

Makes me wonder if we can block it with Pi-hole then?

Doubt you can block it like that without blocking netflix. The source domain is probably be the same.

I assume the Pi Hole still uses DNS to block.

There is a setting in your Netflix profile. I assume it stops it on every device, I haven't tried it though.

That only stops the next episode in a show from automatically playing when the current episode ends. It doesn't get rid of the obnoxious autoplay previews when you are browsing.

I can only see a setting for autoplay next episode, not for autoplaying trailers as a scroll through their "library".

Oh, that would be great...will have a look tonight.

That's awful. I hope that never comes to the phone app (we use Chromecasts, no TV UI). It does happen on the Coming Soon page, which is not promising.

We pay for Netflix to bypass this sort of noise.

"Is there anyone that actually likes the autoplay when watching Netflix on TV?"

Emphatically No.

I like it. Before I didn't even bother playing shows that had a bad static image. I like the quick instant previews because it's inline with my intent: I'm deciding whether or not I want to watch as opposed to the auto-play garbage on the web that's virtually on every news site - I want to read the news articles and not watch and listen to a 30 second blurb where most of the content is an ad that I can't ignore

I don't mind the autoplay of next episode, or the autoplay if the preview in the preview pane, but I absolutely hate that after the preview plays long enough it will auto start the epiaode/movie.

It does the same on the Xbox One. It sucks. Every Netflix-using friend I've asked about it hates it.

I used to hate it, but now I abuse this to watch the trailers that autoplay.

Make no mistake: Netflix has certainly been measuring how well this works and the impact it has on the product. What we might hate has been proved to improve metrix Netflix seems to care about…

Netflix loves it I’m sure! ;)

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