Dammit, arstechnica, you were one of the good ones. I really don't understand why people think it's a good idea to put an autoplay sticky video on a text article. It makes it incredibly hard for me to focus on reading the article. Thankfully, reader mode still works on that site, but it seems self-defeating: I don't want to spend a moment on the site longer than it takes to read the article, I don't want to get sucked into another article on a site that's going to assault my very ability to read the article in question.
I'd still call ars one of the good ones in terms of ads, since they let you subscribe to get rid of them. And if that's of no interest, well, the site works very well with ad blockers.
Does the autoplay sticky video go away for subscribers?
I’m on Safari on iOS, I didn’t see any video, and I’m an Ars Pro subscriber, so here’s one data point for “yes that’s right”
I don't either on iOS Safari, and I am not a subscriber. So it could also be a content blocker if you use one.
Firefox + Ublock Origin here (not a subscriber), I see no video.
That’s been the case for a while. They also have a bug on the site that causes whatever audio was playing on your iOS device to be taken over by the auto-play audio that persists after you leave Safari.