Slightly off-topic, but never auto-play video (or audio) content on a website. If I want it to be played, I click on it, otherwise it's just annoying.
Seriously? The fact that an embedded video started playing soured your opinion of the article? Maybe you guys should chill out a bit. Sometimes comments like this lead me to believe the author wants recognition at somebody else's expense.
Imagine when you got to a restaurant that has music annoying loud. You may still enjoy the dinner food, but you had a bad experience eating the good food because you were annoyed with the music. That scenario similar to this article. You could still enjoy the article content but you were annoyed because of the bad experience. And after so many of those bad experiences you may just think "you know what, I'd rather eat somewhere not as good just because I won't be annoyed by loud music."
If you don't think that small things like this (that can easily add up over time) do change how your viewers see your site/company (regardless of the content), then you need to think again.
However, I could be wrong. I mean, everyone did love the animated images, colors, and sounds on GeoCities which lead to their industry takeover and incredible success. ;)
Let's not just assume that all annoyances are created equal. One is an integrally bad user experience, the only way out of which is to stop using the service wholesale. The other amounts to mousing-over a large area of the screen and clicking a button.
Sure, what's wrong with that opinion. I don't know how you browse but when I browse hacker news I'll open up 2-3 articles and their associated comments and start reading one.
When a video starts playing in the background when I'm not even on that tab, then yes, it can sour your opinion of the entire website.
Little things matter.
See that? Two different interpretations of the same feature. Just because you hate autoplay doesn't mean everyone does. Certainly one or the other does not "sour my opinion" of an article. The fact that the video starts playing when the page loads has exactly nothing to do with the content in the article. That's what's wrong with the opinion.
And just my two cents: There is nothing wrong with any opinion. It's an opinion after all isn't it? An opinion is not a universal truth. It's something personal that people like to share for some reason. That what makes discussion so hard at times.
Sure, all that makes perfect sense. None of that invalidates anything that I said though:)
The other benefit is that I don't give my cycles and peace to flash advertisements.
But that's just my 2 cents.
It was very difficult to convince him that yes, it was actually the crappy slideshow advert on one tab that was making his entire computer unusable.
However, auto-play can be nice in the right setting. Lots of car manufacturers auto-play video as part of the design. Or some product shots like the MackBook page where the laptop opens and spins is nice.