If there’s one thing I absolutely hate about modern streaming app interfaces is the default behavior of auto-playing a preview of the show or movie you’ve highlighted. No, I don’t want you to make noise while I read the synopsis. No, I don’t want the movie to actually start yet!
In most cases, you can disable this by digging around in the settings, but why is this there in the first place? I’ve figured out a few likely reasons—and I don’t like any of them.
The Psychology Behind Autoplay
Streaming services have to deal with different aspects of human psychology than the old broadcast model. With so many options, many people will suffer from decision paralysis, so one way to break that is to start playing the content for them. Since it’s already playing, all they have to do is nothing, and doing nothing is a very popular pastime, let me tell you!
Streaming also has its own metrics of success, an important part of which is the “attention economy”. It’s about engagement and dragging you in one direction or another. Autoplay keeps your attention on the TV, and helps prevent you from being distracted by your phone or the million other things vying for your time and mental energy.
I think it’s probably part and parcel of the overall push towards “jangling keys” designs that cut out distractions and focus your attention where the platform wants it to go. The new Netflix design gives me that vibe, and it feels less like I’m browsing a library of content, and more like I’m operating a slot machine with flashing lights.
A Data-Driven Decision?
Streaming services are incentivized to engage you by any means they can get away with. It’s not that important that you enjoy being engaged, just that you are engaged. I’m guessing that we see this autoplay behavior from basically every streaming service because they have data showing it actually makes people watch more shows, or try new ones instead of just browsing on.
If something increases how much time people spend watching content, it drives up all the other little numbers the streaming executives love, so I guess irritating me is a small price to pay from their point of view.
It Feels Like Crass Advertising
There’s a related thing I really hate about some streaming services, and I guess I have to call out Amazon Prime Video in particular here. Although I pay for ad-free tiers of services wherever possible, that doesn’t stop a platform like Prime Video from doing ad pre-rolls for their own shows and movies. Why is this an issue? Well, I already paid my subscription fee. There’s no real reason to advertise to me. Put the shows you think I’d like in a “for you” list or something.
Likewise, autoplaying stuff when I just let my selection rest on it for a second too long feels like crass advertising to someone what’s already a paying customer, and wants to watch your content. It harshes my chill, is what I’m saying. I just want a few seconds to think before being strong-armed into picking one show or another. It also makes me feel like I have to keep hopping from one choice to the next before the preview starts, but maybe that’s just mild OCD doing its thing.
Wasting Our Bandwidth
Another thing I don’t like about the autoplay trend is that it wastes so much bandwidth. If the app or site is cueing up video streams with every click of a button, that’s just wasteful. This might sound trivial, but bandwidth and video processing consumes power and costs money. I’d hate to think that the reason my subscriptions keep going up in price is because the likes of Netflix or Disney+ are spamming people with video previews enough to boil a lake next to a data center somewhere.
I’ll Admit It’s Not All Bad
While I personally hate autoplay, and I know I’m not alone, it wouldn’t be fair to say that the feature is completely useless. For one thing, it does reduce the friction between thinking about a show or movie and starting to watch it. On those services that don’t show a preview, and actually just start the content, it can feel pretty slick.
I guess there are also worse things on the annoyance scale. Streaming services that offer no way to remove ads qualify, and it’s not as if physical media was free of this. Plenty of my DVD and Blu-ray discs have unskippable trailers, which is similarly vexing.
If you’re like me and hate autoplay previews, then you’ll want to disable it on Netflix, Disney Plus, and wherever else it’s possible to do so. Take back some of your mental energy, and decide when you want to see a preview or start watching something new on your on terms.
