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Your Starbucks example is flawed. Starbucks employees don't barge into your office with a boombox playing at full volume and screaming at you about their latest

Your Starbucks example is flawed. Starbucks employees don't barge into your office with a boombox playing at full volume and screaming at you about their latest drinks, then make you pay for the taxi that brought them there, simply because you opened an article about their new store in your area. That's what autoplaying ads and videos on the web do: They catch you off guard with loud, annoying audio that you can't always just turn off, and if you're on mobile you're paying for the privilege with your data allowance. You didn't ask for it, it attacked you without warning. > A call for browser vendors to implement some opt-in setting that does what you want would be much more realistic suggestion. On this I agree with you entirely, and I think that's what the OP is actually asking for.

geuis 10y ago
I like the taxi analogy.
RyanOD 10y ago
"barge into your office"? Seems to me when you visit someone's website, you're in their office, not the other way around. I'm no fan of the auto-everything web, but I don't think your analogy here is sound.
- wott 10y ago
  I am not so sure any more, since more and more stuff is calculated on the client, fetched from many different servers by the client and assembled in the client. In fact the web page as we see it never exists on the main server (their office), it only exists in the client (our office). Just a thought.
- morganvachon 10y ago
  Only if "their office" is out on the street in full view of the public, just like the rest of the web. Since we're ripping this analogy to shreds anyway, let's take a different view: You call up Starbucks on the phone (i.e. visit their website) and request that they read you their new menu and describe to you their new store location (read: you click on the link with the info you wanted). Before they do as you asked, without warning they turn on a megaphone, point it to the receiver, and start playing a looping advertisement for a new Harry Potter line of toys. You didn't ask for that Potter nonsense, you're now deaf in that ear, everyone around you is looking at you funny, and you hang up the phone in disgust rather than wait through three iterations of toy pimping just to find out some simple information they claimed to have on their info line (website). Then, on your next phone bill you see a per-minute charge for that call (as in, they used your metered data to spam you).

geuis 10y ago

I like the taxi analogy.

RyanOD 10y ago

"barge into your office"? Seems to me when you visit someone's website, you're in their office, not the other way around. I'm no fan of the auto-everything web, but I don't think your analogy here is sound.

wott 10y ago
I am not so sure any more, since more and more stuff is calculated on the client, fetched from many different servers by the client and assembled in the client. In fact the web page as we see it never exists on the main server (their office), it only exists in the client (our office). Just a thought.
morganvachon 10y ago
Only if "their office" is out on the street in full view of the public, just like the rest of the web. Since we're ripping this analogy to shreds anyway, let's take a different view: You call up Starbucks on the phone (i.e. visit their website) and request that they read you their new menu and describe to you their new store location (read: you click on the link with the info you wanted). Before they do as you asked, without warning they turn on a megaphone, point it to the receiver, and start playing a looping advertisement for a new Harry Potter line of toys. You didn't ask for that Potter nonsense, you're now deaf in that ear, everyone around you is looking at you funny, and you hang up the phone in disgust rather than wait through three iterations of toy pimping just to find out some simple information they claimed to have on their info line (website). Then, on your next phone bill you see a per-minute charge for that call (as in, they used your metered data to spam you).