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Chrome needs to ditch this whitelisted exception for 'the top 1000 sites'. This is a barrier to every new video platform that wants to compete with YouTube or F

by dannyw 9y ago

Chrome needs to ditch this whitelisted exception for 'the top 1000 sites'. This is a barrier to every new video platform that wants to compete with YouTube or Facebook.

pietroglyph 9y ago
It appears to be a little more complex than that; this[0] blog post (from September 2017, but linked in as the official recommendation) provides some broader context, and also talks about a "Media Engagement Index" heuristic to determine whether or not to play audio. This doesn't appear to take something like Alexa rank into account. The requested behavior is very similar to the actual (recalled) behavior. Per [0], Chrome allows muted (by JS) videos to play, and then allows audio to play on first interaction (but must be done by JS.) This is subtly different from the proposed behavior, which asks for this unmuting to be automated by the browser. [0]: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-policy-changes https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-p...
- dannyw 9y ago
  It’s more complex, but only the top 1000 sites by MEI is still a hurdle. In addition, the non-whitelist path requires at least 20 interactions before it is considered. That’s ridiculous; it should be 3-5 max.
  - sp332 9y ago
    It's not only the top 1,000. It was over 1,000 when it first launched and they said they will expand the list over time.
    - tokyodude 9y ago
      That's really irrelevant. Your youtube competitor may never get in that list if users don't get autoplay on your site. Sure you can train your browser. Until you switch machines. Or use a public machine. Or use a different profile. Or use incognito mode. They're providing a fast lane for the current popular sites and everyone else gets a slow lane. It's kind of hard to get out of the slow lane when you're forced to go slow.
niftich 9y ago
Of course, the top 1000 sites is exactly where I don't want anything to autoplay, because half of these sites have spurious videos instead of the textual content that you'd reasonably expect, just to pump ad engagement metrics. It'd be nice to have a whitelist/blacklist import/export, so there can be multiple community-sourced efforts to classify sites into reasonable use of autoplay vs. unreasonable. One can dream.
- jarfil 9y ago
  Many ad-blockers do just that. Of course they also go a step further and block ads altogether, so blocking autoplay becomes unnecessary since there is only "true content" left to be autoplayed.

by dannyw 9y ago

Chrome needs to ditch this whitelisted exception for 'the top 1000 sites'. This is a barrier to every new video platform that wants to compete with YouTube or Facebook.

pietroglyph 9y ago

It appears to be a little more complex than that; this[0] blog post (from September 2017, but linked in as the official recommendation) provides some broader context, and also talks about a "Media Engagement Index" heuristic to determine whether or not to play audio. This doesn't appear to take something like Alexa rank into account. The requested behavior is very similar to the actual (recalled) behavior. Per [0], Chrome allows muted (by JS) videos to play, and then allows audio to play on first interaction (but must be done by JS.) This is subtly different from the proposed behavior, which asks for this unmuting to be automated by the browser. [0]: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-policy-changes https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-p...

dannyw 9y ago
It’s more complex, but only the top 1000 sites by MEI is still a hurdle. In addition, the non-whitelist path requires at least 20 interactions before it is considered. That’s ridiculous; it should be 3-5 max.
- sp332 9y ago
  It's not only the top 1,000. It was over 1,000 when it first launched and they said they will expand the list over time.
  - tokyodude 9y ago
    That's really irrelevant. Your youtube competitor may never get in that list if users don't get autoplay on your site. Sure you can train your browser. Until you switch machines. Or use a public machine. Or use a different profile. Or use incognito mode. They're providing a fast lane for the current popular sites and everyone else gets a slow lane. It's kind of hard to get out of the slow lane when you're forced to go slow.

niftich 9y ago

Of course, the top 1000 sites is exactly where I don't want anything to autoplay, because half of these sites have spurious videos instead of the textual content that you'd reasonably expect, just to pump ad engagement metrics. It'd be nice to have a whitelist/blacklist import/export, so there can be multiple community-sourced efforts to classify sites into reasonable use of autoplay vs. unreasonable. One can dream.

jarfil 9y ago
Many ad-blockers do just that. Of course they also go a step further and block ads altogether, so blocking autoplay becomes unnecessary since there is only "true content" left to be autoplayed.