Please Remove the Mute from Autoplay / Profiles

[AlthIndor]

I understand the reason given for the change during a recent AtS was that videos can't autoplay unless they start muted.

Lanzer

There had been a couple of changes on Chrome and Firefox, and autoplay is prohibited unless the video is set on mute. It's unfortunate that this is out of our control. I guess enough people complained to Google about autoplay that they changed the requirement.

For anyone who doesn't know yet, between last and this year, major browsers implemented new policies to manage how media plays.
These new policies finally transferred control of media away from websites and into the browser, and work the following way:

• Media that starts with sound will be automatically paused.
  
• Media that starts with sound is allowed once toggled on.
  
• Media that starts muted will be allowed on desktop.
  
• Users can indicate per-site what they want.

Firefox and Chrome do differ a lot in the specific implementation, with Firefox's being vastly superior, but broadly they're similar.
The point is that while what Lanzer said is true, it isn't the entire story; users CAN enable autoplay with sound if they want it.
So, with that being the premise of the change, here is why reverting it would be a perfectly fine and preferable thing to do:

Currently we have the situation where media plays automatically but silently (muted autoplay always allowed).

• If you liked profile music, now you have to unmute the video and seek back to the start to listen.
  
• If you have limited data and are on a desktop platform, this is wasting your data.

If the change is reverted, we'll go back to the situation where media does not play (media with sound paused).

• If you like profile music, now you can either turn autoplay on in your browser, or press only the play button.
  
• If you have limited data and are on a desktop platform, this saves your data.

In both cases, the sound will not start playing unless you have allowed it, as was the point of the policy changes in the first place. However, reverting the change to mandatory mute will give the user control of their autoplay preference back, which would remove some annoyances this introduced to a subset of users, while not affecting anyone who doesn't otherwise care how it works beyond not wanting to hear surprise music.

[Lady Saxophone]

I completely missed this post because I don't check AtS often, oops.

But what you said true.
Also, the fact that we're FORCED to have videos autoplay despite maybe not wanting them to autoplay???
Some people have multiple videos on their profile. ALL of those videos will autoplay currently, since Gaia's forcing all videos to autoplay on profiles.

(please just let us pick and choose what parameters we want gaia
we've been doing it this way for the past like 10 years and you haven't cared)

[AlthIndor]

Lady Saxophone

I completely missed this post because I don't check AtS often, oops.

But what you said true.
Also, the fact that we're FORCED to have videos autoplay despite maybe not wanting them to autoplay???
Some people have multiple videos on their profile. ALL of those videos will autoplay currently, since Gaia's forcing all videos to autoplay on profiles.

(please just let us pick and choose what parameters we want gaia
we've been doing it this way for the past like 10 years and you haven't cared)

I don't really go to AtS either, but when I saw it linked in PD I was like: ah, yep. Called it.

The forced autoplay isn't ... it's kind of weird, because as much as I personally don't like it, I can't actually say I think it's worse than not having the ability to turn it on at all. Because the number of people who like it vs. the number who can't use their browser to turn it off if they don't is probably a pretty skewed figure. INB4 it also wastes data, as opposed to just being unexpected music, but folks who need to worry about that should probably be using a more robust blocker in general.

Which is why I'm thinking, "okay, deal with the mute now and at least we'll be back to about where we were before," if that makes sense. Plus it should be a quick change to make. Ultimate end goals c. your thread of course, but I'll take incremental improvement. ^^

[David2074]

I HATE autoplay - muted or not.
But muted is worse.
I was happy when Chrome announced they were going to have an option for autoplay.
Then bummed to find out sites could still use autoplay if they muted it.

I used to be on a very limited data plan.
Now I'm on a still limited data but not quite as bad.
More and more news sites have auto play videos of talking heads saying what I am already reading in the print portion of the page. I'm literate. I don't need that and can click on it if I want it.

But worse are those sites that sneakily open up another tab and start playing commercials or other video you didn't ask for.
In the past, hearing audio was my clue to check the other tabs and close it out to save wasting my precious data allotment.
Now I'm supposed to be happy because they are muted.
I really don't see the 'win' there. It appears to be a solution that assumes everyone has unlimited data.

[Throttle Kitty]

muted autoplay is by far the WORST of both worlds!

I sometimes get annoyed by them but... just mute your computer before visiting profiles! cat_xd

I like mine, so I deal with it. I miss my autoplaying profile music...

[AlthIndor]

David2074

I HATE autoplay - muted or not.
But muted is worse.
I was happy when Chrome announced they were going to have an option for autoplay.
Then bummed to find out sites could still use autoplay if they muted it.

I used to be on a very limited data plan.
Now I'm on a still limited data but not quite as bad.
More and more news sites have auto play videos of talking heads saying what I am already reading in the print portion of the page. I'm literate. I don't need that and can click on it if I want it.

But worse are those sites that sneakily open up another tab and start playing commercials or other video you didn't ask for.
In the past, hearing audio was my clue to check the other tabs and close it out to save wasting my precious data allotment.
Now I'm supposed to be happy because they are muted.
I really don't see the 'win' there. It appears to be a solution that assumes everyone has unlimited data.

I used to have a pretty limited data plan too. Got by okay by blocking everything I could think of.
Firefox makes it really easy to disable any autoplay sub-feature by changing preferences in about:config.
Chrome used to have one hidden setting and then they removed it. 🙃

[David2074]

AlthIndor

David2074

I HATE autoplay - muted or not.
But muted is worse.
I was happy when Chrome announced they were going to have an option for autoplay.
Then bummed to find out sites could still use autoplay if they muted it.

I used to be on a very limited data plan.
Now I'm on a still limited data but not quite as bad.
More and more news sites have auto play videos of talking heads saying what I am already reading in the print portion of the page. I'm literate. I don't need that and can click on it if I want it.

But worse are those sites that sneakily open up another tab and start playing commercials or other video you didn't ask for.
In the past, hearing audio was my clue to check the other tabs and close it out to save wasting my precious data allotment.
Now I'm supposed to be happy because they are muted.
I really don't see the 'win' there. It appears to be a solution that assumes everyone has unlimited data.

I used to have a pretty limited data plan too. Got by okay by blocking everything I could think of.
Firefox makes it really easy to disable any autoplay sub-feature by changing preferences in about:config.
Chrome used to have one hidden setting and then they removed it. 🙃

Part of what pushed me to a larger data plan was that more and more web sites are changing their configuration to one that assumes you have lots of data / bandwidth.
Because of what I can't get at my house (cable, DSL, wireless) my cell phone is my internet device. I tether my laptop to my cell.

It used to be a lot of web sites had a low bandwidth option. Something I used fairly often because for years I was on dial up. It was a huge bummer to do tech support on super fast fiber optic lines with a ton of bandwidth and then come home at the end of the day to dial up.

I assume the browser companies lean towards allowing videos and such because they don't want to lose the advertising revenue or market share.

And yes to blocking things. I block a lot of stuff with ad blocker (doesn't have to be an ad obviously) but more and more web sites check for that and deny you if you don't white list them. So end up temporarily pausing it on many sites.

I still have it enabled on Gaia though. : )
A few years back I caught a virus from one of those mouse over ads they used to allow.
(or still allow? I haven't seen their ads in ages. )
Kind of sad really. I didn't mind seeing a few ads to help Gaia pay the bills but those damn mouse over ads that would take up the whole screen if you accidentally moved your cursor over it were super annoying. IMO Gaia crossed a line even before the malware / virus problem. Not to mention the inappropriate 'adult' ads that would show up in the rotation from time to time. I'm an adult and not a prude but it showed they were not doing much to screen what was displayed on their web site.
But I digress.
Don't want autoplay muted or not. smile

[bug toots]

Honestly I'm completely against this idea just for the fact I don't like autoplay.
i dont like hearing someone else's music when i go to their profile unless i click the play button myself. and then if i have the audio on my computer on, I want to listen to my own stuff rofl

[AlthIndor]

bug toots

Honestly I'm completely against this idea just for the fact I don't like autoplay.
i dont like hearing someone else's music when i go to their profile unless i click the play button myself. and then if i have the audio on my computer on, I want to listen to my own stuff rofl

I don't like autoplay either, which is specifically why I do want the mute removed. In the current configuration, the videos are autoplaying anyway, since starting them muted allows them to bypass the browser features that otherwise would have caught and paused them. So you take that part off, and they go back to being blocked like they should be.

[Rgoodermote]

Pretty okay with this. It is poor design to have audio just start on a user and considered unacceptable. For the sake of QoL, this should not be undone. Browser creators have made a good decision and good on Gaia for abiding.

[AlthIndor]

Rgoodermote

Pretty okay with this. It is poor design to have audio just start on a user and considered unacceptable. For the sake of QoL, this should not be undone. Browser creators have made a good decision and good on Gaia for abiding.

Unless someone is using a browser that doesn't have these built-in autoplay filters, the entire point of the request is that the audio WON'T start automatically if the mute parameter is removed. (Because that would be ******** HORRIBLE.) It will pause the entire thing, audio and video together. Currently it still plays the video, making:

Option 1: Play the video but don't play the audio, or
Option 2: Don't play the video and don't play the audio either.

I think 2 > 1.

[Rgoodermote]

AlthIndor

Rgoodermote

Pretty okay with this. It is poor design to have audio just start on a user and considered unacceptable. For the sake of QoL, this should not be undone. Browser creators have made a good decision and good on Gaia for abiding.

Unless someone is using a browser that doesn't have these built-in autoplay filters, the entire point of the request is that the audio WON'T start automatically if the mute parameter is removed. (Because that would be ******** HORRIBLE.) It will pause the entire thing, audio and video together. Currently it still plays the video, making:

Option 1: Play the video but don't play the audio, or
Option 2: Don't play the video and don't play the audio either.

I think 2 > 1.

I misunderstood your request, I'm sorry.

[ligotti]

So did you ever end up finding a fix for this? I have noticed Lady Sax has some layouts that still autoplay, was trying to figure out how to fix the one you made for me to not be muted.

[AlthIndor]

ligotti

So did you ever end up finding a fix for this? I have noticed Lady Sax has some layouts that still autoplay, was trying to figure out how to fix the one you made for me to not be muted.

The problem with the videos starting muted is that it's a change Lanzer made to the media panel code, so the only way to make them stop doing that is to get him to revert it. If you want something that will stop the videos playing muted for you in your own browser, like the suggestions we passed around when the autoplay policy changes originally dropped, then yes, but that's about it.

[ligotti]

AlthIndor

ligotti

So did you ever end up finding a fix for this? I have noticed Lady Sax has some layouts that still autoplay, was trying to figure out how to fix the one you made for me to not be muted.

The problem with the videos starting muted is that it's a change Lanzer made to the media panel code, so the only way to make them stop doing that is to get him to revert it. If you want something that will stop the videos playing muted for you in your own browser, like the suggestions we passed around when the autoplay policy changes originally dropped, then yes, but that's about it.

Well how the hell does King IV have music playing when I go to his profile?