The problem with Youtube’s new autoplay video previews with sound feature

Earlier this week, Youtube made an odd, but interesting choice that I initially got excited about. It added autoplay videos to its homepage across virtually all platforms including Android and Chromecast with Google TV. I initially held off from writing up my thoughts on the matter because I understand that most people detest this type of implementation for video platforms, and instead, sought to understand their position.

Netflix has done this for as long as I can recall, and it certainly adds an air of authenticity to the moviegoing experience at home. It gives the feel of being in the theater, and the cinematic quality of getting a quick preview of a TV show or movie while you browse listings. For this reason, I’ve endorsed the decision in the past when it was added to Youtube TV.

However, now that I’ve used it for several days via Youtube, I have a few thoughts that contradict my initial reactions. First, I don’t hate autoplay videos as much as others do. I don’t have an adverse reaction to the feature as a whole, and I don’t reject the idea of it being useful or immersive. I do believe that it makes Youtube more difficult to pursue though. Let me explain.

While browsing the homepage, I was constantly aware that the video would soon autoplay. There’s about a five second delay before it begins firing off the audio and the thumbnail turns into moving chaos. Why do I say chaos? Well, when you’re considering whether or not you want to watch a video, you’re busy looking at the thumbnail and reading the title, and the moment that video begins playing, it causes your entire thought process and consideration to shatter into a million pieces.

I found myself constantly rushing to read titles, digest what was happening in the thumbnail, and deciding whether or not something was of interest to me. I don’t like to be rushed – period. Autoplay videos forced me to mentally rush through my decision-making process, and I hate that more than I could express. I watch Youtube to relax and unwind from my day since it normally includes time-restricted efforts that are high-pressure and require loads of research.

I believe that autoplay videos are great for longer form content like movies and even TV shows, but Youtube is a different story entirely. I suppose this would depend on the person you ask and their subscription and content focus on the platform, but I generally visit Youtube for informational and educational purposes, and even though many of the videos I watch are between 15 and 30 minutes long on average, they’re still informational at their core. Sure, they’re often entertaining since the Youtuber does their best to make them engaging, but that’s different than when something is entertaining in the sense of fictional storytelling as you see in content that Netflix and other platforms provide.

It’s difficult to accurately describe, but the decision to turn on autoplay videos by default is just a bad one, in my opinion. I stand by the fact that when Youtube TV added them it made movie night feel more family-oriented and immersive, but Youtube following suit feels shortsighted. Luckily, you can turn this feature off by visiting Settings > Previews with sound > off, and I highly recommend you do so if you’re not feeling it. I, on the other hand, will probably experiment with them on and off and get a better sense of what Youtube can do to fix the experience instead of cutting it out entirely.

Sometimes, a thumbnail and a title simply aren’t enough to give you a proper sense of what the content will be about or whether it will be valuable enough to you to click and consume, but the issue with Youtube is that most content creators front-load their videos with all of the self-promotional bits like liking the video, subscribing to their channel, Patreon, and so on, and even talking about things that are completely unrelated to the topic of the video since their audience is acquainted with them and wants updates on their life.

When nearly all of the videos autoplay this segment, it can not only be extremely distracting to the process of selecting something to watch, but downright annoying. Anyways, those are my thoughts on the matter, but I want to hear from you all in the comments section. Did you already toggle off these autoplay previews with sound, or are you trying them on for size before you cut them out?