Autoplay in YouTube, a dark pattern

When Google bought YouTube in 2006, it was very young. And I mean young by the standards of tech startups. It went from being founded in 2004 by two guys, to bought in 2006 for 1.65 BILLION. But when it was purchased, it didn’t have any business plan really except to show some ads. Nothing was figured out yet, it was still a baby of a company. While under the tender care of Google it reinvented itself multiple times and developed a few dark patterns of its own. The business plan that was found was simple: Show ads. The way to grow revenue became more at odds with the users every year, which becomes evident looking at its dark patterns.

For me Autoplay on videos is a big offender and my favorite thing to turn off for others. Its logic is simple, they earn more the longer you are engaged in the platform, so if they just have it start playing the next video for you, instead of asking what you play, you’ll stay on longer. Bonus if the video YouTube picked is interesting and you end up watching all of it even if you didn’t intend to. Then you are back to the Autoplay and it tries to hook you again. Remember the start when I said YouTube was young when Google got it? Autoplay was made default in 2015, almost a decade after they bought it. It happened because Google wanted to show more return to shareholders, not for your benefit.

Turn off Autoplay on your devices (web and app!), along with the devices of your loved ones and anyone you care about. Ad block is a user revolt against dark patterns, but it’s not the only place we can revolt.