Remember when the internet didn't try to give you a seizure every time you opened a new tab? Good times. Now, it's just ad after ad and noise. I miss the days of just plain text and maybe an annoying but silent banner.

It's a privacy concern AND a nuisance. Sound can leak out personal info based on what you're browsing. That's just great, right? Autoplaying ads with sound should be illegal IMO. Companies need to be forced to respect user experience.

Haha so everyone in the office now knows you're not really working, huh? 😂 RIP

Install ad blockers. Problem solved. Can't stand ads, especially auto-play ones. It's literally why ad blockers were made lol

From a tech perspective, this is about money. Sites get paid more for video ads that play sound, which means they're incentivized to default to noise. It's a dark pattern for sure, but money talks. Autoplay is detectable and blockable though. Check out extensions like uBlock Origin that let you cut this nonsense out, plus you’re giving some power back to your own preferences and browsing habits.

Isn’t it just the best feature ever? Nothing says 'We care about your user experience' like giving you a mini heart attack with unexpected noise. Pure. Genius.

This is exactly why I always keep my browser muted! Too many sites don't bother with user experience anymore. It's all about grabbing attention, no matter how annoying it is. I recommend an extension to mute tabs by default.

Ugh, can relate. Nothing like a sudden BLAST of sound when you're in the middle of a dead silent library. It's the worst. I wish more sites gave us an easy mute-all option for this kind of stuff.