STOP with the videos in news articles!

[Sacred Jellybean]

News articles online are getting more crowded than ever. You've got ads running down both side margins ("THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK SHOWS IF YOU HAVE TOENAIL FUNGUS" is a weirdly common one), ads between paragraph of content, then usually some kind of banner that grays out the whole page and tries to get you to sign up for some mailing list. Does that actually work? Has anyone in the history of internet browsing EVER actually put their e-mail address in one of those goddamn things?

Anyway, the trend continued to get annoying when videos were inserted into the page, usually at the top of the article. That's well and good, I won't begrudge a person if they'd rather watch the story instead of read it. But then, the bastards started auto-playing. Cut that out! I'm impatient, and reading is much quicker than watching, not to mention that it's easier to skip over the fluff.

But now... NOW... as soon as you scroll past the video, it shrinks and drops down to the side of the page. "Hang on a second there, Beanjo!" it says. "You must not have seen, there's a VIDEO up in this mother fucker. Here, I'll just leave it right here for you so you can correct this glaring oversight." Then it autoplays a car commercial. Stop it!