10 Reasons To Never Use Auto-Playing Sound or Video

Here's why auto-playing audio and video on a business website is a pointless, irritating interruption that should never be done (in no particular order):

1) people surf the web while listening to TV, music, audio books, etc.; sudden overlapping noise is baffling and infuriating

2) people surf the web while on Skype and other chat programs, and now you've pissed off everyone involved

3) for people listening to music wearing headphones, unexpected sounds are even more shocking

4) only people with their speakers/headphones turned on will hear it anyway, so why bother?

5) some devices don't even have speakers; why auto-run something if users can't experience it?

6) the volume can be too loud, but also too quiet; users may not realize anything is playing

7) audio and video eats up expensive bandwidth for users, especially on cellular and mobile networks

8) people will leave rather than waste time figuring out how to turn it off

9) it's a horrible reminder of long ago when audio/video was a new gimmick web designers could offer clients

10) click-to-play is the solution, and gives you analytics that reflect intentional listens/views instead of meaningless "plays"