[whatwg] autobuffer on "new Audio" objects

[Ian Hickson]

On Fri, 31 Jul 2009, Michael Kozakewich wrote:
> From: "Ian Hickson" <ian at hixie.ch>
> Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 7:26 PM
> > On Mon, 20 Jul 2009, David Wilson wrote:
> > > It's easy to see how some naively implemented JS audio widget could
> > > fetch 200mb over an expensive 3G connection, simply by navigating to
> > > some site in a background tab (say, by creating an array of elements to
> > > represent their playlist - something I'd have thought was perfectly
> > > valid behaviour).
> > 
> > A mobile phone would not autobuffer in a background tab.
> 
> 3G is becoming more common for computers or laptops, as well as natively in
> some netbooks. 200MB would cost me a couple dollars, when I expect most sites
> to be almost free. (I've actually had this problem when friends post The Daily
> Show's embedded player, which autobuffers -- unlike YouTube videos.)
> 
> 3G is easier to carry around, and I see it becoming far more common in 
> the future (especially after 4G comes), which would suggest keeping 
> large transfers as opt-in as possible.

The "autobuffer" and "autoplay" attributes are intended to be opt-in 
hints, specifically for this reason. (If we don't provide them, then 
people will use scripts instead, and those would be much harder to manage 
in the face of connections like 3G.)

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'