First published: Feb. 12, 2025 | Permalink | RSS
Last week, I was listening to Spotify for the last time. Already I was planning a breakup and starting to collect more physical and digital albums, but this particular session was genuinely the proverbial last straw. I had queued up a few albums while I was working. I had planned that when they ended I would wrap up what I was working on and go take a walk. But after the last album ended and the queue was over, Spotify had already loaded another album I did not choose into the "Next Up" section underneath (and separate from?) the queue. Because it was by the same artist as the previous one, it took me a few songs to notice.
I had had a plan for how I wanted to listen and Spotify overwrote that plan and overstayed the party. It all but refused to let me wrap up, sit back in the silence after the album ended, feel the music linger in me a moment, and then get up to take a walk. This is part of a pattern that has been wearing on me a long time, but I didn't know the exact issue yet: Most contemporary media platforms don't let things end.
I often have a slight tension with friends at a movie theatre about 30-60 seconds into the end credits of a movie. The sometimes-animated cast and highlighted crew names has ended and the white names and titles on a black background is scrolling up. My friends have all stood and have started to grab their things and I am planted watching the text scroll up and listening to the credits music. There's a pause before we clock each others' intention and plead with each other, first silently, then out loud to persuade the other to join us. My mom often points out that I have always been like this. That, long before blockbusters were doing end-credits scenes, I always sat through all the way until the final production card flashed.
For me, that's a part of the movie experience. More for the soundtrack than anything else, but also because I was always fascinated with how movies are made and was genuinely curious what people worked on. It's also a great time to sit in the context of the movie with your friends and talk about what stood out to you, good or bad, or just to process what you just took in for 90 to 200 minutes.
Watching movies and series on streaming platforms is such an obvious part of this "Don't let it end" problem: As soon as the credits roll, they are minimized to a corner, a new flashy poster (or trailer in the worst sins) is put center stage and a 5-10 second timer starts winding up in the lower right corner. By the time you get a hand on a remote or keyboard, the next thing is already playing. The music and moment are interrupted and thrown away. Instead of reflecting on themes, scenes, or costumes, your brain has been hijacked by either the new movie or the "Oh wait, shit, where is the remote?" scramble. "The content is dead! Long live the content!"
YouTube and other video streaming platforms also have by-default autoplay. As soon as the video is over, you often aren't even given a timer and are just thrown into the next video they clumsily recommend. With a playlist along a series or theme it's one thing, but jumping from a quiet contemplation on the finer points of the 80s/90s Ninja Turtles Movies by Mikey Neumann to being screamed at about how Honey was a scam the whole time is horrifically jarring to put it mildly.
When I finish a book on my e-reader, Kobo immediately suggests the next book to read (often a sequel or thematically relevant), rather than just let me close it and stare out the window meditating on what I just finished reading. When you get to the end of the loaded posts on Tumblr or Reddit, the next page has already loaded for what is literally called "Endless Scrolling." And yes, closing a tab, hitting the menu button, or putting the device down are certainly options. An even better option is turning off autoplay on everything you watch or listen with, but the default option matters. Also, please disable autoplay. It's so much better this way.
We don't have to design things this way. Granted, corporations are incentivized to keep people on their platforms for as long as possible to juice every last drop of advertising money and psychographic data out of each pair of eyeballs they come across, but even free software nonprofits like Mastodon or Pixelfed have endless scrolling by default. "Opt out" design for anything will almost always suck. Many people have no idea that some websites, apps, etc. even have settings, let alone thinking to change them. We as developers, designers, writers, and creators can design for a better experience though. And we should.
It's okay to let things end. The album can end and you can sit while your brain finishes buzzing and you get up and do something else. The playlist of videos can end and you can look out the window, charmed by whatever you were watching. When the film ends, you can letthe credits roll and allow the ending music carry you out of that world and back into your own. When the book ends you can close it, sit with the texture of the pages in your hands, process the themes of the work and look around you, with different eyes than you had when you started. It's okay to let things end.
Thank you for reading!