Pluto TV, why can’t I close your preview playback window?
Pluto TV, why can’t I close your preview playback window?
The most consistently annoying thing about the Pluto interface is a small playback window in the corner that is impossible to close.
Pluto TV, you and I officially have beef. No, it’s not because of your selection or the frequency of ads on your platform; the Pluto library is extensive, and while the streamer does include ads during playback, it at least declines to charge customers to use it.
My issue is with one particular aspect of the Pluto TV user interface, both on its mobile app and its website. When browsing Pluto on these platforms, a small pop-up window appears at the bottom of the screen, and begins playing a free ad-supported streaming channel as you scroll through the streamer’s library. For some reason, Pluto does not allow browsers to close this window, and it’s past time for that to change.
To start with, the pop-out window can make just scrolling through the Pluto library an overstimulating nightmare. Not only does it play video, it automatically plays sound; imagine popping into Pluto TV to try to find a quiet drama or a romance film, and having the streamer begin blasting an action movie at you automatically. Users have to find the mute button to quiet it, which, in the case of the mobile app, requires the user to maximize the playback window to full screen to locate it.
Even after muting, however, viewers have to go back into the playback window again to pause the video playing. Having another video playing in the corner is incredibly distracting to the eye when I’m trying to scroll through Pluto’s content rows, and makes it more difficult to focus on finding a title I might actually want to watch.
The window also takes up unnecessary real estate on the screen. It’s bad enough on the mobile app, but on the streamer’s website, it’s essentially unforgivable. Here, the mini-player simply rests on top of the content rows that audiences are trying to scroll through, blocking some tiles until the user scrolls enough that they can see the title being offered.
The blacked-out area in the lower-right corner shows how challenging it is to see what’s under Pluto’s unclosable mini-player.
For the life of me, I can’t determine why Pluto thinks it’s necessary to prevent the window from being closed by viewers. Is it a play at boosting the service’s engagement numbers, or just an oversight by Paramount as it faces larger questions of ownership changes and major acquisitions?
It certainly can’t be a technical issue. Closeable pop-out windows that play video are practically as old as the internet itself, and there are no tech barriers keeping Pluto from allowing users to close the mini-player that it forces customers to endure on its mobile app and website. It’s time to give viewers the option to close this annoying little window and instantly fix one of the worst aspects of the Pluto interface.
