Please Stop The Music
Listening to music has many benefits. It has been known to make people happier, endure exercise, lower stress, sleep better and, quite bizarrely, eat less.
Knowledge of this may have given people the idea that somehow, putting music in websites would keep their visitors happier, sleep better and eat less. They could not have been more wrong, though. The practice picked on a few years back, when customer feedback was not the gold mine it is these days. How the music is still on in 2017 is a scandal.
A website loses all its precious credibility when they decide to go hammer hammer hammer on their visitors. Most of them don’t come to you for music inspiration. They have YouTube for that. They come to find information and decide whether or not to act on it. Imagine opening several links on new tabs so that you can find a website with the info they need. Without a warning, more than one of the websites start playing music. What would be easier for you to do? Opening the sound panel or shutting the whole window down? I know, right?
When a visitor finds themselves in a position where they have to listen to your music whether they like it or not, they feel like they are not in control of their browsing, and that does not make them feel good about themselves. Can you imagine YouTube without a Next or Search button? That you either listen to the day’s playlist or go drying?
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And what happened to caring for customers? It is obvious that background music takes bandwidth, which translates into more expense for your visitors. Unacceptable.
Let’s not forget that it is irritating to listen to repetitive music. So, if you have not uploaded a mixtape, that song that is on automatic loop will only keep very patient visitors around. Newsflash: People don’t have time to spend on websites.
As you take all this into consideration, at the back of your head should be the fundamental reality of life that we don’t have different tastes. Slow music makes this writer tick. Rock makes him fall asleep, however weird that is. When he looks across his office at Legibra, he sees Mercy Rop, a lady with dreadlocks who – with wanton disregard to her surroundings – gets up to dance every time a reggae tune is played. She has no time for slow music. So, how will you satisfy us both? Come on.
Also, in these last days, people browse websites as they listen to music on earphones or, worse, loudspeakers. Whatever they listen to is always their preferred genre of music; so there can only be one winner if you ask them to choose what to listen to when they check out your website.
Assuming you’re still ignoring every point made so far, you need to consider that uploading music on your website slows things down. If your websites loads for longer than 4 seconds then, my friend, you are living dangerously.
There is also the small matter of copyright violations. Even though fashion police may be quick to arrest you for having music in your website in 2017, the real cops may as well want to have a word with you over playing illegal music. Fines may descend on you like vultures, if lucky. If not, your website may be brought down entirely and a judge may ask you to come to us for a proper, modern website.
The only people who are allowed to have music on their website are musicians. Still, they should have Play, Pause, and Volume controls in plain view so that people can have the option to control the music.
The rest of the world should come to the realization that people who pass YouTube just to go all the way to your website have other motives apart from listening to music.
Stop the music, or stop the traffic to your website.