All remote control "skip" buttons should be 10 seconds long

Vulture

"I am a serial skimmer," says Elise Hannum. "I stopped reading every single word in a book once I realized it would get me to the end more quickly. This has bled into the way I watch things. I can’t remember the last time I watched an entire movie on my laptop without hitting my right arrow key when the story got a little slow. It’s muscle memory at this point, so much so that I have to consciously restrain myself when I watch things with other people. I don’t really have a reason for doing this. Maybe it’s a sign that I’m afraid of commitment. I could just be a zoomer with a poor attention span. Perhaps 'Netflix bloat' has something to do with it? Whatever the case, shows and movies just move slowly for my taste, so I skip. I acknowledge that this is a patchy way to consume TV. My film-schooled older sister makes fun of me nearly constantly. Still, I’m not planning on changing my ways any time soon. If anything, my position’s only hardened over time, making me more particular about my skipping habit and how streaming experiences help me or don’t. But it has led me to a realization: All skip buttons, on all services, should be exactly ten seconds long. We know that not all streaming services are created equal, not just in terms of content, but in terms of interface. There are different font sizes for captions, different ways of searching through shows, different color schemes … the list goes on. But if certain features are common across all these platforms — like the presence of a watchlist, curated title recommendations, the occasional seasonal flourish or holiday pun — what if we extended that to the tools that allow us to jump ahead? What if, maybe, just maybe, the skip button could be universal? Ten seconds forwards and backwards across the board, that’s all I ask. It wouldn’t even be that big of a logistical leap. All of the major streaming platforms have options to jump ten seconds ahead except for one. In true 'it’s not streaming, it’s HBO' fashion, HBO Max does 15-second skips...I don’t just want the big players to get in line, though. I want everyone."