Physical devices such as cassette and CD players have had Play/Pause toggle switches for decades. For tape players, the Pause mode kept the head on the tape, which could damage it in the long run; consequently the Pause was a toggle button so we could see and feel that it was just a temporary thing.
So, naturally, computer programs like QuickTime Player and Windows Media Player and VLC player ended up with a Play/Pause button in the GUI. Computer manufacturers started putting Play/Pause keys on keyboards, although in general the space bar plays the same role.
And then streaming Web sites came along. YouTube, Vimeo, even Bing Video. And of course they tried to imitate the standalone computer programs.
But streaming is unreliable, and people tend to put a few seconds of black at the start of their videos. So you never know what’s happening.
You click on the link to see a vid of a cat attacking an inkjet printer, because those are always funny. The page shows the title, the comments, thumbnails for a few dozen related vids, an ad for Lexmark and another for PetSmart, and a big black box where the video is supposed to play. Is the video starting yet? Maybe, maybe not. There’s a Play arrow in the corner of the black box, so you click it. You get a rolling cursor, which disappears, and then nothing happens and the box remains black. You see a Pause symbol in the corner, where the Play symbol used to be. Hey, it must be paused, so you click on it to get it to play. This pauses it, of course.
Toggle buttons (button whose meaning changes when you press them) are a user interface disaster. If there were a Play button and a separate Pause button, you would just press the one you want and there would never be any confusion.
How can I rid the world of this monstrosity?