I stopped using Netflix when they introduced that "feature" that you were never allowed to look at a menu in peace - it would always play the show you were looking at, behind the menu, with sound on, and there was no way to turn it off. It made the site unusable and I eventually gave up on my subscription.

There is a setting -- in "Edit settings" - "Playback settings", turn off "Autoplay previews while browsing in all devices".

It might not be there when this was first introduced happened, but FYI this is possible today.

I'd like to compare yours to all streaming sites I've used, which are riddled with ads and deceptive clicks.

If they are using a decent ad blocker they probably dont see 99.9% of that. At most they might note one of the couple mirrors for the video doesn't work.

Well, if you are an experienced pirate, this is not an issue. You have an adblocker that filters out all the stupid ads and scams, and you only go to a few sites and know which links you should click. Getting that kind of experience won't take more than a few hours.

There's an app called Stremio that just blows any "official" app away. The app is not for piracy per-se, but it's easy to turn it into a full fledged PopcornTime version that works.

Yeah, but it's obvious. Obvious malicious design is easier to filter out than dark pattern design.