Background videos slow everything down

A background video in the hero section looks impressive in a design review. In production, it's a 5-15MB file that starts downloading before anything else on the page loads.

Most visitors on mobile never see the video play. They've already scrolled past the hero by the time the video buffers. They experienced 3 extra seconds of loading for a visual they never saw.

The data is clear: pages with background videos consistently have higher bounce rates and lower conversion rates than the same pages with static images. Not because video is bad. Because the performance cost outweighs the visual benefit.

If you need motion, use a short CSS animation or a lightweight animated SVG. If you need the video, lazy-load it and show a static poster image first. The poster converts the same as the video for the 80% of visitors who don't wait around to see it play.