> Websites can't autoplay audio anymore (which is actually really annoying in a few use cases) precisely because of abuse.

But this is hardly true. There are some complicated heuristics (like Chrome's "Media Engagement Index") but many websites can and do autoplay video and audio. And browser policies are even more relaxed for playing audio on user events (like clicking).

MEI (and the like) is what I'm referring to, though perhaps we look at this from different angles. Sites can still mark audio should autoplay but it's now up to the browser to decide if it actually does it (because shitty sites would abuse that).