[fragmede]

Most animated GIF 'players' have zero controls for play, pause, feedback for buffering. It doesn't handle audio, and file sizes are huge.

[dksf]

yup, we had to tradeoff controls, buffering, audio, and filesize for ubiquity of consumption and simplicity of user experience (i.e. inline/autoplay). Have you tried gifs in an iMessage? They're really fun to add to your texting!