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I used the reviews. Sometimes a movie would be polarizing and I’d read the good ones and the bad ones to see if I’d like it myself. It’s not a hugely valuable f

I used the reviews. Sometimes a movie would be polarizing and I’d read the good ones and the bad ones to see if I’d like it myself. It’s not a hugely valuable feature (I can do the same on eg Rotten Tomatoes), but it wasn’t unused.

parent5446 8y ago
Maybe you used it, but overall few people were using it. That's why they got rid of it.
- mygo 8y ago
  Maybe few people were using it because they made it hard / impossible to use? 70% of Netflix's viewing happens on TV. You couldn't even access user reviews on tv. 15% of Netflix's viewing happens on smart phones and tablets. You couldn't even access user reviews on mobile. So 85% of Netflix's viewers (TV, phones, tablets) couldn't even access the reviews from their viewing-devices. You could only access reviews on desktop/laptop... Which accounts for only 15% of Netflix's viewers.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    I can believe that's all true. So people now primarily consume the content through interfaces that inherently would make it difficult to interact with reviews. (And I suspect if they did pop up a box asking you to add a review after you watched something that would really annoy everyone.) In a lot of ways, the user reviews are mostly a vestige of when people used them while adding DVDs to their queue.
    - mygo 8y ago
      They didn’t have it in the UI. There is nothing inherently difficult about browsing reviews on a mobile device. Millions do it every time they’re about to download an app. There is no option to read reviews given to effectively 85% of their viewers. That was their design decision. And now they’re citing review usage numbers when their design decisions promoted low review usage numbers. They’re providing a circular argument which implies that it is not the main reason.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      It's not at all hard to "interact with" reviews on mobile or with a remote. Talking about a popup is a non sequitur, it's not like the web site does that.

parent5446 8y ago

Maybe you used it, but overall few people were using it. That's why they got rid of it.

mygo 8y ago
Maybe few people were using it because they made it hard / impossible to use? 70% of Netflix's viewing happens on TV. You couldn't even access user reviews on tv. 15% of Netflix's viewing happens on smart phones and tablets. You couldn't even access user reviews on mobile. So 85% of Netflix's viewers (TV, phones, tablets) couldn't even access the reviews from their viewing-devices. You could only access reviews on desktop/laptop... Which accounts for only 15% of Netflix's viewers.
- ghaff 8y ago
  I can believe that's all true. So people now primarily consume the content through interfaces that inherently would make it difficult to interact with reviews. (And I suspect if they did pop up a box asking you to add a review after you watched something that would really annoy everyone.) In a lot of ways, the user reviews are mostly a vestige of when people used them while adding DVDs to their queue.
  - mygo 8y ago
    They didn’t have it in the UI. There is nothing inherently difficult about browsing reviews on a mobile device. Millions do it every time they’re about to download an app. There is no option to read reviews given to effectively 85% of their viewers. That was their design decision. And now they’re citing review usage numbers when their design decisions promoted low review usage numbers. They’re providing a circular argument which implies that it is not the main reason.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    It's not at all hard to "interact with" reviews on mobile or with a remote. Talking about a popup is a non sequitur, it's not like the web site does that.