17 ms·
Netflix Pulls the Plug on Feature Designed to Get Kids Addicted to Netflix
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y agoKudos to Netflix. I pay Netflix money every month so I can watch a wide selection of movies and tv episodes. Apart from the script writing itself, I don’t want any games played with my attention or my kids attention. This is the big thing that sets Netflix apart for me from other internet companies: I know that they are selling me a service and not selling my attention to others. As long as they keep doing that and have a good selection of movies and shows they will have my business.
- Joe-Z 8y ago>This is the big thing that sets Netflix apart for me from other internet companies Oh please. By some miracle every Netflix-produced thing has a >90%-match with my preferences, yet somehow when I type in movies that I want to watch I find Netflix had them in their catalogue but never bothered to suggest them to me. They want you to see self-produced stuff and then a show and not a movie (so you stay on longer) and not to find the best matches for your taste. Also, giving them Kudos for not doing something that should have been a no-starter in the first place sets a pretty low bar for giving someone Kudos.
- Wowfunhappy 8y agoSo you don't think there's a difference between: A) A company that makes money from you spending as much time on their website as possible B) A website that makes a set amount of money per user because you voluntarily pay them every month Company A is not inclined to optimize for user happiness, whereas company B absolutely is. If these two companies do not take different approaches, then one or both of them is doing something wrong. Edit: And for the record, I do think that on the whole, Netflix is behaving far too much like Company A despite having Company B's business model.
- Joe-Z 8y agoYes, I think there should be a difference between companies A and B and obviously Netflix has its upsides like no Netflix-unrelated) ads. However... your edit sums it up pretty nicely ;)
- Tycho 8y agoI find it very obnoxious how the Netflix app for Apple TV autoplays previews of titles when you’re browsing and doesn’t let you disable that behaviour. As a result I rarely open Netflix except when I already know what I want to watch.
- saagarjha 8y agoNot only that, the previews make noise. So if you leave it alone for a second it will start blasting sound at you.
- dylan604 8y agoYes, the autoplay preview is very annoying, but I also find annoying the little information provided in the thumbnail gallery. To see more info about a title, you have to select the thumb to go to a full screen view of the title. Except now the actual video starts to play even though there is clearly a play button that was not clicked. At this point, all the play button does is hide the overlay. The buttons have no real meaning/purpose.
- CamperBob2 8y agoAnd I don't understand the economics of this at all. Don't they pay for bandwidth? Shoving out crap that no one asked for costs Netflix money, doesn't it? So why do they do it? What's the business case? I know they aren't idiots over there. What do they know that the rest of us don't? Are the content producers actually paying them to force-feed those previews?
- fingerlocks 8y agoThis is the heart of the net neutrality debate, is it not? ISPs claim that Netflix doesn’t pay for all the infrastructure required to carry their bandwidth.
- CamperBob2 8y ago
- parhamn 8y agoLots of folks/companies are going to lose long-term as a result of bad A/B testing driven decision making. I suspect the decline of the Facebook feed might be attributed to this as well (maybe even the recent polls of Trump's twitter practices[1]). Generally these sorts of things don't really consider long term fatigue and other important factors, and take short term micro-benchmark wins as success. On the flip side, some attribute not A/B testing to the failure of the SnapChat redesign[2]. Is there anyway to do this properly? I can imagine the problem will get worse and worse as we reduce human evaluation of A/B test results and automatically make real-time decisions through software and ML. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/poll-shows-trump-appears-to-be-losing-somewhat-supporters-with-antics-2018-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/poll-shows-trump-appears-to-... [2] https://www.engadget.com/2018/10/05/snap-evan-spiegel-app-redesign-rushed/ https://www.engadget.com/2018/10/05/snap-evan-spiegel-app-re...
- johnday 8y ago> Is there anyway to do this properly? The way to do it properly is to hire experienced, competent UX designers and human computer interaction specialists, who understand the problem space and how to keep people engaged without addictive malpractice / dark patterns. Metrics are useful but they are what they claim to be - measurements - and nothing more. You wouldn't choose which house to buy based on how large it was measured to be, but you would expect a surveyor to make those measurements. Speaking as a web and video game designer, I can't wait until I can hire someone to think about these things for me.
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoThis makes sense. It’s like how clickbait headlines would, if they previously didn’t exist, improve click rates. But long term if your platform was all click bait it would fatigue the users. Or at least, one might think so...
- alan_wade 8y agoClickbait + low quality content is what fatigues users. Personally I don't mind clickbait if after doing whatever it takes to grab my attention, the creator delivers on an actually solid high quality educational/entertaining content.
- byron_fast 8y agoNetflix's interface was best when they still shipped DVDs in boxes. Ever since they stopped that it has been a steady descent into the dark patterns of social / mobile / eyeball counting user interface fail.
- sjg007 8y agoThey still ship DVDs.
- whymauri 8y agoThey do and their library is awesomely huge.
- krustyburger 8y agoBut a lot of the most interesting titles are stuck on “very long wait” which seems to mean they’re not planning on buying another copy to replenish their library.
- bluntfang 8y ago> they’re not planning on buying another copy to replenish their library Let us not discount the possibility that IP owners are not licensing to Netflix anymore.
- DontGiveTwoFlux 8y agoThat’s not really an issue. They can just buy a copy at Walmart, no permissions needed.
- dylan604 8y agoWhen were they in boxes? I thought they always came in the envelopes. Am I not remembering far enough back?
- 8y ago
- jpollock 8y agoThis was a silly product feature, it would have killed the quality of their viewership data. As soon as you reward someone for watching, they'll figure out how to script it. They'll load it up, set it going turn off the speaker and the monitor and go to bed. It wouldn't have increased my engagement, but it would remove me as a data point!
- rightbyte 8y agoThey can probably flag autoplays in the statistics? And, to be fair, Netflix is not making more money for more streaming, or have I missed something. Autoplay should actually cost them money for bandwidth wasted in the case the customer don't want the next episode. I would not consider autoplay the next episode a dark pattern.
- dylan604 8y agoAre we talking about 2 different types of autoplay? Yes, the autoplay of the next episode feature can be a waste of bandwidth, but that's why they put up the "are you still watching" after X number of episodes/TRT/whatever. Besides, it's a nice feature when you are trying to marathon through stuff, especially when they allow you skip openings/recaps of something you just saw. I pushed for my company to allow the Play All on DVDs to do this very thing. It's the autoplay of trailers/previews while browsing their library that is the most annoying. This is definitely a waste of bandwidth for me. And while maybe not a dark pattern, it's annoying as much as popup UI stuff or in social feeds, ads in news, etc.
- jpollock 8y agoI don't think Netflix makes money from views, but they do make buying decisions based on viewing numbers.
- 40acres 8y agoHindsight is 20/20 but this idea is definitely one of the worst ideas I've heard when it comes to applied gameification. Perhaps unlocking some sort of extra content would've been better, but handing out badges is such a deliberate way to signal to parents that "we are trying to hook your kids".
- scarejunba 8y agoArticle has a brain damaged writing style and takes two pages to tell us what the feature is. Apparently, you get a badge for watching a show’s entire series of episodes.
- ChristianBundy 8y ago> brain damaged writing style Can you think of a better way to express this criticism?
- nolroz 8y agoNothing drove my adoption of prime video faster then the auto play on Netflix. To their credit I contacted them asking if there was a way to turn it off and at least spoke with a friendly person about how awful it made the experience.
- Steko 8y agoOn the other hand my Amazon Video app (Roku in my tv) is slow as hell and I'm lucky if it doesn't crash (1) on launch, (2) between the homescreen and the video I selected, (3) between the episode selection and the video actually playing, (4) sometime in the first 10 minutes, (5) randomly thereafter.
- nolroz 8y agoWeird! I guess I've been lucky so far.
- statguy 8y agoI have had none of these problems with Amazon video with roku. Although, I would rate the Netflix UI slightly better.
- r3bl 8y agoMy Android TV box randomly turns itself on and plays a video about once a day, but man, you have it worse.
- pnw_hazor 8y agoBad Roku box? Mine has no problems with Amazon Prime.
- alan_wade 8y agoCan you share why it makes for a bad experience? Personally I've enjoyed the feature. I find it annoying on youtube though, for some reason. Edit: Oh, wait, are you talking about autoplaying preview trailers or autoplaying the next episode? I like the next episode feature, autoplaying trailers are annoying.
- 2muchcoffeeman 8y agoWhat’s the reasoning behind this? The subscription is so cheap I don’t care about it. There is enough stuff I want to watch that I regularly use it. But if I never used it, why care? Wouldn’t I be the perfect customer? Pays the subscription but doesn’t consume resources?
- wahnfrieden 8y agoPeople who don’t use it are probably more likely to churn relative to customers who watch content, and would be less likely to share Netflix with friends. And that expected loss due to churn is probably more expensive than the resource costs of a customer who watches. I don’t have the actual answer but they undoubtedly perform this kind of calculation.
- olalonde 8y agoHulu is also cheap but you probably don't pay for it. And you are indeed the perfect customer as opposed to the typical one. For many people, 10$/month is substantial enough that they would cancel the subscription or go to a competitor if they felt like they weren't using it enough.
- wongarsu 8y agoOn a Bay Area programmer salary Netflix is dirt cheap, but for many people 120$/year is enough money to consider canceling. Making Netflix a nessesity is a great way to make sure it's one of the last things cut from any budget.
- Shorel 8y agoI recently added some plugins to Kodi so I can watch Netflix from within Kodi. It has improved the experience so much I am actually using it more.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y agoWhat kind of plugins? I’d like to poke around here.
- Shorel 8y agoInstructions here: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=329767 https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=329767
- zmix 8y agoFuck adults, who even remotely come up with such ideas. They (also) are our enemies!
- hrasyid 8y agoNote: The article is from March 2018
- brownbat 8y agoSeveral Netflix UI changes have been pretty anti user. I'm more upset at the way they mask an incomplete catalog by pretending most Hitchcock films or French new wave don't even exist. I'm more upset about auto play. I'm more upset at the retooling of the recommendation engine away from finding gems you didn't know you would like to just finding ways to convince you to watch Netflix owned content. Adding a badge system? Not wonderful, but basically just brings them up to par with almost anything else on the internet. If we want to oppose badge systems, and maybe we should, we should start with the entire gaming industry and social media. Netflix has so many other sins that they have raised the bar on my outrage. That in itself is sad...
- dcgudeman 8y ago> I'm more upset about auto play. What's upsetting about autoplay?? If you are truly "upset" about things netflix does did you ever think maybe you should just not subscribe to it?
- brownbat 8y ago> What's upsetting about autoplay?? I should have been clear, I meant the trailers. I'm browsing for specific content but getting blasted by ads for Netflix originals. > did you ever think maybe you should just not subscribe to it? I often don't. They've pushed me from a habitual subscriber to an occasional subscriber. Perversely that means I'm opting out of providing them ux data. But in general people can have complaints about something even if it's not a dealbreaker. For another example, the ux on aging isn't great, but it beats the alternative.
- polyomino 8y agoIt’s really painful to browse Netflix, I want to read the descriptions, but I get a loud trailer with every selection. There’s no way to turn it off afaik, so I mute my tv whenever the Netflix app is open.
- A2017U1 8y agoThat's a shockingly terrible argument. A person can object to parts of a service while still wanting to purchase the service. If only the world was so simple.
- bouke 8y agoYuk. Speaking of dark design patterns; the link hijacks my back button in Safari. So when I go back, I'll get a popover with some ad.
- baddash 8y agoThe article wasn't really worth the time. It tried to make a mountain out of a molehill: Netflix gave badges for watching children's programs as a test of a feature to make Netflix more appealing to watch. The author of the article Yohana Desta just loosely connected it to some narrative where "Netflix is evil and out to zombify your children" for the purpose of, ironically, getting people to read the article because that narrative is more appealing. Just another piece of trash online article designed to catch your eye. No substance, no value. Just throw it in the trash bin and move on.
- Havoc 8y agoExplain to me how there is even such a feature in the first case? Adults sure, but what decent human sets out to get kids addicted???
- fyfy18 8y agoThere's a reason why McDonalds gives out toys with Happy Meals and does free birthday parties for kids...
- mehwoot 8y agoAdults sure, but what decent human sets out to get kids addicted??? The relentless march of capitalism
- ThrowawayR2 8y ago> Adults sure, but what decent human sets out to get kids addicted??? Quite a few. Have a look at the free-to-play games in the app store of your phone/tablet; it's both edifying and horrifying. Psychological addiction has been refined into a high art and, unfortunately, has been quite successful at separating children and young adults from their money. It is not at all surprising that interest in these techniques is spreading beyond the games industry.
- miguelmota 8y agoSo is the TV the new parent now? What ever happened to good parenting?
- Zelphyr 8y agoViewing things like going to dinner “the competition” is, in my opinion, immoral. This is Netflix serving their shareholders instead of their customers.
- la6470 8y agoOh just teach kids to take personal responsibilities ....parents these days sigh
- alok-g 8y agoOff the topic: Beautiful website design! Very elegant use of space above the fold. I likewise love Nautil.us design too. Which themes (Wordpress or some static site generator) would be similar?
- thoughtstheseus 8y agoYeah, the biggest issue here is that no tech giant has burst because of these unsavory practices yet. It’s tough to say, don’t do this or that, when your competition will and the consumer won’t care.
- stuaxo 8y agoReading the part about them wanting to monopolise all leisure time is tipping me towards unsubscribing next year.
- FrojoS 8y ago> the company blatantly tells its investors that its competitors aren’t just other streaming platforms, but rather literally anything viewers do in their leisure time that is not watching Netflix—quite literally including “going out to dinner with friends or enjoying a glass of wine with their partner, just to name a few.” Why optimize for screen time? They get payed through monthly subscriptions not per minute. Shouldn’t they optimize for user satisfaction, or lock in then?