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While you watch Netflix, you don't watch a competitor. In a way, this autoplay feature removes a friction for the customer that doesn't have to decide what to w
by ckarmann 7y ago
While you watch Netflix, you don't watch a competitor. In a way, this autoplay feature removes a friction for the customer that doesn't have to decide what to watch next. This removes the "danger" that the customer think about that cool show that is not provided by Netflix.
At the end of the month, the customer may think about how much they use a TV provider and not the other, and decide to keep Netflix and ditch any other subscription they may have.
It's true that it burns through Netflix content but they made 1,500 hours of original content in 2018, content that they have to create anyway for other reasons, so a lot of your free time is already covered.
- clinta 7y agoBut isn't that just a proxy for retention then? Why optimize for hours watched which correlates with retention when you can just measure and optimize for retention directly?
- ckarmann 7y agoAh, I understand what you mean. Well, if you know variable X is a proxy for Y, but Y is a lot longer to measure than X, then I guess it makes sense to optimize X knowing that it will increase Y (if you are sure X will bring Y).
- rkeene2 7y agoIt's not exactly a proxy, but a leading/lagging indicator, which has its own value.