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Everybody loves to talk about Netflix's data advantage, knowing when people stop watching something, etc. And yet Netflix's content and suggestions today are a

by Grakel 5y ago

Everybody loves to talk about Netflix's data advantage, knowing when people stop watching something, etc. And yet Netflix's content and suggestions today are absolute and complete garbage. I used to be a big believer, now I'm not sure why I'm still a customer.

MattGaiser 5y ago
Does anyone else have better suggestions? I don’t find Netflix great, but the others still require tons of browsing too.
- throwawaycuriou 5y ago
  That Netflix is even involved in the art of recommendations speaks to the challenge of monetizing independent voices. I find it fascinating the desire that our storefronts be the place where optimal suggestions are found. It's anachronistic, as if we're still rolling up to chat with the mattress vendor at Sears. Last century's version of us would see an inherent conflict of interest and instead rely on newspapers, magazines, journalists, reviewers, editors, scholars for our discovery. But the revenue in those vocations is crushed and instead we're sheep among wolves.
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    To me it is a bit different with Netflix as I have already paid for the product. They aren’t upselling me or anything.
    - throwawaycuriou 5y ago
      You're right, my take hits a weak target. It's more relevant for say Amazon or Steam. I find it stark that many folks browse digital stores, while I generally explore articles or videos of unaffiliated experts/curators. I'm still vulnerable to influence, but at least it's not the vendor itself.
      - MattGaiser 5y ago
        One reason is that Amazon does a great job in some categories. I buy my shoes on Amazon and they are by far the best pair I have ever owned. It is one of the first pairs of shoes I have owned where I can walk for hours and not get crazy callouses on my feet and be sore after. A full read on why here (the slug doesn't represent the post very well)[0] but the summary is that other stores for selling shoes don't let me break down my search by detailed options, particularly width. [0] https://gaiser.io/amazon-is-winning-as-everyone-else-isnt-trying/ https://gaiser.io/amazon-is-winning-as-everyone-else-isnt-tr... So Amazon is amazing in some categories. We just notice when they drop the ball and have terrible results in other categories. We are so used to finding great stuff that it angers us when we cannot.
tmmx 5y ago
I never relied on Netflix's suggestions, yet still find Netflix interface superior to those of Disney+, Hulu, HBO, and Amazon Prime. To be honest, Amazon Prime is a mess.
Enginerrrd 5y ago
Yeah its funny, because they used to have the most reliable system for finding new good content. Back when you could just sort by the number of stars as rated by other users and before they started manipulating that, it actually worked really well. If something was 4.5 stars, it was almost universally good. They innovated their way into their recommendation system being completely useless and unused by me. Now I just wait to get recommendations from other people I trust to act as a filter for me. I used to occasionally peruse the netflix original content because it was relatively good compared to average in the industry and often worth investigating, but I don't even do that now.
- ChicagoBoy11 5y ago
  I wonder how much of this is due to the fact that initially the system really is mostly trained by your preference, but over time, it then becomes trained on your preference mediated by the algorithm, and then slowly you see a divergence of your actual preferences and what it suggests to you/you end up clicking on. Peter Norvig had a great lecture about this in the context of language translation, and how despite so much info being out there on the web, known "good" corpuses of data that were 100% human-made and guaranteed to not being the product of an algortihm (like official translations of UN documents) were still super useful.
ashtonkem 5y ago
My household keeps our Netflix subscription for an ever dwindling set of anchor shows, most of which are beginning to migrate onto network specific platforms. I wouldn’t be surprised if we cancel next year at some point. Honestly it would be cheaper to just buy some of these shows on like iTunes at this rate.
tluyben2 5y ago
To me it seems all platforms now ‘overmine’ (99); all recommended results from any of the major platforms who are supposed to have all data on me and have the best AI people in the world, consistently provide results I really would never entertain. I am not sure what the people who work in these recommendation algos are thinking they are improving but they seem to get worse and, as such, besides what I already listened, watched, bought etc, downright wrong. Netflix should know what I like but keeps recommending things anyone who knows me would know I would not watch on a deserted island even, while shows and movies that I find myself and like are never recommended. I find it weird. Hell, I have searched for exact titles that were not available in my region; when they became available they still did not recommend them. And most people I see online or know have the same experience. Maybe drop a bit of the ‘AI’ and put some trivial rules in so at least it hits once in a while.
pingpongchef 5y ago
Conjecture: their content and suggestions are garbage because they aren't allowing the data to drive their decisions independent of their ideological or public perception concerns. After He-Man released I ended my subscription, just shy of being a 10 year customer.
- kgwxd 5y ago
  Was there something about He-Man that influenced the decision?
  - pingpongchef 5y ago
    Influenced, but I've been considering it for about a year. As the parent poster mentioned, I too am finding very little of the Netflix content enjoyable. Ahead of my first viewing of He-Man I made some mental predictions of plot directions I wouldn't like that they might do. All of my predictions happened in the first episode so I cut the cord.
handrous 5y ago
> I used to be a big believer, now I'm not sure why I'm still a customer. Agreed. Been with them since the early days (had the DVD service before that), and had only them (and Prime Video, but I rarely used it) until a couple years ago. At this point they're my least favorite streaming service I pay for, and first on the chopping-block when I pare things down soon. If they'd kept prices low, maybe I'd hold on to them, but the hikes even as the service (selection and UI) kept getting worse are just too much.
zug_zug 5y ago
Agree. It and youtube have this same problem -- If I log into your platform, and scroll past a recommendation 25 times in a row, then I'm NOT INTERESTED and DO NOT SHOW IT AGAIN. Netflix has this huge catalog and it feels like it's only 100 crappy things because it only ever shows me 100 things.
NotPavlovsDog 5y ago
Do you think it has to do with their shrinking content library, as the original holders/networks/studios went for their own game? I.e. instead of returning adequate and valuable results to match a wide choice, the goal is to pad lack of content with blurry low-quality results, as Netflix-produced content can only fill so much?
jareklupinski 5y ago
Working as designed: streaming services love when you keep paying the same price while actually consuming as little of their content as possible.
scruple 5y ago
To be fair to Netflix, they don't have much to recommend that's worth watching in the first place.

by Grakel 5y ago

MattGaiser 5y ago

Does anyone else have better suggestions? I don’t find Netflix great, but the others still require tons of browsing too.

throwawaycuriou 5y ago
That Netflix is even involved in the art of recommendations speaks to the challenge of monetizing independent voices. I find it fascinating the desire that our storefronts be the place where optimal suggestions are found. It's anachronistic, as if we're still rolling up to chat with the mattress vendor at Sears. Last century's version of us would see an inherent conflict of interest and instead rely on newspapers, magazines, journalists, reviewers, editors, scholars for our discovery. But the revenue in those vocations is crushed and instead we're sheep among wolves.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  To me it is a bit different with Netflix as I have already paid for the product. They aren’t upselling me or anything.
  - throwawaycuriou 5y ago
    You're right, my take hits a weak target. It's more relevant for say Amazon or Steam. I find it stark that many folks browse digital stores, while I generally explore articles or videos of unaffiliated experts/curators. I'm still vulnerable to influence, but at least it's not the vendor itself.
    - MattGaiser 5y ago
      One reason is that Amazon does a great job in some categories. I buy my shoes on Amazon and they are by far the best pair I have ever owned. It is one of the first pairs of shoes I have owned where I can walk for hours and not get crazy callouses on my feet and be sore after. A full read on why here (the slug doesn't represent the post very well)[0] but the summary is that other stores for selling shoes don't let me break down my search by detailed options, particularly width. [0] https://gaiser.io/amazon-is-winning-as-everyone-else-isnt-trying/ https://gaiser.io/amazon-is-winning-as-everyone-else-isnt-tr... So Amazon is amazing in some categories. We just notice when they drop the ball and have terrible results in other categories. We are so used to finding great stuff that it angers us when we cannot.

tmmx 5y ago

I never relied on Netflix's suggestions, yet still find Netflix interface superior to those of Disney+, Hulu, HBO, and Amazon Prime. To be honest, Amazon Prime is a mess.

Enginerrrd 5y ago

Yeah its funny, because they used to have the most reliable system for finding new good content. Back when you could just sort by the number of stars as rated by other users and before they started manipulating that, it actually worked really well. If something was 4.5 stars, it was almost universally good. They innovated their way into their recommendation system being completely useless and unused by me. Now I just wait to get recommendations from other people I trust to act as a filter for me. I used to occasionally peruse the netflix original content because it was relatively good compared to average in the industry and often worth investigating, but I don't even do that now.

ChicagoBoy11 5y ago
I wonder how much of this is due to the fact that initially the system really is mostly trained by your preference, but over time, it then becomes trained on your preference mediated by the algorithm, and then slowly you see a divergence of your actual preferences and what it suggests to you/you end up clicking on. Peter Norvig had a great lecture about this in the context of language translation, and how despite so much info being out there on the web, known "good" corpuses of data that were 100% human-made and guaranteed to not being the product of an algortihm (like official translations of UN documents) were still super useful.

ashtonkem 5y ago

My household keeps our Netflix subscription for an ever dwindling set of anchor shows, most of which are beginning to migrate onto network specific platforms. I wouldn’t be surprised if we cancel next year at some point. Honestly it would be cheaper to just buy some of these shows on like iTunes at this rate.

tluyben2 5y ago

To me it seems all platforms now ‘overmine’ (99); all recommended results from any of the major platforms who are supposed to have all data on me and have the best AI people in the world, consistently provide results I really would never entertain. I am not sure what the people who work in these recommendation algos are thinking they are improving but they seem to get worse and, as such, besides what I already listened, watched, bought etc, downright wrong. Netflix should know what I like but keeps recommending things anyone who knows me would know I would not watch on a deserted island even, while shows and movies that I find myself and like are never recommended. I find it weird. Hell, I have searched for exact titles that were not available in my region; when they became available they still did not recommend them. And most people I see online or know have the same experience. Maybe drop a bit of the ‘AI’ and put some trivial rules in so at least it hits once in a while.

pingpongchef 5y ago

Conjecture: their content and suggestions are garbage because they aren't allowing the data to drive their decisions independent of their ideological or public perception concerns. After He-Man released I ended my subscription, just shy of being a 10 year customer.

kgwxd 5y ago
Was there something about He-Man that influenced the decision?
- pingpongchef 5y ago
  Influenced, but I've been considering it for about a year. As the parent poster mentioned, I too am finding very little of the Netflix content enjoyable. Ahead of my first viewing of He-Man I made some mental predictions of plot directions I wouldn't like that they might do. All of my predictions happened in the first episode so I cut the cord.

handrous 5y ago

> I used to be a big believer, now I'm not sure why I'm still a customer. Agreed. Been with them since the early days (had the DVD service before that), and had only them (and Prime Video, but I rarely used it) until a couple years ago. At this point they're my least favorite streaming service I pay for, and first on the chopping-block when I pare things down soon. If they'd kept prices low, maybe I'd hold on to them, but the hikes even as the service (selection and UI) kept getting worse are just too much.

zug_zug 5y ago

Agree. It and youtube have this same problem -- If I log into your platform, and scroll past a recommendation 25 times in a row, then I'm NOT INTERESTED and DO NOT SHOW IT AGAIN. Netflix has this huge catalog and it feels like it's only 100 crappy things because it only ever shows me 100 things.

NotPavlovsDog 5y ago

Do you think it has to do with their shrinking content library, as the original holders/networks/studios went for their own game? I.e. instead of returning adequate and valuable results to match a wide choice, the goal is to pad lack of content with blurry low-quality results, as Netflix-produced content can only fill so much?

jareklupinski 5y ago

Working as designed: streaming services love when you keep paying the same price while actually consuming as little of their content as possible.

scruple 5y ago

To be fair to Netflix, they don't have much to recommend that's worth watching in the first place.