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To add to this, given the resources spent on it their UX is pretty bad and I don't think their data scientists are giving them much if any edge over the competi

by rurp 5y ago

To add to this, given the resources spent on it their UX is pretty bad and I don't think their data scientists are giving them much if any edge over the competition at this point. Features such as only using company generated ratings, aggressively cancelling shows, and the lack of ability to browse/sort/filter the catalog, in favor of Netflix pushing the recommendations they choose on users, is probably great for quarterly KPIs but bad for long term customer satisfaction. Netflix is of course already a behemoth and not going anywhere but I expect their future to be much more of a generic media company than an elite tech company.

aldebran 5y ago
I think their UX is intentionally user hostile to keep you from realizing there’s not much to watch. That and showing random trailers hoping you like one of them.
- rurp 5y ago
  Oh God, the autoplay... That one "feature" did more than anything else to push me onto competing platforms.
  - aldebran 5y ago
    Tell me about it. And there are some obnoxious ones. I’m browsing my library to pick something to watch late at night. Some horror trailer starts and scares the kids… great! Now I need to wait to pick a movie. Essentially movie watching time is spent just picking something.
ghaff 5y ago
They'll be a studio with a streaming platform. One that is perhaps better than average. Which implies the engineers will be the help on-par with the other studios with streaming platforms. If content is the differentiator why overspend on the platform?
- discardable_dan 5y ago
  The issue is their content is actually a very poor point in differentiation. I watch a larger amount of TV than I'd care to admit, and honestly Netflix is awful for content. - Disney has Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and a long tail of childhood classic films. - HBO has Warner Brothers, DC, Cartoon Network (including a nostalgia back catalog), the best TV shows made in the 00s, and a long tail of adult films. - Netflix's largest successes in the last two years are Tiger King, Squid Game, The Witcher, and a long tail of shows cancelled after Season 1 and short-run miniseries. At this point, Netflix is a last-resort source of entertainment for me, even after (ad-riddled) YouTube. I mostly only use it to watch their weird reality shows (Blown Away, Sugar Rush) and check out shows friends recommend. I suspect even Paramount+ has a larger selection of TV shows I'd like to watch compared to Netflix.
KptMarchewa 5y ago
>given the resources spent on it their UX is pretty bad I think all of those companies fall into common problem of falling deep into A/B test local maximum. It's impossible to rework entire site at once, especially for an A/B test.
Mayzie 5y ago
> aggressively cancelling shows Ha, that is so true. Netflix is infamous for this. It’s to the extent that I cannot start watching a Netflix production unless I know it’s finished or if it’s a big hit from day one (so I know it won’t be cancelled, like The Witcher). It’s odd, because Netflix’s reputation for prematurely cancelling content without resolving their endings has extended to beyond just youth-dominated social media. For example, my parents of all people who cannot use a computer nor the internet, don’t like investing in new Netflix content because they’ve been burned too many times from incomplete series. That’s just like me. It’s sad because Netflix dared to create decent and interesting content, but now it would be hard to escape their infamy.
- RexM 5y ago
  It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, too. People don’t want to watch shows in case it gets cancelled early. Then Netflix cancels the show early because there wasn’t enough interest. If they didn’t have the reputation people would watch the shows and if it’s good tell their friends. At this point it seems like everyone just stays away though. They could always just keep making new seasons to add to their catalog and eventually people might watch it, but it seems risky to spend the money.
  - rurp 5y ago
    I've completely stopped watching unfinished Netflix shows because of this, which wiped out anything interesting on their platform I hadn't already seen. My partner still likes to use Netflix for times when she wants a random show on in the background, but once she switches to another app for that I'll be killing our subscription. There are many good shows on other platforms and Netflix is my least favorite to use.
- AwaAwa 5y ago
  Netflix, where series are produced in beta. Following in the footsteps of that other company starting with the alphabet G where products are in perpetual beta?
bern4444 5y ago
What do you have issue with in Netflix's UX? Is it on the discoverability side or the watching side? Watching is a seamless experience IMO - It really does just work, all the buttons and responses are perfect.
- Osiris 5y ago
  "continue watching" is the third or fourth row of content. I would think that would be at the top. It constantly recommends the same stuff over and over despite the fact that I never click on it because I don't want to watch it. It doesn't notify me when there's new episodes or seasons to a show I've previously watched (a year is a long time to wait for new episodes). I'm not a fan of the UX.
  - bern4444 5y ago
    Oh interesting. My continue watching is the top row. Honestly - this is something I am disliking more and more about the A/B, personalized experience effect. Somethings are much better for everyone to have a common experience without it being unique. Your second and third point though are accurate for me too. Thanks for explaining.
- rurp 5y ago
  The viewing controls when watching a show are fine for me, but everything else is awful. The UI constantly shuffles around, having to hunt for my list or currently watching shows is particularly annoying. Incessant autoplay that couldn't be disabled for years, and still can't be in all cases. Awful controls for browsing content. The categories are meaningless and constantly changing. There's no way to find new shows I'm likely to like within the app. They refuse to have any sort of objective ratings and the custom ones are unbelievably bad, even after years of watching. I have to go to outside sources any time I want to find a new show. I could go on. Prime gets a lot of criticism for their UX but I actually much prefer it to Netflix's. At least with Prime the ratings have some signal and the layout is simple and consistent. It's not pretty but at least it doesn't go out of the way to annoy me, which is just fine with me. Amazon has probably spent far less on their UX but has a better result.
- 5y ago
justbaker 5y ago
> aggressively cancelling shows Even so much so I can’t find shows I saw ads for in 2017 or 2018 even existing because they were so bad. It makes me feel the Mandela effect is happening.
matt-attack 5y ago
I actually find all their cover art to be extremely banal. There is a signature look to their content. It all feels very “made for tv” quality. I know that’s basically what it is. Plus I hate their way of trying to soup up stale content by making various sexy versions of cover art. Like The Net with Sandra Bullock. A long forgotten, mediocre, and comically out-dated tech thriller. People were wandering right past it on Blockbuster Video shelves. That’s how old and stale it is. Yet Netflix goes and sources these sexy shots of Bullock in an attempt to get me to watch it. I find the whole thing very insulting.

by rurp 5y ago

aldebran 5y ago

I think their UX is intentionally user hostile to keep you from realizing there’s not much to watch. That and showing random trailers hoping you like one of them.

rurp 5y ago
Oh God, the autoplay... That one "feature" did more than anything else to push me onto competing platforms.
- aldebran 5y ago
  Tell me about it. And there are some obnoxious ones. I’m browsing my library to pick something to watch late at night. Some horror trailer starts and scares the kids… great! Now I need to wait to pick a movie. Essentially movie watching time is spent just picking something.

ghaff 5y ago

They'll be a studio with a streaming platform. One that is perhaps better than average. Which implies the engineers will be the help on-par with the other studios with streaming platforms. If content is the differentiator why overspend on the platform?

discardable_dan 5y ago
The issue is their content is actually a very poor point in differentiation. I watch a larger amount of TV than I'd care to admit, and honestly Netflix is awful for content. - Disney has Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and a long tail of childhood classic films. - HBO has Warner Brothers, DC, Cartoon Network (including a nostalgia back catalog), the best TV shows made in the 00s, and a long tail of adult films. - Netflix's largest successes in the last two years are Tiger King, Squid Game, The Witcher, and a long tail of shows cancelled after Season 1 and short-run miniseries. At this point, Netflix is a last-resort source of entertainment for me, even after (ad-riddled) YouTube. I mostly only use it to watch their weird reality shows (Blown Away, Sugar Rush) and check out shows friends recommend. I suspect even Paramount+ has a larger selection of TV shows I'd like to watch compared to Netflix.

KptMarchewa 5y ago

>given the resources spent on it their UX is pretty bad I think all of those companies fall into common problem of falling deep into A/B test local maximum. It's impossible to rework entire site at once, especially for an A/B test.

Mayzie 5y ago

> aggressively cancelling shows Ha, that is so true. Netflix is infamous for this. It’s to the extent that I cannot start watching a Netflix production unless I know it’s finished or if it’s a big hit from day one (so I know it won’t be cancelled, like The Witcher). It’s odd, because Netflix’s reputation for prematurely cancelling content without resolving their endings has extended to beyond just youth-dominated social media. For example, my parents of all people who cannot use a computer nor the internet, don’t like investing in new Netflix content because they’ve been burned too many times from incomplete series. That’s just like me. It’s sad because Netflix dared to create decent and interesting content, but now it would be hard to escape their infamy.

RexM 5y ago
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, too. People don’t want to watch shows in case it gets cancelled early. Then Netflix cancels the show early because there wasn’t enough interest. If they didn’t have the reputation people would watch the shows and if it’s good tell their friends. At this point it seems like everyone just stays away though. They could always just keep making new seasons to add to their catalog and eventually people might watch it, but it seems risky to spend the money.
- rurp 5y ago
  I've completely stopped watching unfinished Netflix shows because of this, which wiped out anything interesting on their platform I hadn't already seen. My partner still likes to use Netflix for times when she wants a random show on in the background, but once she switches to another app for that I'll be killing our subscription. There are many good shows on other platforms and Netflix is my least favorite to use.
AwaAwa 5y ago
Netflix, where series are produced in beta. Following in the footsteps of that other company starting with the alphabet G where products are in perpetual beta?

bern4444 5y ago

What do you have issue with in Netflix's UX? Is it on the discoverability side or the watching side? Watching is a seamless experience IMO - It really does just work, all the buttons and responses are perfect.

Osiris 5y ago
"continue watching" is the third or fourth row of content. I would think that would be at the top. It constantly recommends the same stuff over and over despite the fact that I never click on it because I don't want to watch it. It doesn't notify me when there's new episodes or seasons to a show I've previously watched (a year is a long time to wait for new episodes). I'm not a fan of the UX.
- bern4444 5y ago
  Oh interesting. My continue watching is the top row. Honestly - this is something I am disliking more and more about the A/B, personalized experience effect. Somethings are much better for everyone to have a common experience without it being unique. Your second and third point though are accurate for me too. Thanks for explaining.
rurp 5y ago
The viewing controls when watching a show are fine for me, but everything else is awful. The UI constantly shuffles around, having to hunt for my list or currently watching shows is particularly annoying. Incessant autoplay that couldn't be disabled for years, and still can't be in all cases. Awful controls for browsing content. The categories are meaningless and constantly changing. There's no way to find new shows I'm likely to like within the app. They refuse to have any sort of objective ratings and the custom ones are unbelievably bad, even after years of watching. I have to go to outside sources any time I want to find a new show. I could go on. Prime gets a lot of criticism for their UX but I actually much prefer it to Netflix's. At least with Prime the ratings have some signal and the layout is simple and consistent. It's not pretty but at least it doesn't go out of the way to annoy me, which is just fine with me. Amazon has probably spent far less on their UX but has a better result.
5y ago

justbaker 5y ago

> aggressively cancelling shows Even so much so I can’t find shows I saw ads for in 2017 or 2018 even existing because they were so bad. It makes me feel the Mandela effect is happening.

matt-attack 5y ago

I actually find all their cover art to be extremely banal. There is a signature look to their content. It all feels very “made for tv” quality. I know that’s basically what it is. Plus I hate their way of trying to soup up stale content by making various sexy versions of cover art. Like The Net with Sandra Bullock. A long forgotten, mediocre, and comically out-dated tech thriller. People were wandering right past it on Blockbuster Video shelves. That’s how old and stale it is. Yet Netflix goes and sources these sexy shots of Bullock in an attempt to get me to watch it. I find the whole thing very insulting.