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For the same reason that streaming services don't really give you the ability to filter by cast/crew or hide stuff you've already seen: to gently guide you into

For the same reason that streaming services don't really give you the ability to filter by cast/crew or hide stuff you've already seen: to gently guide you into avenues that are more profitable for them, regardless of what you say you really want.

btgeekboy 5y ago
I just tried searching Netflix, HBO, and Prime for Bruce Willis; all showed me his movies. Is that not the filtering you’re expecting?
- lostcolony 5y ago
  That's a fuzzy search. If I search on Netflix for "Bruce Willis", the first ten or so items are movies with him. Then there are miscellaneous thrillers and whatnot; unless I look at the details I don't know that they don't have Bruce Willis in them. A filter gives me a binary outcome; it either has Bruce Willis, or it doesn't. All of which is sort of the ops point I think; the search engine is fuzzy because it wants to show you many things for profit reasons. I don't think it's geared toward maximizing profitability at the expense of what you're looking for, exactly, so much as engagement as a proxy for profitability. The more you use the service, the stickier you likely are as a paid subscriber, so they'll happily shovel things that don't match the search (but are similar!...and that quickly jump the shark into being quite dissimilar, but hey, maybe!) to try and keep your eyeballs. A better demonstration of this handling is searching for movie titles they don't have. "The Princess Bride" on Netflix, for instance, doesn't even tell you "We don't have that", but instead "Explore titles related to: The Princess Bride". And while the first suggestion, The Neverending Story, is kinda a fair suggestion, some slightly later ones, like Top Gun and Zoolander, feel like a stretch.
- klibertp 5y ago
  I suspect the GP thought about something more complex, like "a movie directed by X or Y between year XXXX and YYYY starring Z but not V in the genre ... with tags ... but excluding ones tagged with ..." You can probably do this on IMDB or something similar, but then you can't watch it there. I'm largely guessing - I don't watch movies, but I read a lot of manga online, and the only site that allows similar queries and still has UX a bit better than late '90s (ie. mangaupdates.com) is a fan-made (ie. pirated) one with porn/hentai...
Joeri 5y ago
I’m not convinced they are targeting profitability, because that is hard to connect back to individual user action. They target what is easy to measure at the user level, probably engagement, and operate on the assumption that higher engagement means higher profit.
- x3ro 5y ago
  why do you think it’s difficult for google to measure which clicks to what websites are profitable for them? maybe i’m misunderstanding, but I would expect that this would be one of the primary things google tries to infer from you..
rg111 5y ago
Prime Video has an option where I can hide specific movies and seasons of series. I use this feature a lot, and it works.
- shrikant 5y ago
  Wow TIL -- I'm going to try this out and see how well it works between a browser and my Roku, thanks!

btgeekboy 5y ago

I just tried searching Netflix, HBO, and Prime for Bruce Willis; all showed me his movies. Is that not the filtering you’re expecting?

lostcolony 5y ago
That's a fuzzy search. If I search on Netflix for "Bruce Willis", the first ten or so items are movies with him. Then there are miscellaneous thrillers and whatnot; unless I look at the details I don't know that they don't have Bruce Willis in them. A filter gives me a binary outcome; it either has Bruce Willis, or it doesn't. All of which is sort of the ops point I think; the search engine is fuzzy because it wants to show you many things for profit reasons. I don't think it's geared toward maximizing profitability at the expense of what you're looking for, exactly, so much as engagement as a proxy for profitability. The more you use the service, the stickier you likely are as a paid subscriber, so they'll happily shovel things that don't match the search (but are similar!...and that quickly jump the shark into being quite dissimilar, but hey, maybe!) to try and keep your eyeballs. A better demonstration of this handling is searching for movie titles they don't have. "The Princess Bride" on Netflix, for instance, doesn't even tell you "We don't have that", but instead "Explore titles related to: The Princess Bride". And while the first suggestion, The Neverending Story, is kinda a fair suggestion, some slightly later ones, like Top Gun and Zoolander, feel like a stretch.
klibertp 5y ago
I suspect the GP thought about something more complex, like "a movie directed by X or Y between year XXXX and YYYY starring Z but not V in the genre ... with tags ... but excluding ones tagged with ..." You can probably do this on IMDB or something similar, but then you can't watch it there. I'm largely guessing - I don't watch movies, but I read a lot of manga online, and the only site that allows similar queries and still has UX a bit better than late '90s (ie. mangaupdates.com) is a fan-made (ie. pirated) one with porn/hentai...

Joeri 5y ago

I’m not convinced they are targeting profitability, because that is hard to connect back to individual user action. They target what is easy to measure at the user level, probably engagement, and operate on the assumption that higher engagement means higher profit.

x3ro 5y ago
why do you think it’s difficult for google to measure which clicks to what websites are profitable for them? maybe i’m misunderstanding, but I would expect that this would be one of the primary things google tries to infer from you..

rg111 5y ago

Prime Video has an option where I can hide specific movies and seasons of series. I use this feature a lot, and it works.

shrikant 5y ago
Wow TIL -- I'm going to try this out and see how well it works between a browser and my Roku, thanks!