[HN Gopher] The Clickbaitification of Netflix
___________________________________________________________________
The Clickbaitification of Netflix
Author : thrusong
Score : 327 points
Date : 2021-08-24 16:43 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (slate.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (slate.com)
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| The way Netflix presents thumbnail images custom tailored to the
| user is ingenious. There is a lot of insight there on how people
| choose content based on preferences for star actors, subject
| matter, tone etc.
|
| Personally however, as an avid film viewer, this massive
| algorithmic curation is completely not for me.
|
| A cool example and complete opposite of the Netflix approach is
| the Mubi approach. There, the focus is not on giving me exactly
| what I think I want, but instead on offering this narrow curated
| selection along with content written by actual film critics. As a
| result I watch things that I did not expect.
|
| This curation aspect is something Netflix strategically
| completely opted out of. And this makes sense - their goal is to
| have an active subscriber base and achieving that goal doesn't
| factor in the existing film/tv culture.
| zz865 wrote:
| Anyone have a good website that lets you find netflix shows? I
| like a wide variety of stuff and I think Spotify/Netflix/Youtube
| always gets too confused to be useful.
| bjornlouser wrote:
| flixable.com
| Terretta wrote:
| So I pulled this up, popped into Netflix tab, and...
|
| "The top suggestion, you won't believe!"
|
| https://i.imgur.com/waixdBJ.jpg
| drexlspivey wrote:
| Justwatch allows you to inout your subscriptions and only shows
| you recommendations of the available shows in your country
| (based on your ratings).
| yardie wrote:
| I can't stand Netflix's recommendation engine. Here are a few
| of the sites I use because my homepage is completely filled
| with junk.
|
| instantwatcher.com - One of the first to do it.
|
| justwatch.com - There was a time when IW stopped working with
| Netflix over API access licensing. This is almost as good.
| yarcob wrote:
| This is why I quit my Netflix subscription.
|
| The algorithm seems to have picked up the fact that I like
| watching SciFi and Zombie movies, so my Netflix homepage was this
| dark place filled with Sci Fi and Zombie movies.
|
| One problem with this is that Netflix only has a handful of good
| SciFi and Zombie movies, and I've seen them all. So the homepage
| was filled with movies I've seen already, or the dime-a-dozen
| copycat movies that just rehash some ideas from popular movies in
| a slightly different way.
|
| The much bigger problem is that even though I like watching
| Zombie movies, I actually enjoy lots of different movies. But
| somehow the Netflix algorithm only ever shows me this one genre.
|
| So I cancelled my Netflix subscription, and went back to
| occasionally renting a film on iTunes or Amazon. I watch less
| now, but I end up watching more diverse and more interesting
| films.
| joe_fishfish wrote:
| I'm in the same boat as you. My question is, does this
| hyperoptimisation of preferences actually work for anyone other
| than children? I guess Netflix thinks it does.
| peanut_worm wrote:
| Youtube has this same problem very badly. It never suggests me
| videos that I haven't already seen.
| contravariant wrote:
| In the case of Youtube I've basically given up trying to get
| decent recommendations. At this point I just hope it keeps
| showing videos of the people I've subscribed to.
| Gys wrote:
| Exactly this is also my problem. I regularly find illegal
| downloads of Netflix movies that seem nice but are never shown
| in my homepage.
|
| I cannot believe I have to manually 'find' those movies.
|
| My default homepage always seems to show the same movies. Many
| of them I saw already and others that I do not want to waste
| time watching.
| janfoeh wrote:
| > So I cancelled my Netflix subscription, and went back to
| occasionally renting a film on iTunes or Amazon.
|
| I did that too, and then went one step further, because some
| fifteen years down the line, online video rental still
| hilariously, bafflingly sucks.
|
| Twelve, thirteen years ago I was still renting physical DVDs.
| Back then, renting a physical item that was produced halfway
| around the world, shipped to Germany and distributed by a
| company with hundreds of physical locations staffed by
| employees was around two and a half times cheaper than
| downloading a file via iTunes. Apart from inflation, those
| prices never came down.
|
| Adding insult to injury, the more expensive download is almost
| always worse:
|
| On the majority of DVDs I get both the original and the dubbed
| voice track, plus subtitles in English and German.
|
| That's important to me, because my partner vastly prefers
| either the dubbed version, or at least the original with German
| subtitles. When I watch something for myself, I vastly prefer
| the original - sometimes with English subtitles.
|
| In online video rental (or purchase), I can often only get the
| dubbed version. If the original is available at all, it is
| sometimes another item to be bought separately. Either case
| almost never features both German and English subtitles.
|
| And as the icing on the cake, to this day not all product pages
| on iTunes even _list_ the featured languages of a download, let
| alone their subtitle languages.
|
| Combine that with all the other indignities of buffet
| streaming, such as titles being constantly rotated out or the
| incessant advertising on Amazon before every episode.
|
| So -- I've gone back to buying used DVDs. And since they have
| their own problems such as unskippables and horrible menus, I'm
| currently looking into building a NAS and will be ripping them
| into a personal media collection sometime in the future.
|
| And then I will have come back full circle to 2005.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| The NAS route is a solid one. There are a lot of fantastic
| tools out there these days for managing media collections.
| jbay808 wrote:
| Plus, for anything other than new releases you'd get the
| rental typically for up to a week, whereas now it's 24 hours
| even for a 30 year old film.
| dangus wrote:
| You can also do exactly this with Blu-rays and get really
| stunning above-streaming quality, though of course the
| selection and pricing isn't as desirable as DVDs.
|
| What I'm saying is invest in a USB or internal Blu-ray drive,
| the extra cost is worth it.
| janfoeh wrote:
| You're right, I probably should.. I'm just a little bit
| anxious of the extra fiddling required to find decent
| compression settings for BDs, since I've got no experience
| there.
| jbay808 wrote:
| I've noticed that streaming video quality is really bad,
| actually. Especially when the scene is very dark and grey,
| like _Dark_ , you can hardly see anything because of the
| compression. Physical media thankfully does better.
| dangus wrote:
| +1 on renting films with some level of purpose. A lot of people
| I know refuse to pay for movie rentals.
|
| I've seen this too many times: endless scrolling to try to find
| that one decent movie that comes free with the subscription.
|
| But movie studios aren't stupid. They don't just give away
| their best movies for free. So those who simply aren't willing
| to pay are left watching Hitman or The Quake (fine Hulu
| content).
|
| The price of movie rentals might seem high, but life is far too
| short to waste it watching things you don't even like that
| much.
|
| Also: iTunes in particular happens to have very decent staff
| recommendations (i.e., actual human curation). I wouldn't be
| surprised if movie rental services like iTunes understand that
| their customers are looking for quality and not quantity,
| otherwise those customers would be on the streaming services.
| yarcob wrote:
| In my experience the iTunes store is such a horrible, slow
| piece of shit software that I only use it to search and rent
| films I heard about elsewhere.
| peeters wrote:
| My issue with renting has always been the ridiculous
| upselling for quality. Advertise 4.99 for a movie, but oh,
| you don't want the "standard definition" that hasn't been
| standard since 1996? Well then it's 8.99.
|
| Edit: Just gave Play Movies another chance and it looks like
| _perhaps_ they 've finally stopped doing this.
| omniscient_oce wrote:
| I've found that when I watch a Youtube video, _at least_ half
| or more of the recommended videos on the right are videos that
| I 've already seen before, often music. Does anyone know if
| there is way to turn this off so it can recommend me strictly
| new videos? It's infuriating.
|
| The best guess for why this is that I've seen online is that
| it's because they're targeting younger age brackets more
| aggressively and kids love to rewatch the same things over and
| over.
| yarcob wrote:
| Many people use Youtube for listening to Music, makes sense
| to listen to a song more than once :)
| brap wrote:
| Just fyi, you can reset your watch history and that resets the
| recommendations as well.
| reallydontask wrote:
| My old boss had multiple profiles sort of curated around topics
| said that it was a bit of hassle to set up but worked really
| well for him.
| peeters wrote:
| I do something similar, I have my main profile where I watch
| everything and then a "Random" profile that I regularly clear
| all viewing history from (if I watch something there instead
| of switching back to my main profile).
|
| The problem is, as annoying as Netflix's algorithm is on my
| main profile, the algorithm to shovel shit to users it knows
| nothing about is even worse.
|
| I honestly don't understand why Netflix had to get rid of the
| ability to literally just scan the full list of titles,
| optionally filtered by genre. The home screen is an utter
| failure, I can never find "My List" or "Continue Watching"
| because it's a heterogeneous mess and they jump around all
| the time.
| maverwa wrote:
| I have a similar problem with amazon music and spotify: Yes,
| they are good at picking music I like, but really bad at adding
| something new. Spotify is better at this, as it does not give
| you the one "your radio". At amazon music it basically played
| only those songs I told it about, and a few very very narrow
| matches, but close to nothing I did not already know.
| janfoeh wrote:
| Nothing I've ever seen did that better than Pandora.
| Unfortunately I had only sporadic access via VPN because of
| their inability to secure international licensing, but during
| those times I discovered more music than ever before or
| since.
|
| Apple Musics "Create station from track" feature comes very
| close, though. Back when it appeared I remember reading they
| had humans tag and classify tracks manually, just like
| Pandora, which may explain the similar results.
| dangus wrote:
| Let's be real about Netflix: after looking like it was going to
| disrupt the media conglomerates, I now think that all it has
| managed to do is wake the sleeping giants. Long-term, I am
| bearish on Netflix. I would go as far to say that Netflix is
| slow-declining its way into being eventually acquired by a member
| of the big six.
|
| Here are the issues:
|
| First: it's basically the most expensive streaming service,
| topping out at $18/month.
|
| Hulu's most expensive plan is $12. Discovery+ is $7. Disney+ is
| $8. HBO Max is $15. Paramount+ is $10. (All prices ad-free plans)
|
| I think an argument could be made that all or nearly all of those
| services are offering a better content library at a lower price
| when compared to Netflix.
|
| Discovery+ especially...holy hell if you are into reality shows
| it's endless. And it's $7. I would pay $7/month just for access
| to every House Hunters episode imaginable without ads, lo and
| behold my dream came true.
|
| Netflix is doing this clickbait stuff because their content
| sucks. Clickbait is what you do when your content doesn't speak
| for itself.
|
| Sure, every content business has to make a "headline" to draw
| your attention. But when you see a "clickbait" headline in
| something like The New York Times you know you're being drawn
| into something that can be potentially rich in effort, and
| therefore the term "clickbait" doesn't really apply. At least
| there's an article behind the hook. "Clickbait" more specifically
| means you're being tricked into visiting something that everyone
| knows definitely sucks, _including its creator._
|
| Netflix _knows_ their content sucks, and I 'm not sure they care
| or can think of a viable business model to improve it.
| jellicle wrote:
| > "The network's own research shows that users consider each
| title for a whopping 1.8 seconds, and that if users don't find
| anything in a minute and a half, they're gone."
|
| It's Netflix's fault this is true!
|
| There's no way to review the content that is actually on the
| service. I look at an item for 1.8 seconds because _I keep being
| shown the same five promoted shows and I 've already decided
| about them two weeks ago_, or already seen them, or whatever. I
| click off after a minute and half because I'm seeing the same
| shows and there's no way to find different ones or scroll through
| all the content.
|
| What these streaming services actually need is a thorough catalog
| listing with a text description of each show. People will
| occasionally spend 20 minutes scrolling through that, tagging
| what they want to see (like the old TV guide). And then on a day
| to day basis, they'll spend 20 seconds deciding which of the
| already-tagged-by-yourself content they want to watch today.
|
| All the streaming services are way over-optimized and it hurts
| them badly. One complete scrolling catalog with lots of ways to
| search it, lots of ways to page through it, and easy "I want to
| watch it" tagging.
| lurtbancaster wrote:
| [REQUEST] a userscript that replaces the thumbnails with the
| description of the video/film/TVShow for YouTube and other
| streaming services.
|
| I feel like replacing all thumbnails with useful text that
| describes what the video's going to be about would help reduce
| analysis paralysis for at least some people.
|
| I still use my RSS Reader(QuiteRSS) to "subscribe" to YouTube
| channels, and I'm never unsure about which video to watch. I
| think that's due to the fact that RSS is mostly text, and I'm not
| overwhelmed with images from everywhere all at once.
|
| A good description sells me on a video more than thumbnails ever
| could.
|
| So my Solution: Replace images with descriptive text on every
| video streaming platform.
| milleramp wrote:
| It's also due to a lack of content from the lockdown, however
| this trend will continue, people will learn to navigate it. For
| me, I'm going with the dude.
| dannyr wrote:
| YouTube is pretty much like this but it's the creators selecting
| the thumbnails.
|
| The most common thumbnail I see is a picture of someone looks
| like they are blown away with their hands on their head and their
| mouth wide open.
| rchaud wrote:
| Even somewhat respectable channels do this thumbnail 'hack'
| because they claim they've A/B tested it and the "I am yelling
| loudly" look perform better. Possibly because more children
| click the thumbs than they otherwise would.
|
| But, having watched the 'crate challenge' that is hot on IG and
| TT, I'm thinking my thumbnail comment might be giving adults
| too much credit.
| skocznymroczny wrote:
| Is there some Youtube thumbnail generator or a guide? They all
| literally look the same. Have the same kind of thick white
| outline around the person and they seem to use the same fonts
| too.
| Semaphor wrote:
| The Clickbait remover chooses a random thumbnail instead. I
| rarely go to youtube, but when I do, this makes it more
| bearable.
|
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/clickbait-rem...
| ggggtez wrote:
| Interesting, I wasn't sure at first how it was adjusting the
| title, but it seems like it lower cases it. Interesting demo,
| but I think you could do better by just aggressively not
| clicking on videos like that to begin with. I never see that
| style of click bait anymore, as long as I'm logged in.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Even high-quality, reputable channels use the weird "strong
| facial expression" style of thumbnail.
| meowface wrote:
| In case anyone else initially misinterpreted it like I did:
| it replaces the thumbnail with a random frame from the video.
| ggggtez wrote:
| The fact that Netflix can adaptively adjust their clickbait to
| suit each user is pretty stunning though. That's definitely a
| step beyond "one thumbnail to rule them all".
| xxs wrote:
| My version of not-logged in (which is the default) is far from
| that. It's regional - but again, unless you logoff on purpose,
| the selection is heavily based on your choices of 'creators'
| pndy wrote:
| You might find this interesting:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16803937
|
| freetube client allows you to control how thumbnails are
| displayed; default - youtube one or manual fetch frame from
| beginning, mid or end of the video
| tsjq wrote:
| a lot of videos have thumbnails which are not part of the video
| at all. sad. maha clickbaity
| Spellman wrote:
| Luckily they can't send different thumbnails to different
| viewers. Yet.
|
| Veritasium actually did an interesting episode recently about
| how the major YouTubers optimize their titles and thumbnails
| using real time data now to figure out what works to go more
| viral. And apparently there's a convergence on "shocked" face.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| LinusTechTips had mentioned that he did an A/B test with "no
| YouTube face" and "with YouTube face" finding it had a
| significant impact on the number of viewers.
|
| I suppose we're hard wired to look for shocked expressions.
| teekert wrote:
| I really hate it that when I'm digesting an episode of Rick and
| Morty I have to scramble for the remote or I'm watching some
| completely uninteresting series about a family in the 19th
| century or something. I just want the end screen and sounds to
| finish and then turn off the telly and go to bed. In stead I feel
| slapped in the face.
|
| Consistently my watching experience ends with (increasingly
| large) negative feelings. How can that be a good choice for a
| company offering watching experiences?
| ghusbands wrote:
| You can now turn off autoplay of both trailers and next
| episodes, in settings. (Account menu -> Account -> Profile and
| Parental Controls -> [your profile] -> Playback settings ->
| Change)
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Take a moment to think about having to go through six layers
| of menu tree to access a frequently requested feature. Now
| imagine explaining this step to someone who doesn't
| intuitively understand computers and whose children bought
| them a Roku for Christmas.
|
| I'm not fussing at you, just thinking about this first-world
| hell.
| fisf wrote:
| Also: the fact that it's hidden under 'parental controls'
| speaks volumes.
| debarshri wrote:
| One of the things I have been struggling with Netflix, YouTube
| and other platform's recommendation systems is serendipity.
|
| It is clickbaity, but after a while you get bored or saturated.
| avnigo wrote:
| Veritasium talks about thumbnail and title experimentation on
| YouTube, and argues for the need to do so on platforms that
| surface up and recommend content to users:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng
| mdoms wrote:
| Christ that guy comes across as an arrogant prick. Here,
| "Veritasium", let me rephrase your shitty, overly long,
| condescending video: "I deceive my viewers because it makes me
| more money".
| xdennis wrote:
| That's every uncharitable.
|
| I'm not going to rewatch it, because, as you said, it's long,
| but what he's saying is that there's a difference between
| baiting and never delivering and bating and delivering.
|
| Also, educating isn't just about putting forth the facts, but
| also persuasion and spreading. It does coincide with him
| making more money, but there's nothing bad about that.
| boredumb wrote:
| towards the end of 2018 netflix took a nosedive
| monkeybutton wrote:
| After reading the article on my phone and hitting the back button
| to get back here, I'm instead presented with a screen showing
| more content and pleading me to stay on the site (Keep on
| reading!). Talk about the kettle calling the pot black.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| I was very confused by what was happening when I encountered
| that screen. Is there a way to block the overriding of back
| buttons, particularly on smartphones?
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Its called back button hijacking. How it works or why such an
| abusable feature exists is a mystery to me though.
| contravariant wrote:
| It's probably there as a consequence of single page web
| apps needing the ability to store your location on the
| webpage.
|
| Maybe this could have been done in a way less prone to
| abuse, but basically you can't really trust your browser
| history to reflect what you think it is.
| dlvktrsh wrote:
| I don't know the technicality of it but yes there definitely
| is
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| Doesn't seem to be happening for me. Egde/Galaxy S10
| marshray wrote:
| > The network's own research shows that users consider each title
| for a whopping 1.8 seconds
|
| Funny, that's almost exactly how long it takes for the promo
| video to start auto-playing.
|
| I know for myself I try to skip past titles before getting
| barraged with the promo.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| I believe Netflix has talked about thumbnail experimentation at
| length in some of their engineering blogs [1]. To me, it seems
| perhaps Netflix has figured out a running theme in the author's
| viewing habits... perhaps the scandalous, soapy stuff is what
| they keep clicking.
|
| Same kind of reaction I get when a guy friend tells me they keep
| getting ads for women's bikinis or women's underwear in their
| Instagram ads. It isn't sexualization of Instagram... it is a
| reflection of your interaction with the platform!
|
| [1: https://netflixtechblog.com/selecting-the-best-artwork-
| for-v...]
| isoskeles wrote:
| It might be a reflection of my interaction. But I distinctly
| remember telling Instagram's Discovery feed to stop showing me
| sexy women. This would work for a few weeks until the women
| would eventually come back. I'm not sure if this is an issue of
| the request (stop showing me X) expiring, or if I lingered too
| long on some other photo one time, but either way it wasn't
| content that I sought out. Instagram kept finding a way to
| recommend it.
|
| Notably, I kind of liked the Discovery feature when it was
| showing me relevant and unsexy stuff. But I've since deleted
| Instagram.
| maverwa wrote:
| While thats certainly part of the problem, I distinctly
| remember that, when I created my instagram account and followed
| the first few accounts (all miniature painting stuff, I use
| insta for exactly nothing else) the suggestions in the search
| where sprinkled with stuff not fitting in that genre. Like car
| content and barely dressed women posing. I had to do the "long
| tap" => "not interessted" dance for a few days to get rid of
| most of it.
|
| Sure, maybe its something the algorithm connects. "This fellow
| likes painting small figures, other peoples who do that also
| like cars and women, so he will like them as well" but its
| harsh to say "you only get what you asked for" in this context
| imho.
| slowmotiony wrote:
| A friend of mine was hired to do design work for Netflix - he
| ended up having to create tens of different thumbnails for
| every show, which netflix would then run through their
| algorithms and decide which one to show to which user.
|
| I've looked at my netflix page and it seems that some silicon
| valley psychologist decided that they should be showing me
| thumbnails of guys with sad faces looking at something far
| away. Almost every single thumbnail looks like that.
|
| Sometimes I wonder if the engineers behind the scenes even
| realize how creepy it is what they are doing.
| bertil wrote:
| Does your friend work with User experience researcher? I know
| it sounds ridiculous to delegate "this looks creepy" to an
| expert, but that's where those people are valuable: they can
| enrich an impression with detailed feedback.
|
| Also, if your friend has any sway, can you beg him to suggest
| a "Stop recommending this to me" button, if they haven't. The
| platform is better at removing movies I've stoped watching
| from the "Continue watching" selection after a week but...
| that's still a bit long. I just want the agency of telling
| the machine No on occasion.
|
| And if that works, thankfully, we can get a "stop showing me
| the same image" button too.
| puszczyk wrote:
| Yeah, sure. I like desserts. I'll eat a tasty looking one if
| presented with the opportunity. But it doesn't mean I want my
| kitchen or living room filled with desert ads.
| watwut wrote:
| Netflix has literally zero discoverability if you want to go
| outside what it suggests. If I click stuff that initially seem
| appealing and then based on seeing decide I dont like it, tough
| luck. You clicked on it, because you liked name and pic, turned
| out different thing that you like, but now netflix is forever
| convinced you want this.
|
| I tried to go through documentaries category, because I was in
| mood for documentary. Pure hell and every time I viewed movie
| detail, it jumped back to start.
|
| I dont have an option to click on something else and Netflix
| does everything possible in order to prevent me to find stuff I
| would like. The result is that I dont idle watch netflix,
| because it is too much work and we watch only shows someone
| else told us about and we searched by name.
| aaronax wrote:
| I unsubscribed many years ago but occasionally I am tasked by
| my significant other to find something on Netflix (shared
| account with her family).
|
| I actually have pretty good luck with searching for random
| things. Like I searched for "cool" the other day and found
| something good that would have never shown up otherwise.
| Seems like a way to substantially bypass the recommendation
| engine "smarts".
| Terretta wrote:
| Yep. You can also search by genres including their
| ridiculously detailed sub genres or cross-over genres.
|
| From what I've observed, though, normals consider TV such a
| "lean back" they won't even go to the trouble to pick
| Movies or TV before browsing thumbnails for 1.8 seconds
| each...
| watwut wrote:
| I tried to browse be genre documentary. If there is
| subgenre, it was well hidden and did not shown up on my
| tablet.
|
| Oh, and apparently documentary genre means also action
| movies. I don't know why there were also action movies.
|
| Oh, and the more you browse the more it shows the same
| movie again and again.
|
| Oh, and when I click on thumbnail, then the list jumps
| back to start, forcing me to browse the same movies
| again.
|
| I ended up watching YouTube.
| biztos wrote:
| I've been a Netflix subscriber since the DVD days, and for
| the last several years all the best shows I've found, I read
| about elsewhere first.
|
| Which is kind of insane, but I got used to it, and I will
| google around for interesting new Netflix content instead of
| bothering with their scroll-fest.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| That response to complaining about Instagram is becoming a
| frustrating meme because it isn't true that Instagram doesn't
| offer sex appeal to the uninitiated, and rather than discussing
| that issue, this simple response just shuts down criticism of
| the social network by embarrassing the person who brings the
| issue up. Lest you turn the meme on me, I'll say don't have an
| account.
| bertil wrote:
| I don't think this response is dismissive: it's a technical
| explanation of what is happening. Understanding it helps us
| find a solution.
|
| Netflix (of Facebook) rates content along embeddings, and
| highlights content along embeddings that users engage with.
| If a given user engages with clips featuring people in
| bikini, that system won't pass the judgement (one that the
| author is passing, a judgement you dearly regret, 'Lest...')
| -- but one that the commenter _didn't_ pass. No one in that
| process (at Facebook, Instagram or Netflix Tech team) is
| choosing to make things sluttier, or asks someone to bend
| over a little more (Netflix being a film and series producer
| too, I'll reserve there).
|
| Given that context, if, like the author, you believe that the
| content should not engage along certain dimensions then
| there's several possible takes:
|
| * a paternalistic approach to downgrade dimensions that are
| deemed unhelpful; that would have been popular in my Catholic
| school, less so on Hacker News, I'd expect;
|
| * a empowering approach that either: * name
| the dimensions and let users downgrade them; that's harder
| than one would expect for many reasons, but roughly: naming
| is power and embeddings are not human-legible; *
| let users downvote some recommendation, even if they've
| engaged with it.
|
| Both Facebook and Netflix but also YouTube, Google Search
| engine, all have strangely avoided building those negative
| feedback for click-baits. It many ways, it's a mystery to me,
| especially as someone who built so many recommendation
| systems. I've always used implicit or explicit negative
| feedback, to just engagement and the recommendations were
| meaningfully better.
|
| I'd love to hear from people who have explored that approach
| if there have encountered issues implementing them. I can
| share two details that are not sufficient but I hope are
| relevant:
|
| * The biggest problem at Facebook has always been that Likes
| were performative: your friends saw them, by design; people
| refused to use them as a way to improve their recommendation
| because of that. When we discussed a drop in posting, or when
| the five other reactions where debated, there were several
| suggestion to make a parallel form of Like invisible. I've
| seen those ideas being shot down repeatedly; I was never told
| why. I assumed there was a fear those would cannibalise the
| public Likes, and those drove a lot of engagement
| opportunities, but that was speculation on my part.
|
| * Most effort to understand recommendations ("Why am I seeing
| this?") had an abysmal engagement rate. So much that
| maintaining it wasn't worth the effort.
| Terretta wrote:
| "Never show me this again" per film or series, with a web
| settings based "Reset my Never Show Me list" would do the
| trick for us.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Nice response. Unfortunately, the original response is
| dismissive even though it's about a technical topic, but it
| wouldn't be if discussing just about any other content
| category and you're right that those kinds of mechanisms
| are worthy of analysis.
|
| I haven't worked at FB but don't metadata-adding
| contractors training ML models serve the function of
| invisible, more complete likes? My understanding is all
| these large social networks employ or employed human-
| created content analysis. And then the right amount of
| noise and divergent suggestions can be added to serve the
| goals of the network.
| matsemann wrote:
| > _It isn 't sexualization of Instagram... it is a reflection
| of your interaction with the platform!_
|
| No, that "gotcha" is blatantly wrong. If you follow running
| people, Instagram will float you popular running content.
| What's popular running content? Girls posing in yogapants. Same
| for other niches. The most popular and thus shown content will
| always be a sexual version of the theme.
| watwut wrote:
| This is literally author complaint:
|
| > The company seems more brazen in its strategies, more willing
| to promise something and then absolutely fail to deliver, often
| using headline tricks familiar from the social web. That's what
| clickbait is: luring someone into clicking, and then delivering
| something other than what the headline made them want. [...] my
| homepage illustrates The Big Lebowski with a photo of an angry
| John Goodman pointing a gun, as if the Coen brothers' comedy is
| actually some kind of revenge thriller.
|
| Netflix did not figured out how author viewing habits. It is
| trying to figure out author clicking habits and then
| disappoints. It misleads author into clicking wrong stuff.
|
| > Following the success of the comically generically titled
| Money Heist, Netflix recently debuted the new, even more
| generically titled hit Heist
|
| Because the recommendations are based on superficial but
| illogical similarity.
| kbos87 wrote:
| I found this article to be so spot on. There's a mindset often
| found in tech companies that essentially comes down to "in every
| decision the data must win." I see this in my day to day working
| at a large saas company all the time, and pushing back against
| this mindset is akin to heresy on some teams.
|
| What the author points out is happening to Netflix is the
| inevitable late stage of this mindset. To me it looks like the
| home screen in Netflix is optimized for superficial engagement,
| at the expense of the actual value and joy customers get from the
| service.
| personjerry wrote:
| I worked at Facebook for some time, and did a bunch of data work.
| We had this culture of building something, looking at the results
| between the experiment groups, and then choosing the
| statistically more successful one -- i.e. a newsfeed algorithm
| that had better engagement.
|
| This sounds great at first, and certainly is straightforward if
| you want a promotion. But behind the scenes some of us had this
| thought that our observations only amounted to short-term gains.
| Although we had small long-term experiment holdout groups, the
| truth is they were rarely reviewed because it was unsexy.
|
| My current thinking is that features like the echo chamber
| effects from Facebook's algorithms, Snapchat's snap streaks, and
| clickbait like this, all serve to optimize short-term engagement.
| Yeah, I want to watch that sexy new show or keep my streak going
| or have my opinions validated. But there's a diminishing return
| on clickbait, hollow articles isn't there? I can only fill up so
| much time with garbage like that before I'm bored. I can only
| like so many posts before I feel like they're all the same. And
| once my snap streak is broken I hate snapping.
|
| The data/engineering/product loops at tech companies favor
| boosting short-term metrics; The employees are incentivized to do
| so and this is what they measure, so this is what they build.
| That's why we end up with features like this. That's why Snapchat
| fell off. That's why Facebook fell off. And that's why Netflix
| feels increasingly stale (despite there being a lot of quality
| content if you dig).
| keiferski wrote:
| This is the consequence of _lack of vision._ What is Netflix 's
| long term goal? Ideally, it would be to fund and broadcast
| fantastic cinema. Yet, I really don't get the impression that
| contributing to the art form of film is very high up on the
| metrics chart.
| karmasimida wrote:
| > contributing to the art form of film
|
| Has netflix ever committed to this vision? I would be hell
| bored if Netflix is filled with Oscar-ish films.
|
| One thing to note here is, the tech community is inherently
| elitist, in a way many envision tech as a tool to doctrine
| its audience, telling them what is good or bad. I don't find
| this mindset, either helpful nor necessary.
|
| Recommendation engine is the new soda machine, choices are
| offered, and you pick what delights you. Ofc you can choose
| water, but it is not the machine's fault some would like real
| coke.
| snakeboy wrote:
| > Has netflix ever committed to this vision? I would be
| hell bored if Netflix is filled with Oscar-ish films.
|
| I think it's a bit of straw man to conflate "the art form
| of film" with mainstream oscar bait.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| A lack of understanding their own business model? They are a
| gym, they need to provide enough service to get you to sign
| up and keep paying, while minimizing your actual use.
| pizza234 wrote:
| I'm of the opposite opinion. They're executing their vision
| perfectly.
|
| Netflix is very aggressively pursuing the bottom line, and
| they're not doing it differently from a drug dealer. It's not
| random that the term "Netflix binge" exists.
|
| Netflix interface is designed to shove content at the users'
| face at all costs, and in a very disrespectful way. Here
| there are some disgusting dark patterns:
|
| - it took them a long time to give the user the option to
| remove movies from the watching now list
|
| - there's no way to remove already watched movies from the
| panel; their trailer is even sometimes displayed in the top
| frame
|
| - they randomize the global order of the horizontal lists, so
| that one needs every time to hunt the user list (watching
| now/my list) through all the panel
|
| For a short time, I even experienced a bug where movies with
| (my) negative rating were not greyed out. I can imagine the
| engineering thinking "LOW PRIORITY!".
|
| On my (fictional) "drug-dealing practices" rating, Netflix is
| high on top with Amazon.
| kungito wrote:
| The sad part is that I am probably in some minority and
| hence no one will care to fix scenarios for me. The only
| time I now watch Netflix is when I want to watch something
| specifically and I search where can I watch it and it turns
| out it exists on Netflix (of course, never recommended to
| me). I wonder how much long term will Netflix be impacted
| by the fact that their Originals are of way lower quality
| than HBO originals. I never want to watch Netflix Originals
| because whenever I tried it was horrible and HBO always has
| amazing quality. I'm afraid it's just cheaper for them to
| focus on the group of people who you can shove the shit
| down the throat to keep them happy as it's a way
| maintainable audience.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Unfortunately, the new HBO content is the same as
| Netflix. After HBO was sold to ATT a couple years, the
| executives that made HBO HBO were all shown the door and
| now I believe their goal is quantity over quality.
|
| Apple TV+ feels like it could be the new HBO in terms of
| curation, but we will see if they keep up the quality
| ratio.
|
| My simple method of not wasting time on all this nonsense
| content coming out is to just wait for a bunch of people
| in my various networks to mention something about the
| show/movie. If multiple of them like something enough to
| mention it, then I probably will, so I just search it out
| after that.
| i2shar wrote:
| Add one more to the list - and this one drives me crazy to
| no end - on my Chromecast with GTV the wretched thing
| starts autoplaying even if I just want to read the
| synopsis. This, despite turning off all autoplay options in
| my profile. What is the friggin rush?! Why won't you let me
| browse/read distraction free?!
| dasfsi wrote:
| They might be doing a facebook (~ inflating their
| engagement metrics by autoplaying things)
| sanitycheck wrote:
| Look out for this annoying autoplay thing in every other
| app soon. I do some work in the same space and everyone*
| thinks if Netflix is doing it it must be a great idea.
|
| (*who makes decisions)
| kmmlng wrote:
| So they are taking steps which are ostensibly geared
| towards this drug dealer vision. But is it working? I can
| only look at myself and the people around me. There was a
| time when we would go on Netflix binges and there probably
| was something drug-like about it. But now? I go on Netflix,
| I scroll around for a bit, can't find anything I would like
| to watch, and I close Netflix again. The only reason I'm
| still paying for it is that I'm sharing my account with
| other people and it would be a hassle to cancel the
| subscription. And it's not just me, everyone I talk with is
| reporting the same thing.
| majormajor wrote:
| That's the premise of the article, right?
|
| They used to have all their content come from other
| studios, and _they got to see how well it had done in the
| outside world_ at the time they were making their deals.
|
| Now they're producing their own content, many of their
| previous background-noise or binge staples have moved
| elsewhere, and their productions are overwhelmingly
| lowest-common-denominator clickbait. There's still some
| quality stuff, but it's much harder to find than it used
| to be. If you're looking for an already-well-known
| quality show you can search (e.g. if you want to watch
| The Office a few years ago on Netflix). If you're looking
| for something new that's going to appeal to you, it's a
| lot harder to find in their sea of junk. Reviews can get
| you so far, but Netflix no longer then has any edge on
| alternative platforms which the reviewers are also
| talking about.
|
| So the premise of "sooner or later pumping out junk food
| is going to turn off viewers" seems to click with your
| cohort (mine as well).
| triceratops wrote:
| > But now? I go on Netflix, I scroll around for a bit,
| can't find anything I would like to watch, and I close
| Netflix again.
|
| I feel like I'm in a minority these days. My Netflix list
| is longer than I can ever hope to finish. I add stuff on
| before I finish watching current stuff.
| UntitledNo4 wrote:
| Maybe that's really Netflix's business model these days:
| nobody watches anything, but it's a hassle to cancel the
| account, so nobody does it, so lets continue frustration
| our users, maybe they will stop visiting us completely
| while never really leaving us. Let's look at the bright
| side though, we're going to end up with a lot of nice
| thumbnails.
| ant6n wrote:
| So it's better to have 2 users who pay but don't use the
| service and kind of hate it than 3 users who like the
| service and use it a lot?
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| High use means you need large quantities of high quality
| content. Low use means you can use a small amount of high
| quality content as a "loss leader" then back fill with
| cheap garbage no one is going to watch anyway.
| idiot900 wrote:
| It was really easy for me to cancel my Netflix account.
| Maybe 60 seconds on their website, if even that.
| keiferski wrote:
| This is essentially the same business model that gyms
| have.
| gruez wrote:
| That's not really comparable because gyms are
| significantly harder to cancel than netflix
| christoph wrote:
| I'm in total agreement. Opening the Netflix app just
| started making me frustrated trying to find something to
| watch, so I just don't bother anymore. I will only open
| it now if somebody has recommended something to me, which
| happens rarely these days. We've only kept the
| subscription going as our child likes watching some of
| the shows on Netflix kids.
| davemp wrote:
| They also cycle through 'box art' on Netflix originals so
| you can't scroll past them if you recognize art from a
| title you're not interest in.
| watwut wrote:
| Those dont seem like dark patterns to me. They dont make
| you more hooked up, they make you annoyed and make you
| leave. These are just bad UI.
|
| If they are designed, they are designed to make you watch
| less.
| john_minsk wrote:
| 100% agree. I was awaiting for Netflix thread to pop-up to
| ask (hopefully someone who works there): Why there is no
| way to tell Netflix that I already watched the show and I'm
| not planning to rewatch it again any time soon or hide the
| ones I tried and decided not watch (or may be watched
| before)? No matter how many times you show me them I'm not
| going to watch...
|
| You can still have nice features around it: separate list
| at the end of scroll with my old movies/shows (may be with
| number of times I watched it?). Once new seasons released
| send them all the way to to the top etc.
|
| And I will be able to discover something new. At the moment
| it is cluttered with things I don't want to watch so lately
| I was not happy with Netflix at all.
|
| You should see such patterns in your data.
| aeoleonn wrote:
| Excellent. There is a silver lining:
|
| It will lead to the end of Facebook and hopefully these
| practices you've described... once the lesson is learned.
|
| The end of Facebook, Snap, and other scientifically-designed-
| to-be-attention-exploiting apps/sites would be very positive.
| ckosidows wrote:
| Or, conversely, apps like TikTok, etc, etc will learn from
| past failures and develop even stronger algorithms to capture
| attention ad infinitum.
| seph-reed wrote:
| I tried out TikTok for a few nights. It very, very quickly
| got repetitive. I think the short-form content sphere can
| only fit so much of an arc in what little time it has. And
| getting people to sit through it requires being a bit
| click-baity. And everything was obviously staged, and a lot
| of times it seemed like...
|
| Okay, so when I was a kid, we made stupid videos too. But
| we never expected anyone to watch them. And they were often
| 5-10 minutes long in the end.
|
| On TikTok you can tell that the priority of being filmed is
| to be seen. They aren't just having fun. It's like TV, and
| weirds me out.
| uxcolumbo wrote:
| Off topic: To me they seem to focus on quantity over quality.
| Can you recommend some of that quality content? I always quit
| after browsing their catalogue for 20 minutes or so.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| i do not understand snapchat and their business model. they
| started out as a sexting app that deletes the photos and that
| is where it remained for a long time. i remember news of how
| "deleted snapchat photos can be undeleted" tutorials and i
| tried to investigate for fun but i could not understand the UI
| back then and the tutorials didnt work so i dropped it.
| Apparently its pretty big these days in the kids and they have
| "streaks" as you mention. i hear multiple hundred thousand
| streaks and other things but to what end?
|
| how is snapchat justifying the storage, bandwidth and
| processing of data? i mean facebook has ads which they earn,
| same for twitter but what about snapchat? do they have a
| sustainable revenue stream because no where i heard snapchat
| had a paid option.
|
| reddit was user funded for a long time with daily goals and all
| that so that was not an issue mostly but what snapchat done to
| address that.
|
| snapchat is all the rage in my city, kids who are now on online
| classes send snaps because i hear about it. everyone knows how
| to make that twistface pout or whatever but why? genuinely
| curious about it
| ladon86 wrote:
| $2.5bn revenue last year.
|
| You've heard of streaks (which were a very early feature),
| and you've probably heard of Stories too, right? Video ads
| appear in between Stories video rolls.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| uhh.. does pihole have something for it?
| cosmie wrote:
| > i do not understand snapchat and their business model.
|
| Ads[1]. Initially it was just promotional lenses/filters and
| required a high touch process and substantial media spend
| commitment. But looking at that site, they now have a full on
| self-service ad platform with minimal spend commitment,
| helper software to make lenses/filters, and have added
| several other ad formats beyond that one.
|
| So they've essentially monetized the same way as every other
| "free" platform has - capitalize on all the eyeballs they
| have to siphon off a cut of marketing dollars for themselves.
|
| [1] https://forbusiness.snapchat.com/
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| cool. i did not know that
| beerandt wrote:
| Netflix has somehow conditioned me to expect disappointment in
| movies with interesting looking cover art, which I now actively
| ignore, and don't even click through for descriptions anymore.
|
| "Huh, that looks interesting. Not falling for that old trick
| again! What's that half-off-screen ambiguous cover on the next
| row down?"
| dangus wrote:
| Unfortunately it probably works because the business model
| depends on people forgetting about their subscription, e.g.,
| Planet Fitness.
|
| If you have a nice experience for a week or two and the price
| is low enough you'll probably never watch Netflix (e.g., ME)
| and keep on paying for it.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > The data/engineering/product loops at tech companies favor
| boosting short-term metrics
|
| I think this hits the nail on the head. Leadership is hard, and
| executives can be many layers removed from the frontline. It
| seems that A/B tests and family have proven a really effective
| vehicle to communicate across leadership levels what has
| happened, why it happened, and the impact it had on the
| business. I'm definitely guilty as charged of having
| participated in this "pyramid scheme".
|
| Teams get a tool to structure work and determine success/fail.
| Managers get a tool to detail exact impact to leadership on how
| they're solving business problems. Executives get a tool
| showing how teams are being deployed on thoughtful projects
| with an iterative and rigorous scientific approach that helps
| increase confidence around deploying capital. The board gets
| some slides during the quarterly meeting and maybe might even
| see some charts showing growth and less cash burn.
|
| Eventually over longer periods like a year, executives will
| notice different trends than what the short-term numbers are
| showing and will have to make real hard decisions about how to
| steer the ship.
|
| It's a hell of a hamster wheel.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Early in his term, Trump flirted with the idea of changing
| quarterly earnings reports to be biannual. I wonder how much
| that would have shook up corporate culture.
| kbelder wrote:
| Kind of a pity his term went in such... surreal directions,
| because I think he probably could have had some interesting
| ideas in areas like corporate governance. He had a mix of
| insider experience and a populist platform.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| How might a streaming service be designed to increase user
| happiness and wellbeing?
|
| From a positive design perspective, could certain streaming
| features give users a greater sense of purpose or goal
| accomplishment (e.g., mastering a genre) or help users
| meaningfully connect to others (e.g., seeing what friends
| have recommended lately)?
|
| While measuring the effects of a feature on wellbeing
| outcomes is substantially harder than measuring the effects
| of a feature on engagement (time spent), it is worth
| measuring/optimizing in the long run. The hypothesis is that
| capitalist enterprises that make their users feel happier and
| more fulfilled will, in the end, be more successful than
| enterprises that merely provide empty satisfaction. If not,
| the future could be very bleak.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > designed to increase user happiness and wellbeing?
|
| I have complicated feelings about the roles of business in
| our lives. I'm not entirely certain that's a metric I'm
| concerned with them optimizing on, nor do I believe we can
| even remotely quantifiably capture it in any meaningful
| with with human-computer interactions.
| RobRivera wrote:
| zero complications for me. businesses are built to
| generate profit at the customers' expense.
|
| Decoupling your life from businesses will generally
| provide you with more agency.
|
| Smartphones are a business boom because it integrated
| commerce into your psyche.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Complicated feelings are warranted. But is it better for
| massive companies to ignore human wellbeing?
|
| We know that algorithmically optimized digital services
| can negatively effect wellbeing. We also know that
| management responds to metrics. I'm proposing that
| wellbeing metrics (namely, the self-reported effects of
| services on aspects of wellbeing) should be periodically
| gathered through surveys. Surely this takes effort, but
| if we only optimize what is easy to measure (time spent),
| this will continue to produce negative unintended
| consequences.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| How do we even begin to define wellbeing? How do you
| measure it, and do so at scale with statistical
| confidence? How do you finance it? How do you moderate
| and govern it? Who does it benefit besides the industries
| that spring up to support it? I don't think "wellbeing"
| is concrete enough an idea like business metrics to
| meaningful act upon in private organizations. Sort of a
| "road to hell paved in good intentions" concern.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Here's how the OECD does it at a country-level. A couple
| decades ago this probably seemed too hard. Then, it turns
| out it's not that hard to operationalize wellbeing and
| measure it at scale with statistical confidence. It isn't
| perfect -- the science advances -- and that's good.
|
| https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/
|
| Companies already invest heavily in the assessment and
| optimization of employee wellbeing. This is a major
| industry in HR now, especially during covid. Is it really
| such a far stretch that a Facebook or Netflix should
| regularly gather metrics from a subset of customers to
| understand how their products affect user wellbeing?
| colechristensen wrote:
| Quality often escapes measurement. The naive overreliance
| on finding a number to optimize is an enemy of quality, and
| is all over the place, and can be boiled down to people
| being driven by somebody's need to make a nice powerpoint
| slide.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I generally agree. Finding numbers to measure quality
| almost never helps composers or cooks, but it almost
| always helps organizations. Why? Quality oddly lends
| itself to quantification. Rotten Tomatoes and Amazon
| stars don't always work, but i find they work shockingly
| well. I'm not going to naively defend the benefits of
| quality measurement, but i do advocate for the importance
| of continuously improving quality measurement systems.
| And key to this, imo, is making sure we take the effort
| to measure the values we actually want to enhance.
| ansgri wrote:
| Misread 'overreliance' as 'orwelliance', what a suitable
| neologism for such topics!
| verve_rat wrote:
| Maybe... make good shows?
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Totally. But what's the metric for good? If it is the
| average time spent watching or most likely to be chosen
| out of a slate of options, then we get the current
| problem.
| yakubin wrote:
| _> How might a streaming service be designed to increase
| user happiness and wellbeing?_
|
| Yesterday I worked longer, because we had a critical bug at
| an unfortunate moment. At some point my brain stopped
| working and I couldn't make progress. So I stopped work for
| the day, solved some solitaire, mindlessly played some
| chess, and watched a couple episodes of anime on Netflix.
| After that my brain unblocked itself and the world stopped
| spinning around me. I wouldn't be able to read a book in
| this state, or anything requiring any thought or much
| energy[1]. Doing completely mindless things is sometimes
| beneficial for you.
|
| [1]: You might laugh, but you can absolutely play chess on
| autopilot without any thought and still win with people.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| I don't think anyone is saying that mindlessness should
| be banned or completely removed from a platform. But that
| it should not be pushed so heavily that it is edging out
| any kind of deeper engagement, or just non engagement.
|
| All these services are competing for human attention,
| which there is only a finite amount. I think it is pretty
| obvious that this has resulted in more mindlessness,
| where apps are trying to fill every sliver of open
| attention with the most easily digestible little piece of
| data (a 10 second meme, a couple of comments, a 30 sec
| friend snap). Combined with apps and services trying to
| _take your attention_ from other things through strategic
| notifications, this is the opposite of long term
| wellbeing.
|
| Attention and focus for long periods of time is a skill.
| Delayed gratification is a skill. Both of those are
| needed for long term growth, developing other skills, and
| doing activities that are fulfilling but not immediately
| gratifying. Being surrounded by things that constantly
| and perniciously attempt to carve up your attention and
| provide instant gratification is detrimental to those
| skills.
| [deleted]
| kqr wrote:
| > How might a streaming service be designed to increase
| user happiness and wellbeing?
|
| The rational part of my brain would like
|
| - Suggestions for difficult content (this tends to be
| things you either love or hate, which is why Netflix does
| not suggest it, preferring safe bets);
|
| - Making it impossible to binge on one, or a small set, of
| things, instead forcing diversification;
|
| - Encourage spending short amounts of time -- e.g. by
| automatically breaking up movies into episodes, not
| autoplaying the next episode, disincentivising stupid
| cliffhangers, etc.
|
| I realise many of these things are actively user hostile
| and a service implementing them would be dumped in favour
| of the alternatives faster than they have time to rollback
| the commit. Including by myself, when I just want a low-
| effort way to pass the time with my wife until it's
| socially acceptable to go to bed.
|
| And that's sort of, I guess, the point. In order to
| increase user well being, a service like this probably has
| to encourage the user to spend less time with it. But
| that's not a business model that generates any money.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| I don't think it has to be actively hostile. I think
| being almost neutral would go a long way.
|
| -No autoplay and bringing you back to the main menu at
| the end of content would give your brain a chance to
| actively decide if you want to continue or do something
| else.
|
| -No notifications or pushes to get you back on the
| service. So many services try very hard to take up space
| in your mind while you aren't using them, in order to get
| you back on the platform.
|
| -Suggestions allow for diversification as well as deeper
| understanding. This might be suggesting documentaries
| related to fictional subjects you are watching,
| critically acclaimed content in your preferred genres, or
| expert analysis and contextualization of content that
| allows for better understanding of cinematography or
| cultural influences on a piece of media.
|
| -Low effort and binge content is shuffled out of
| immediate sight and flashy attention grabbing ways of
| displaying content in general is stopped.
|
| Now you are more of a passive participant, where you keep
| getting notifications until you open the app, then are
| bombarded with easily digestible, low effort content that
| actively plays itself, and discourages anything that
| requires delayed gratification or long term focus. These
| things would shift the way you interact to an active
| participant, where you decide to engage the app without
| prompt, and look for something you want to engage with,
| or don't and easily leave to do something else.
|
| This really only works if every other app and service
| isn't constantly battling to fill every sliver of open
| attention with the most easily digestible little piece of
| data (a 10 second meme, a couple of comments, a 30 sec
| friend snap) and to drag your attention back from other
| things through strategic notifications, gamification, and
| feelings of social obligation (did you wish kqr happy
| birthday? click here to write on his wall).
|
| Attention and focus for long periods of time is a skill.
| Delayed gratification is a skill. Both of those are
| needed for long term growth, developing new skills,
| maintaining other skills, and doing activities that are
| fulfilling but not immediately gratifying. Being
| surrounded by things that constantly and perniciously
| attempt to carve up your attention and provide instant
| gratification is detrimental to those skills. I want my
| digital environment to help improve those skills, or at
| least not be actively harmful to them. In the same way we
| have spent the last 15 years and petabytes of data,
| optimizing algorithms to increase engagement by any
| means, we could use that data and AI to start optimizing
| for sleep quality, mental health, goal attainment,
| financial stability, physical health, minimization of
| insecurity, etc. If Amazon can predict when women are
| pregnant before they know, I'm sure we could optimize for
| these.
|
| > In order to increase user well being, a service like
| this probably has to encourage the user to spend less
| time with it. But that's not a business model that
| generates any money.
|
| That is really the fatal crux of a digital environment
| funded largely through ads. The user will always be the
| product and will be manipulated to benefit the customer,
| regardless of the effect on the user.
| muffinman26 wrote:
| The last two suggestions are interesting to me because
| it's exactly the opposite of what I think I need for my
| long-term well-being. Over the past few years it feels
| like watching too many clips and reading too many short
| articles has caused my attention span to drastically
| decrease, to the point where I rarely have the patience
| for a normal length movie. Breaking movies into episodes
| or forcing me to watch more different types of content
| without finishing any of them would make this even worse.
|
| I think a better way to limit mindless engagement would
| be the ability to pre-set and lock in which content I'm
| going to watch for the day. So maybe I lock in that I
| want to watch a movie or 3 episodes of show X, and then
| Netflix shuts down for the day afterwards. Maybe it could
| even warn that episode 3 is the first part of a two-
| parter and suggest I stick to two episodes for the day.
| thomasahle wrote:
| > I just want a low-effort way to pass the time with my
| wife until it's socially acceptable to go to bed.
|
| Is it really social pressure that prevents you from going
| to bed earlier?
| nonameiguess wrote:
| The answer is at the very bottom of the article and maybe
| Netflix is already doing it. It mentioned a producer was
| told his show was renewed not based on the "how many people
| viewed for at least two minutes" metric that gets reported
| to ratings publishers, but based on how many people
| actually watched the entire season.
|
| It isn't this trivial for all media, but I think "watched
| the entire thing" is a very obvious metric to optimize for
| when recommending and promoting films and series.
| anon9001 wrote:
| > I can only fill up so much time with garbage like that before
| I'm bored.
|
| Don't sell yourself short! You're surrounded by tons of people
| that never get their fill of content. Just relax and let it
| happen ;)
| bertil wrote:
| I've worked on similar experiments (starting about Stories) and
| we included long-term holdout experiment to measure the
| compounded impact of sharing. The fear at the time was more
| about professional content (with millions of views) vs. your
| friends. The worry was because people engaged more with the
| former but posted more if they saw the later.
|
| I left before conclusions were drawn, but (according to press
| reports) those experiments changed the goals to more leading
| indicator of long-term trend, like posting rather than Likes. I
| joined again more recently and expected to see that it
| influenced the company.
|
| I'm not working there at the moment.
| roystonvassey wrote:
| Interesting insights.
|
| Online Analytics is now really nuanced - you need to know what
| metrics are important for * your * business, not just use
| boilerplate kpis.
|
| For instance, an e-commerce website is clearly looking to lead
| the user to a lot purchase and the more they purchase, it's
| good for the business so kpis around sales conversion help and
| recommenders help your business increase sales.
|
| For Netflix though, the users have already paid for the service
| _after_ which they land on the website. Most users I imagine
| then expect to be provided all that Netflix has to offer in an
| easy way. So if I was a Netflix product owner, I'd be more
| interested in Kpis around search-ability, having an anti
| algorithm that "suggests" completely random obscure shows,
| "switchability" of users - how less of a time do users spend on
| a movie or show.
|
| I imagine they're doing this but as a user I don't see this at
| least - they show the same old stale recommendations for me,
| I'm always trying to hack their search to find what I want and
| they continue to invest in content that's mostly miss than hit.
| I wish they at least had a directory for me to browse through
| (at least I'll be driving their engagement metrics to help them
| drive their valuations)
| kofejnik wrote:
| They don't want you to watch obscure shows, they want you to
| watch the top ones (in your region!) as they are preloaded
| into your cdn already.
| roystonvassey wrote:
| Right - but why would they assume I want to watch the "top"
| show? I've already paid for it and they benefit by having
| me browse and allowing myself to find that I like right?
| And what I like is not necessarily what they think others
| might me like - what one watches is highly variable (can
| change day to day, even time of the day) and influenced by
| so many factors that are personal.
| pnut wrote:
| Netflix is now a major player in the entertainment
| business, and I would guess there is a pay-to-play
| element behind the scenes as well as ROI on new
| productions, forcing them to jam these options down our
| throats.
|
| User viewing preferences seem to be a secondary
| consideration.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > a pay-to-play element
|
| I wonder about that too. Of course, the Netflix in-house
| productions will be getting extra promotion; but setting
| those aside, I fail to understand why Netflix promotes
| (e.g.) romcoms to me; I don't watch romcoms. I've never
| given Netflix any signal that I favour romcoms.
|
| I can only suppose that some motivation other than giving
| subscribers what they want must be at the root of it.
| vasco wrote:
| They don't seem to have fallen off, are still the most widely
| used platforms in the world with billions of users in total. It
| is popular to think that A/B testing leaves you in local
| maxima, but what about alternatives? The only thing I've seen
| work is something like Pixar's brain trust - you do testing but
| you also rely on the good judgement of a small group of people
| with a strong sense of vision. Judging good judgement is pretty
| hard though, and you won't know if they're just full of it or
| winging it unless you try and trust. And so everyone does A/B
| testing which to be honest sounds much better than your average
| PM making decisions that are pulled out of their ass.
| fisf wrote:
| The problem is not only that it could be a local Maxima. It
| might also measure the wrong metric all together.
|
| Is the platform widely used and the business successful
| because content makes users happy and improves their lives?
|
| Or is engagement high, because users have become accustomed
| to whatever a company is feeding them and look for something
| shallow to fill up their time.
|
| If you _only_ measure engagement as metric, without any
| deeper reflection and judgment, then heroin is a perfect
| product in terms of A /B testing.
| [deleted]
| piva00 wrote:
| > It is popular to think that A/B testing leaves you in local
| maxima, but what about alternatives?
|
| The alternative involves creativity to create a vision to
| achieve. A/B testing are pretty good tools to evaluate
| differing opinions on some vision, as the only deciding tool
| for what is worth to keep or not it's pretty short-sighted.
|
| Is it really that much better? I lived through the rise of
| A/B testing, professionally I've been responsible for
| implementing platforms for experimentation in at least 5
| different companies and over the years I saw it transition
| from a tool to a crutch. Everything now is "data-based" which
| means incessant A/B testing, it still depends on your average
| PM deciding the parameters of the experiment, leading to the
| current state of affairs: a bunch of uninspired features that
| are solely judged on the data produced, no soul, no vision
| behind most of it.
|
| And it feels exactly like that, I can feel how tech products
| just became that, an incessant stream of features being
| tested, implemented or tossed.
|
| I'd much rather have data-supported intuition than this
| statistical machine in motion.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > It is popular to think that A/B testing leaves you in local
| maxima, but what about alternatives?
|
| I mean, if corporate leadership isn't able to better direct
| the path of a product than the results of A/B tests, what
| value do they really have?
| omniscient_oce wrote:
| Spotify's UI feels like it has succumbed to this.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I recently got a _very_ gracious trial period for Youtube
| Music Premium, so I 'm giving it a shot. It's UI is what
| Spotify _used_ to be, before they crippled it nearly
| completely for my use cases. I 'm seriously considering
| switching because of this. I'm just hoping that YT Music can
| replicate Spotify's one killer feature - Spotify Connect -
| before my trial is over.
| city41 wrote:
| I really like Amazon Music. The interface is simple and not
| gimmicky. Just search for music and play it.
| criddell wrote:
| Definitely has. I remember when podcasts first showed up.
| Spotify isn't my podcast player so that is pretty much
| useless to me. I looked through the options for how to hide
| podcasts and couldn't find anything. I wish I could at least
| move the podcasts section to the bottom of the page.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| As another former Facebook employee, I mostly agree with this.
|
| One nitpick is that although you may have not looked at the
| holdouts often, somebody definitely did. Different teams use
| their holdouts differently, but leadership probably looked at
| your holdouts at least a few times per quarter. And now with
| recent infra and changes, it's very likely that data scientists
| or product managers somewhere in your org are responsible for
| explaining results to higher ups at least quarterly.
|
| All that is to say, the cause isn't that Facebook (and Netflix)
| aren't thinking about or monitoring things in the long term.
| It's that they are measuring the wrong things, because it's
| very hard to measure things like "this is clickbait".
| m12k wrote:
| Humans are instinctively drawn to a lot of things that are
| really bad for us in significant amounts, because we are
| designed to fit into an environment where those things are
| scarce. Sugar, fat, inactivity, "interesting news", outrage.
| These all steal our attention because that response helped our
| ancestors survive and pick out these rare but important treats.
| But in typical human fashion we've now crafted a world that
| gives us these things all the time, and it's making us sick and
| miserable as a result.
|
| "But we're just giving the people what they want" some might
| say. Well, depends on the definition of "want". In a taste
| test, junk food would win over broccoli for me, hands down -
| but it's broccoli that ends up on my table more often than not,
| because it's what makes me happier and healthier in the long
| run. It wasn't until my thirties before I realized just how
| sluggish I got after eating junk food. But if Facebook was
| running our diets, their algorithm would long since have
| "optimized" its way to junk food for all of us.
|
| Sometimes the worst thing you can do is give people exactly
| what they ask for. Being healthy in a world like the one we've
| created requires much, much more restraint and self-discipline
| than it used to. "The algorithm" is basically the digital
| incarnation of the little devil on our shoulder whispering that
| we should treat ourselves.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| Isn't that more because of what they are optimizing for than
| the fact that they are optimizing? To continue the food
| analogy engagement is blood sugar levels and they are seeing
| how high they can crank it. If they optimized for "happier
| and healthier in the long run" then they would probably loose
| short term engagement spikes, but have fewer people quitting
| for health reasons. Basically they could be broccoli if they
| wanted to be but they choose to be soda.
| valyagolev wrote:
| all-broccoli diet is no good either. so it's the
| optimization itself, yes
|
| for a balanced diet, we have to make our own choices, based
| on our particular, local situation, and not rely on any
| generalised algorithm. which is very unpleasant. i wish
| there could be a Facebook telling me what i actually should
| know! alas, it's always going to be on me to choose
| zug_zug wrote:
| Well with food there are readily available numbers that
| approximate the long-term-effect of food (e.g. saturated
| fat, preservatives, vitamins, glycemic index). Does a
| company really have a way to quantify the emotional impact
| on its users of a code change? And if it did, would they
| optimize for that or focus on profit margin?
| m12k wrote:
| Well, yes, they could certainly try. But "happier and
| healthier in the long run" is much harder for them to
| measure than "has responded to instant gratification". It's
| much harder to A/B test effectively at longer time scales
| and make the ML model reinforce the right things.
|
| But also, "healthier" might involve creating less
| engagement "content" for them to feed to others, lowering
| the network effects of the whole platform. And if they
| successfully go that route, they open a flank to anyone
| willing to just keep spiking blood sugar as much as
| possible (TikTok?). There's a reason McDonalds are still
| selling Big Macs, and it's not that they don't know what
| healthy nutrition looks like.
| 1_2__5 wrote:
| I work in SRE where a pretty common expression is "what
| gets measured gets fixed". I used to take that as at
| least mildly inspirational, and to mean that more and
| better monitoring leads to more things being fixed. And
| to some extent that's true.
|
| In recent years though I've come to see the downsides of
| that mantra as outweighing the good of it. Because some
| things are either extraordinarily difficult or expensive
| to measure, or because understanding what the measurement
| is demonstrating is beyond the intellectual reach or
| experience of many people. By the latter sentiment I
| mean, it's not enough to just show a number or a graph,
| it has to be interpreted, and for some things that
| interpretation is very challenging if you're not a (or
| the) expert in that system.
|
| As a result, it's more like "easy to measure and
| understand things get fixed, everything else gets
| ignored". It disdains or glosses over the idea that maybe
| a person or team's subjective opinion about what's
| important to fix carries any weight at all, because if it
| was really so important, surely they'd be able to
| demonstrate that in a form that someone (possibly
| willfully) ignorant of the system can understand.
|
| I see the same forces at work here, in marketing and a/b
| testing. The simple to understand metrics are what are
| optimized, while the more complicated ones get ignored or
| drowned out. The longer term benefits are hard to
| measure, and more importantly, hard to understand and
| interpret.
| TheMightyLlama wrote:
| The problem here is that if there was one single company
| that wanted to exit the standard approach and create less
| engaging content they would be more likely to fail.
|
| The companies that are creating content which optimises
| to the most engaging content will drown out the one
| "healthy" one.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| While it is harder, it isn't impossible. They have done
| QOL studies to find out what kind of posts make people
| feel depressed and what not.
|
| Totally agree with that second paragraph though. Leaving
| openings for competitors is how you get killed by
| competitors. Not sure where the line between compelling
| but not evilly so is.
| wepple wrote:
| > But if Facebook was running our diets, their algorithm
| would long since have "optimized" its way to junk food for
| all of us.
|
| I really, really like this comparison.
|
| If we fed our bodies in the same way we let tech company
| algorithms feed our minds, we'd have three Big Macs for
| breakfast washed down with a shot of whiskey and a couple
| lines of cocaine
| uCantCauseUCant wrote:
| Traditional american breakfast..
| zepto wrote:
| The traditional American breakfast is great if you need
| carbs to do manual labor.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| When I read that, I kind of thought "hasn't that already
| happened"? The most enduring symbol of American capitalism
| is caffeinated sugar water. Our athletics competitions are
| sponsored by fast food conpanies.
|
| We live in an obesogenic environment. Yeah, people with
| reserves of health, wealth and wisdom can buck the trends
| by applying time and energy to fighting against the tide
| but if the average person is falling for this stuff, the
| battle's already lost as the insanity becomes normal.
| brundolf wrote:
| I feel like on the nutritional side there's been a (not
| total, but significant) reversal over the last decade.
| Some of that gets eaten up by marketing (food that isn't
| any healthier gets packaged in muted shades of green and
| brown to make it appear more grounded and wholesome), but
| some of it is real (I no longer know a single person who
| drinks soda on a regular basis).
|
| Maybe in another decade or two we'll see a similar shift
| in the digital space.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| That might also be a factor of where you're living at.
| brundolf wrote:
| I don't think that's the whole story. Even national
| brands like McDonalds have subtly changed their packaging
| to feel less artificial and more "earthy", for lack of a
| better term, even if the product itself hasn't changed.
| There's an awareness of a cultural shift.
|
| I would guess that processed/high-sugar foods today are
| where cigarettes were in the 90s. Everybody knows and
| accepts how bad they are, many people have changed their
| habits accordingly, many people haven't.
|
| Digital media on the other hand is more like where
| cigarettes were in the 70s. Most people know roughly that
| they're bad for you, but few do anything about it.
| missedthecue wrote:
| It's not because there is a shortage of healthy
| alternatives. It's because people are free to choose.
| troyvit wrote:
| Yeah people are free to choose but to go full circle many
| of us let ourselves be manipulated by advertising[0] and
| dark patterns[1] to make unhealthy choices. That's why
| USA is so obese.
|
| When I look at countries like Japan I don't see a limit
| in food choices, but I see a lot more healthy people.
|
| [0] https://theconversation.com/how-marketers-condition-
| us-to-bu... [1] https://cspinet.org/protecting-our-
| health/nutrition/unhealth...
| simplify wrote:
| I might argue someone is not "free to choose" if they
| haven't been taught how to spot dark patterns in rhetoric
| and advertising.
| missedthecue wrote:
| I don't think people completely lose their agency just
| because they saw a Coca Cola billboard.
| simplify wrote:
| Sure, but I didn't say they completely lose their agency.
| mojuba wrote:
| Very well put!
|
| I have another related theory that goes: _Over time,
| everything converges into mediocrity_. By everything I mean
| products sold to us, entertainment, media, the Internet
| itself. Look at the car designs of the 1970s and now. Look at
| cinematography then and now. As soon as marketing steps in
| and start telling otherwise innovative companies or artists
| how to sell, things begin slowly converging into mediocrity.
|
| The semi-formal proof is that because the humanity as a whole
| is mediocre almost by definition, hence if you want to expand
| your markets (the ice-cream saleman's problem) you'd grab the
| middle of the bell curve first: it's where the bigger part of
| the market is!
|
| I don't know if it makes sense, just something I've been
| thinking about a lot lately.
| bjt wrote:
| I agree with the sentiment that designing a product for
| mainstream appeal can make it seem bland, but I don't think
| that goes all the way to "Over time, everything converges
| into mediocrity."
|
| There are so many things today that are better than in
| decades past. Computers are unbelievably faster. Electric
| guitars are much more consistently high quality. Cars don't
| break down as often.
|
| Maybe the problem is that the word "mediocrity" is too big.
| It encompasses both quality (which I think is mostly
| improving) and uniqueness vs blandness.
| mojuba wrote:
| Is the quality really improving though? People complain
| about how washing machines and other appliances last
| shorter these days, so that you buy/upgrade more often.
|
| As for cars, a lot of the times they look so similar that
| you can't tell the brand at a distance. They were
| certainly more distinguishable decades ago. Today it's
| also the high-end mobile phones - they all look like the
| iPhone, which isn't bad per se, but if you can't innovate
| (or don't want to) that's mediocrity.
| mlac wrote:
| I was driving to work (a foreign experience) and Joe Walsh
| was singing about a Maserati. And it made me thing "man, if
| you grew up in middle America, hearing about a Maserati,
| you might not even know what it was, let alone that it
| existed". Now you can hit Google and see millions of
| pictures, join the fan club, watch hours of videos and
| reviews, and become an arm chair Maserati expert. Which is
| cool, but if sort of takes away the mystique behind things.
| You wouldn't even know how it was spelled unless you had
| the album itself and the artist included lyrics.
|
| Similarly with guitar, it would have been almost impossible
| to figure out what type of pedal someone was using to get
| "that sound" without interacting with other humans in
| person. And I think that served as a filter for people who
| cared and also led to interesting introductions and local
| experts (music shops and store owners, etc).
|
| I think that's what we lose. And while I think converging
| to average makes sense, I think peoples tastes have shifted
| to quality in more areas, because they can quickly google
| and see what the best looks like. And most people will use
| debt to get there.
| mereck wrote:
| Thank you for sharing. These are good examples of Albert
| Borgmann's focal things and the device paradigm.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_paradigm
| soylentcola wrote:
| I can identify with the guitar example. I started
| learning to play in high school, right before internet
| access became common for average folks in the US (I knew
| some kids who had CompuServe at home and I was aware of
| some BBSes, but nothing like today).
|
| I remember going to the music store where they had a room
| with sound dampening and a giant pedal board hooked up to
| an amp. Some friends and I would head over after school,
| guitars in gig bags, and plug in to "try out the pedals".
| I'm sure the staff loved us since we couldn't really
| afford to buy them ever. But we got to hear what they all
| did.
|
| Other times I'd think I invented something, only to
| realize it had already been done. I had this little
| headphone-amp that ran off a 9V battery and plugged into
| the 1/4" jack on your guitar. It was great to play loud
| (through headphones) and not annoy my family.
|
| But one time, I had some old broken headphones plugged
| into it and found that I could wedge the driver in the
| corner of my mouth, play distorted guitar through it, and
| shape the sounds with my mouth. Do it in front of a mic
| and whoa! How cool is this??
|
| Later on I learned talkboxes were already a thing. Do you
| feel like I do, indeed.
| jerf wrote:
| One of the cognitive hacks I suggest running on yourself
| is when you create something, then later discover that it
| is in fact something already well known, rather than
| being disappointed that you didn't invent something new,
| take it as _validation_ that you were on the right track
| instead.
| protomyth wrote:
| _"man, if you grew up in middle America, hearing about a
| Maserati, you might not even know what it was, let alone
| that it existed"_
|
| I assure you that even a rural kid like me knew what a
| Maserati was. We had movies, TV, and car magazines.
| People's assumptions about information delivery pre-
| internet are horribly warped.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Kids actually read Car & Driver or Guitar World cover to
| cover!
| mojuba wrote:
| > I think peoples tastes have shifted to quality in more
| areas,
|
| I'm genuinely curious if there's any data or research to
| support this. Because in my view the tastes remain more
| or less the same, just the information noise around us is
| now bigger.
| mrVentures wrote:
| More people believe the earth is flat now than did 100
| years ago. That's an impact.
| howaboutnope wrote:
| > Sometimes the worst thing you can do is give people exactly
| what they ask for.
|
| Alan Moore said this in the context of poetry, but with the
| caveat that everybody is sometimes part of "the" audience,
| and that every fully fledged human adult should sometimes be
| "the" artist, I think he has a hugely important point:
|
| > It's not the job of the artist to give the audience what
| the audience wants. If the audience knew what they needed,
| then they wouldn't be the audience. They would be the
| artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what
| they need.
| agent008t wrote:
| I agree with you, particularly when it comes to information
| consumption. On-demand services are bad enough; cleverly
| optimized services that push content are even worse.
|
| But in some ways, if you hang out in the right circles, being
| healthy is a lot easier today. Alcohol consumption seems to
| be down, people exercise a lot more, being out of shape in
| your 30s is not seen as 'the norm'. So it is probably easier
| psychologically to go for a jog now when parks are full of
| joggers than to do it in 1950s when people would think a
| 30-something person out for a jog is a bit strange.
|
| In this way, healthy fads can actually be very positive. I
| find it very likely that in the near future a culture will
| emerge that tries to minimize the use of technology and
| information hygiene becomes a part of 'normal' life.
| Fiahil wrote:
| I think you can maintain the feedback loop without degrading
| the user experience if you actually ask them what they want to
| be shown.
|
| The problem lies in that "engagement" definition : if the user
| clicked on a thumb, then they must have been attracted to it.
| In reality, there is considerably more explanation for that
| click : They could be looking for a specific title, mistakenly
| thought _this_ actor was playing in the movie, clicked on it to
| reset the search, wondered if this was a show or a film,
| missclicked, just picked the least annoying in an ocean of
| shitty propositions... An algorithm alone can never find its
| way for better suggestions if it lacks _intent_. The outcome of
| this lack of data and the lack of data scientists' imagination,
| will always be stuck in a local minima.
|
| So, what solution do you have to gather this precious intent
| and act on it ? Well, you start small on predictable things :
| "what would you recommend to Agatha if they liked _Expendables_
| ?" "Is _RED_ a good addition to the list if I'm looking for
| Action/Comedy films ?"
|
| And later "Are you looking for Action/Comedy films ? here is
| some proposals"
|
| It works the same for different approaches, for picking
| thumbnails, or promoting movies. Just ask user for what's
| motivate them. If Netflix had asked me last week, I would have
| told them their catalog is getting worse and worse so we prefer
| using disney+ instead.
| notafraudster wrote:
| The idea is that these kinds of sources of error will be
| noise, since they should be random with respect to
| experimental assignment in any kind of A/B test. In a small
| sample you could imagine chance imbalances, but given that
| I'm experimentally assigning someone to see either a
| thumbnail of John Krasinski or Steve Carell, it's unclear why
| the "I misclicked" scenario is going to have a higher rate in
| one rather than the other. And experiments at large companies
| like Netflix are almost infinitely powered.
|
| I would think a bigger threat to this approach would be being
| stuck in a local maxima.
| qwertox wrote:
| > i.e. a newsfeed algorithm that had better engagement.
|
| Sometimes (but rarely) I click on something because I ask
| myself "Why would these a---- show me this? I want to know more
| about what's behind it in order to understand what could have
| made their algorithm chose me as a candidate for this content".
| Or to check where the scam-URL would lead me to, because this
| also happens, that ads sold on Google and Facebook are scams,
| links leading to malware.
|
| Congratulations to them, if they think that this is the kind of
| engagement which should be valued, that any kind of engagement
| is a good and healthy engagement. These companies are so rotten
| and their engineers just don't care.
| bertil wrote:
| There were tools to help answer your question (predictably
| called "Why am I seeing this?" after the button copy). Those
| had so little engagement they were not worth maintaining.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> But behind the scenes some of us had this thought that our
| observations only amounted to short-term gains.
|
| I'm convinced this must be the case at Facebook. I used to love
| the newsfeed but it has steadily declined so much for me that I
| stopped using it. It used to highlight a wide variety of
| friends updates. Then, only starred "close friends" and now
| mostly junk news items. Amazing things happen for friends
| (weddings, births) and I dont hear about it (no they aren't
| blocking me, i've confirmed).
|
| I can to individually to each person's profile and see
| everything, but how realistic is that.
|
| I'm sure there was a short boost as people checked more and
| more to news that didn't appear. Now, you check five times, you
| get the same 30 newsfeed items over and over and then "you're
| all caught up".
|
| I can totally see the short term boost and long term decline
| with such a strategy.
| lukestevens wrote:
| Yes, I'd love to see a more robust approach to novelty decay
| rates (to make up a metric) in A/B testing, especially around
| engagement.
|
| You'd think that would be of interest to the business to know
| that X "successful" intervention had a typical average lifetime
| of Y before reverting to the mean, for example.
|
| Then again, there's the idea that competitive advantage for
| social networks is just finding enough novel interventions
| before the novelty of the platform itself is exhausted, and FB
| has no short supply of other platforms to milk in that regard.
| pdinny wrote:
| > The employees are incentivized to do so and this is what they
| measure, so this is what they build
|
| I also work in data teams and this is directly my observation
| too.
|
| Closely related are Conway's Law (you ship your org chart) and
| Goodhart's Law (commonly paraphrased as 'When a measure becomes
| a target, it ceases to be a good measure.')
|
| In Netflix's case I certainly feel the shipped product is too
| close of a reflection of org structure and incentives and user
| experience suffers as a result.
|
| This feels particularly evident in the treatment of thumbnails
| and title descriptions. Often I find myself clicking through on
| a thumbnail in order to read the description only to find that
| the I've already read the description and didn't want to watch
| that title, but the thumbnail has since changed.
|
| I'm sure there is some team in Netflix whose sole purpose is
| increasing thumbnail clickthrough rates. And they are probably
| succeeding in that respect by changing the thumbnails. They get
| to win at their portion of some funnel, even if the net result
| is a lousy user experience.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > and title descriptions
|
| To my mind, it's the title _descriptions_ that are the most
| clickbaity. I get the sense that Netflix are beding over
| backwards to ensure that you can 't form an impression of the
| flic from that description.
|
| I cancelled my Netflix subscription. Less and less of the
| titles are well-known 3rd-party productions; more and more
| are Netflix productions that I have found to be rather dull.
| Their ability to "divine my preferences" was never much good,
| but it's got worse.
|
| Of course, they don't really care about my preferences; what
| matters for Netflix is what they would prefer me to watch,
| apparently.
|
| Youtube's ability to discern my preferences also seems to
| have nosedived over the last year. I watched one programme
| about a certain WWII aircraft; YT then started pushing at me
| an unending diet of aircraft restoration docs and amateur
| historian channels.
| Vrondi wrote:
| Yes, Facebook is now almost useless. The only reason to be
| there is to keep track of friends and family, but it has gotten
| to the point where if a family member has a big life event, I'm
| hearing about it through traditional in-person or on-voice-call
| word of mouth _faster_ than through Facebook, because Facebook
| keeps deciding for me what it wants me to see.
|
| Netflix has kept trying to make it harder for me to find what I
| want for the last few years, and I use it less and less, and
| now pay for fewer accounts than in the past. They are in danger
| of losing customers, with their annoying
| mouseover/autoplay/clickbait interface.
| relativ575 wrote:
| > Yes, Facebook is now almost useless. T
|
| Not my experience. A contractor recently told me almost all
| of his business were driven by his company's FB page. I'm
| also aware of a few small businesses who do most of their
| business via FB connections. FB is well and alive in the
| mainstream, even if it skews toward more older group of
| people.
| dreamer7 wrote:
| What was the duration for which you collected results? Was it 2
| weeks or a month etc?
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Depends on the change and effect size, also on product.
| Typically somewhere between 1 week and 1 quarter. Almost
| always there is a backtest after shipping in which a small
| percent of users do not receive the change for 1-6 months (a
| "holdout")
| antiterra wrote:
| It seems even worse than that. During my stints in social
| media, there would be 'research projects' that were simply
| fishing expeditions for meaningful data. Something like: which
| user demographics have a correlation to behavior x. And then
| you'd just search and search and search and hope you found
| something. If you didn't find something, then you'd be
| encouraged by a team level manager to adjust or tweak some
| approach to take advantage of volatility to force the
| correlation. Maybe you shift the sample start date, maybe you
| skip a normalization dimension.
|
| The directors would ask about things like normalization and if
| things were measured over a ncertain time period, but if you
| had some excuse or answer prepared, it was enough to get a nod
| and some recognition for your presentation. Heck, sometimes
| your team manager would do the presentation on your behalf to
| lay claim to some of that precious impact.
|
| Then, after the new review cycle starts, priorities change and
| you never have to follow up on the holes in your data. Or, you
| can even admit it has holes, you already got credit.
| meowface wrote:
| >The Clickbaitification of Netflix
|
| >The same tricks that nearly destroyed online journalism now
| threaten to take over the streaming service.
|
| One of the current front page headlines on slate.com:
|
| >I've Been Telling a Lie to Trick Men Into Sex With Me. Is This
| Really So Bad?
| noisy_boy wrote:
| I think I know why Netflix keeps showing movies that we have
| already seen. There is just not enough high quality movies that
| we haven't already seen (speaking for avid movie watchers). So if
| they skip all the good ones that we have probably already seen,
| it'll be a sea of mediocre ones with an occasional unwatched gem.
| Then we will say Netflix has mostly B-grade junk. And they can't
| have that truth out in plain sight.
| Aissen wrote:
| Dan just outed himself as sensible to this kind of clickbait:
| indeed, the Netflix homepage is different for everyone. Try to
| have a look at your friends or partner's homepage, it's pretty
| interesting.
| jedberg wrote:
| FWIW, this isn't new. Netflix has been showing custom thumbnails
| for almost a decade now. If the author is getting nothing but
| scantily clad people, it's because they mostly click on
| thumbnails with scantily clad people.
| ggm wrote:
| If I search for "streetcar named desire" I want a finder which
| says "nope, but here's the other work by {Elia Kazan, Tenesee
| Williams, Marlon Brando, Carl Malden, Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter}
|
| Oddly, I don't want "here's the abortive experimental 1970s film
| shot in Russia by a drug crazed student also called "streetcar"
|
| But.. from Netflix's PoV, its equally likely I did want that
| because they know I watch e.g. Luis Bunel films
|
| So.. how can they know? Answer: they can't. They simply can't get
| my mood right, all the time. Sometimes, they will do well and
| guess. Sometimes, they do really badly.
|
| Another take: How many fans of the british "Office" wanted to be
| told to watch the American "Office" ?
| arcturus17 wrote:
| I do get a lot results that way on Netflix on failed
| searches... It doesn't present only lexically similar results
| ("streetcar") but thematically related films (classics, of the
| same era and related directors or cast)
|
| My main issue with Netflix is that where I live their movie
| catalog (esp. classics), is very short, seemingly in favor of
| Netflix's own produced "shovelware".
|
| Also, regarding a search for "the office", how would Netflix
| know not to recommend the US version if you're looking for the
| UK one and vice versa? That's such a specific nitpick...
| ggm wrote:
| There are a million nitpicks in the city, this is just one of
| them.
|
| Netflix and Amazon both have a strong interior belief this
| smart referral thing is good and who knows: A/B testing may
| even validate it. I just know that recommendations in books
| film and music creep me out, maybe it's an analogue of
| "uncanny valley" but being told "you may also like" kills the
| mood for me. Dammit, I want to like what I like, not what
| statistics thinks I may like.
|
| "The office" thing, yes, that's the whole point: ask me
| Tuesday and I might say yes. Ask me Monday and Sunday, I
| might cancel my subscription. I talk about this with a lot of
| people and book and film recommendations are toxic to
| friendship. You love STNG? Oh you would love Babylon 5 no,
| just no.
|
| And I don't think "I'm zany" or anything cute. I think this
| is a normal reaction and a common reaction. I bet Netflix has
| never asked "do we creep you out a bit snooping on what you
| watch and recommending things" that literally.
| arcturus17 wrote:
| I thought you were talking about search results and not
| algorithmic recommendations.
|
| I think most recommendations for video services is done
| through collaborative filtering and similar ML techniques,
| meaning you get recommended what other profiles similar to
| you have watched. It may be possible to infer a profile of
| "people who like the Office (UK) but will not like the
| Office (US)" but I imagine it may present challenges,
| especially if the intersection of people who like both is
| large.
| ggm wrote:
| > I thought you were talking about search results and not
| algorithmic recommendations.
|
| I don't personally see a distinction in irritation or
| creepiness here. They can't know I don't want
| experimental art streetcar or a modern remake. So I have
| to be a bit forgiving.
|
| Amazon do something more loathesome: they proffer "in the
| style of" before hits for the actual author.
| danjac wrote:
| It kind of works for me when I'm tired at the end of the day and
| I don't want to make choices. So yeah, I'll watch that Caitlyn
| Jenner documentary or whatever, fine.
|
| It feels harder to find stuff on Netflix when I'm actively
| looking for something decent, though.
| kryz wrote:
| Optimizing the monetization of attention to serve corporate
| objectives. Short term priorities for short term goals (quarterly
| earnings).
|
| The incentive structure is functioning properly, it's just the
| wrong one to build something enduring and truly great
| ricardobeat wrote:
| > users consider each title for a whopping 1.8 seconds
|
| Users are most likely not "considering" them at all. We're not
| machines going over one tile at a time and generating a score.
| Most of the time you're looking for something specific and just
| trying to find it.
|
| This type of metric is the worst. I really hope this data-driven
| fad dies down and we start designing with human factors in mind
| again.
| fumblebee wrote:
| I'm not certain what you mean by human factors, so correct me
| if I've misinterpreted.
|
| If by human factors you mean basic heuristics based on human
| intuition, that fails too. It might satisfy 50% of viewers but
| there's too much diversity in taste for this to be a good
| model.
|
| I'm not defending the metric as described, but there's
| obviously good data driven approaches and bad ones. The trick
| is to find a solid proxy for the business problem and to try to
| weed out any dark side effects by applying it.
| mdoms wrote:
| "Human factors" could include doing something as radical as
| observing how someone uses your product (no, not with a
| computer - just watch) and then - and this is the shocking
| part - speak to them. Ask them why they did that or what they
| liked and didn't like.
| fumblebee wrote:
| What fantasy world are you living in where you think
| Netflix and Facebook don't already do this? They constantly
| run paid interviews with people to source this information.
|
| The issue is many-fold: 1) formalising multiple half hour
| interviews into something you can A/B test is non-trivial,
| 2) given the logistics of these interviews the sample you
| end up with is small and therefore bias.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| I worked for the company running the most A/B tests in
| the industry for most of my career.
|
| Having a user testing session is relatively rare, saved
| for special one-off products/features. Actually having
| feedback from those sessions distilled into product
| feature proposals, and getting them into the product
| roadmap is even rarer.
|
| In the meantime, _hundreds_ of A /B tests based on
| metrics like these would have been ran and resulted in a
| permanent change to the product. It's just so much easier
| for everyone involved to trust "the data" vs something
| that requires nuanced interpretation.
| de_keyboard wrote:
| I never use Netflix for discovery because the median quality is
| so low.
| rchaud wrote:
| I dumped Netflix the second it became clear that they were
| pulling a bait-and-switch, replacing AAA content from major
| networks with their own material.
|
| Algorithm-driven content feeds simply do not work for me. I don't
| want to watch TV all day, nor do I have a genre that I watch to
| the exclusion of all others.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| It's interesting, because one of the earliest lessons I was
| taught in college was that greedy algorithms tend to lead to sub-
| optimal results.
|
| Is the problem that they're not teaching that in college anymore,
| or is it that the people in charge of these things are non-
| engineers who don't necessarily even know what a greedy algorithm
| is, let alone that the principle might apply to business
| practices and not just software implementations.
| hamburgerwah wrote:
| Hollywood, of which netflix used to stand alone but has now been
| completely assimilated, has ceased making anything of quality in
| favor of only making things based on the identity politics of the
| people involved. There hasn't been a good netflix original since
| orange is the new black and there probably will never be, at
| least for years to come.
| kindly_fo wrote:
| First of all netflix is good service.
|
| I don't like their ui. This is ridiculous to play trailer on
| thumbnail hover. I had almost headache first few min using their
| ui.
| dcow wrote:
| Here's what I don't understand (either about the premise of the
| article if incorrect or Netflix as a business if correct): _why_
| does Netflix need to drive proactive short-term engagement? They
| don't make money from ads. If I'm subscribed (I'm not anymore)
| then their business is accounted for. I'm subscribed because
| they're a better platform than TV and when I want to watch a show
| they have, I will. They're getting my money regardless and they
| aren't getting more if it the more I watch. Maybe they really
| feel pressure from other streaming platforms?
| kenjackson wrote:
| They do have pressure. But here's my theory:
|
| The big complaint they get about content is that there isn't
| anything that is appealing enough to get customers to start
| watching. Once people start watching a show they usually are
| pretty happy. But they spend 30 minutes trying to find a show.
| This is why they implemented the button to pick a show for you.
|
| In short, they want you to start something. They think you'll
| like most of the stuff they recommend to you. The worst case is
| you click nothing and then go to Hulu and browse there.
|
| Note: Every assertion I made is made up by me. Just my theory.
| potamic wrote:
| They don't want you to use other platforms at the same time.
| Because if you spend too much time outside and start liking
| them, you will be at risk of unsubscribing. Heaven forbid they
| need to compete on content quality to retain you. This will be
| much easier and cheaper.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| One day I realized that getting dragged into the bingebait series
| constantly thrown at me just made me depressed. After canceling
| the streaming services I feel I'm not missing any of it. Also I
| read more books now. Whatever makes you happy I guess..
| mdoms wrote:
| Netflix has become nearly unbearable. Just... give.... me...
| basic... filtering... and... sorting. Please. Simple stuff,
| solved problems.
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| Maybe a bit off topic but wanted to share: For anyone who wants
| to watch classic and top films from across the world, please
| check out The Criterion Channel[1]. Their collection has movies
| such as Solaris and other films from Andrei Tarkovsky etc.
|
| [1] https://www.criterionchannel.com
| Gunax wrote:
| I am not sure I understand what clickbait actually is. It seems
| to be a term a lot of people use, but in many different ways, and
| often in a 'I know it when I see it' sort of way.
|
| The author claims that basically any sexiness constitutes
| clickbait, that a hammer is clickbait, and wield is a gun is
| clickbait. I think only the last of those is plausible. Title
| images really give very little information, and usually suggest
| only what genre the film is.
|
| If Netflix is nefarious, why even put genre labels on? Afterall,
| wouldn't that discourage people from watching films with outside
| of their genre?
|
| And the best example they can come up with is that a show about
| norse mythology has as it's cover art... a hammer? As in the
| object that we associate with Norse mythology? What exactly did
| you expect? Okay, no hammers--better show a man instead. 'oh why
| are you putting a man there when it's about mythology?' You can't
| win.
|
| I get the impression the author just wanted to beat on Netflix
| and tech in general.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Take the Big Lebowski thumbnail on his screenshot. While that
| scene is in the movie, it's not at all central to the plot.
| It's not that remarkable or even show the main character. There
| is no shooting. But a man aggressively pointing a gun gets you
| curious, more than the actual movie poster.
|
| It's clickbait because it is simply picking the image most
| likely to elicit a reaction - and misrepresenting the nature of
| the movie in the process. I think the article did a decent job
| of explaining the psychology behind it.
|
| Another simple example: imagine the title of this post was
| "Netflix is dying - here are three reasons why". No actual
| connection to the content, just something to grab your
| attention. That's clickbait.
| Gunax wrote:
| Yea so the Lebowski one was the only one I really agree with,
| and even that's is a stretch. We have to believe that the
| title is actually mistepresenting the genre... Maybe but it's
| still liated as a comedy.
|
| The other 2 examples did not make any sense to me at all.
|
| I guess to summarise what I mean: of course people want to
| make good covers. It seems these accusations depend on us
| really assuming a very nefarious intent. It just feels like
| any art couod be clickbait by that. Eg. If they used an image
| if a bowling ball, I could say 'Well, this movie isnt about
| bowling!'
| fabbari wrote:
| The main point of the article in not about making good
| covers. It's about using covers that match - sometimes
| marginally - your interest even if it's not a main part of
| the movie, misrepresenting the content of the movie to make
| you click on it. Clickbait.
|
| The Lebowski example was just that: he likes action and
| Netflix presents to him the "action" thumb for the movie -
| even if the movie is not exactly John Wick.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| Movie posters have used salacious and sensational words and
| imagery for as long as they've existed. If anything, Netflix
| titles have been slowly working toward parity to that standard,
| as opposed to devolving to actual clickbait.
| bryan0 wrote:
| Yeah this makes me feel so old. This is not really different
| than scanning the box covers at a Blockbuster store or, as you
| mentioned, movie posters which have probably been misleading
| for nearly a century.
| Ozzie_osman wrote:
| I see your point, but movie posters didn't live in your home
| and didn't have the power of mass personalization.
|
| An analogy might be junk food. Sure, it's advertised in all
| sorts of tempting ways in supermarkets, but imagine if your
| refrigerator suddenly gained the ability to show, prepare, and
| serve you customized/personalized junk food whenever you opened
| it.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| Movie posters were ubiquitous in homes, a favorite of
| teenagers, often the racier the better.
|
| I see your point, but I don't see a problem with Netflix
| content using sensationalism to drive clicks. In fact, it's
| probably one of the vanishingly few legitimate uses of that
| type of visual manipulation. They pull visually stimulating
| stills from the content itself, combined with text that gives
| you a quick indication of what's in store. I take issue with
| low effort or misleading titles, but it's a constrained
| medium in a commercial context. Not a lot of ways to vary the
| interface.
|
| The article just seems like a silly take, to me.
| bryan0 wrote:
| Can confirm. I had several gratuitous movie posters in my
| room growing up, which told you very little about the
| actual content of the movie.
| sgt wrote:
| Netflix has also become unbearably "woke". I've simply given up
| on Netflix for that reason but also due to many other reasons
| like the what is described here.
| barneybooroo wrote:
| Is your outrage that they're commissioning content that
| reflects a diversity of experience?
| yosito wrote:
| Not the commenter you're responding to, but I've found quite
| the opposite. Content on Netflix is increasingly trending
| towards one narrow "woke" way of seeing the world, and
| nothing that falls outside of the narrow, American left
| perspective, or encourages any diversity of thought is
| available anymore.
| rchaud wrote:
| Can you proviede some examples of this narrow way of seeing
| the world? TV shows tell stories. Occasionally those
| stories aren't going to be towards one's liking.
|
| For example, Amazon Prime is constantly spamming me with
| ads for Jack Ryan. My take is that they do so because they
| paid a lot for the IP. Not because it's trying to shove the
| benefits of American militarism abroad down my throat.
| sgt wrote:
| They're shoving the agenda down our throats. A lot of shows
| become overly politicized, with messages of trans rights,
| BLM, and other stuff being injected to such a degree that it
| becomes too much and frankly artificial.
|
| I'm not against political and societal messages in TV shows
| and movies - that has been done for decades, but not if it
| takes away from the writing and quality of the show. We see
| that in extreme levels at the moment.
| cbg0 wrote:
| > I'm not against political and societal messages in TV
| shows and movies - that has been done for decades, but not
| if it takes away from the writing and quality of the show.
|
| I think if you replace the last part of this with "as long
| as it doesn't bother me" then your statement is probably
| more accurate. From my experience bad shows are bad because
| of terrible writing overall, not because one of the
| characters is a minority.
|
| > We see that in extreme levels at the moment.
|
| Compared to a decade or more ago when you weren't seeing
| trans people on TV, I guess you could say it's "extreme"
| nowadays.
| Tothegulag wrote:
| Go drink a lot of ivermectin you fucking idiot
| barneybooroo wrote:
| Is "the agenda" not a bit of a conspiratorial way of
| looking at it though?
|
| It's been notoriously difficult for creators to find
| mainstream outlets to tell stories about, to use your
| examples, trans and black lives, that aren't watered down
| out of fear of alienating a white, heterosexual audience.
| It's politicised in so much as defending your right to
| exist in the public sphere is always political, but is that
| a problem?
|
| I love that we're starting to see stories that show more
| perspectives. It doesn't mean every show or movie will be
| amazing, but when has that ever been true? I don't think it
| follows that doing this "takes away" from the quality of
| the writing. A badly written show is a badly written show.
| captainclam wrote:
| I'm going to front-load this by stating that I 100% agree
| that representation matters, and absolutely welcome a
| diversity of perspectives in media. Furthermore, I do believe
| that much criticism of "woke" media is a knee-jerk reaction
| to new, unfamiliar values and shifting power.
|
| That said: Netflix's deployment of "wokeness" can feel
| completely shoehorned in and utterly arbitrary, a cynical
| technique that affirms the viewers' perspective, thereby
| increasing engagement.
|
| I'm not "outraged" by it in the slightest. It tends to align
| with my own worldview. But at the end of the day it just
| makes for crummy content.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Would Netflix have to do this if it actually had content people
| wanted to watch? It's just sad watching it double down on this
| pulp because every other copyright holder took their ball and
| went home.
| nsgi wrote:
| They do, though. They produce a lot of garbage but their best
| rivals HBO
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Their best shows were produced before they stopped caring
| about quality and started churning out garbage by the
| truckload.
| dogman144 wrote:
| The best get cancelled two seasons in, while HBO does not.
| tornato7 wrote:
| Netflix REALLY went for quantity over quality with their
| library. I'm certain that there are some great shows in there,
| but I have to start ten different series just to find one I
| like.
|
| On the other end of the spectrum, the Disney+ library is rather
| small, but I find at least half the shows to be enjoyable, so
| that's where I turn to first.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Netflix started out with a huge amount of content. I'm sure
| they're scared that no longer seeming to have everything will
| hurt their subscriber base. One way to make it look like you
| still have everything is to have an overwhelming amount of
| stuff.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That will work in the short term, but perhaps hurt them in
| the long term.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| I don't really feel like there's much quantity, either,
| though. The stuff they're doing is just so very stylistically
| homogenous.
|
| I guess it's down to how you frame it? Some people see 100
| different flavors of ice cream. I see 100 different flavors
| of chocolate ice cream. Both perspectives are accurate. Which
| one is more useful to you perhaps depends on how much you
| like chocolate ice cream.
| fumblebee wrote:
| Hm, I really don't understand the approach of choosing
| shows/films based on what the algorithm tells me I'll like.
| Watching a series is such an incredible time sink that it's
| necessary to gather more information in advance of choosing.
|
| I've found a much better model is friends or critics'
| recommendations cross-checked against Rotten Tomatoes and
| IMDb ratings. (Which implies you need some people to use the
| scattergun approach, but I'd rather not be the guinea pig).
|
| This way it doesn't matter if good Netflix shows are "needle
| in a haystack".
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Nobody was ever going to make all TV and movie content
| available for $9 a month to everyone. The idea that Netflix
| could last the way it used to be was ridiculous.
| dmitriid wrote:
| "Video streaming giant Netflix had a total net income of over
| 2.76 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, whilst the company's
| annual revenue reached 25 billion U.S. dollars" [1]
|
| Yes, they can last the way it used to be. Well, they did
| slightly increase the price because they were forced to spend
| ridiculous amounts of money on their own content, but they
| are doing just fine.
|
| [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/272561/netflix-net-
| incom...
| coldtea wrote:
| Deals with content companies aside, why not?
|
| Storage and delivery wise its much chaper than YouTube (which
| is 100000 times bigger in storage needs due to user generated
| content), and makes all this available for $9 without ads...
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Copyright infringement makes everything ever created
| available for $0 a month. If streaming services can't do the
| same, they suck and are failing to compete.
| krige wrote:
| At the core it's a matter of convenience.
|
| When there's only one service to pay for or even two or
| three most people don't have a problem with paying a fee to
| have access to everything they want to watch.
|
| But when there's fifteen services to pay for, even if they
| collectively cost less than the above example, many simply
| give up and turn back to piracy.
| account42 wrote:
| > At the core it's a matter of convenience.
|
| Conveninece also means different things for different
| people. For me is includes being able to re-watch my
| favorite content whenever I want and on whatever device I
| want - no exeptions - even if the the internet is down,
| even if the creator no longer wants to make it available.
| The only thing that can guarantee that is something that
| gives me DRM-free files that I can manage however I want.
| Unfortunately for movies and shows noone provides this -
| best non-piracy option are physical discs but even those
| are so filled with anti-piracy measures (and other
| questionable technical decisions) which only serve to
| make the experience worse than piracy.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| The position that "theft is free, so anything not given
| away fails to compete" is not a realistic position to argue
| with.
| prepend wrote:
| When theft has a better user experience that's important.
| Important because it's more user oriented than the
| plethora of poorly designed apps with dark patterns to
| piss me off but keep me subscribed.
|
| It's important because it's the reality.
|
| Today, my janky RSS feed setup dumping stuff to a network
| folder is better for discovering new shows and movies.
| I'm more likely to see new content released through my
| tracker, browsing in 10 seconds than spending minutes
| scrolling through Netflix, and Hulu, and Prime. Just to
| see if there's something new.
|
| These services make it hard to use. I'd pay extra if
| Netflix just gave me an RSS feed and let me filter it.
| The fact that pirates are able to do this, volunteering
| is only part of it.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Theft is not free, copying data is. They're the ones
| making everything worse for everybody because they can't
| deal with that reality. These streaming services can't
| even manage to produce a video player with decent
| controls, we had better software in the 90s.
|
| Also, copyright infringement is not theft. It's copyright
| infringement and it's only a problem if you accept the
| notion that copyright is a legitimate system to begin
| with.
| pjc50 wrote:
| It's the only realistic position. Heck, it's the only
| reason streaming services can exist; without piracy
| pressure everything would be pay per view or pay per
| stream at _far_ higher rates.
| coldtea wrote:
| Copyright extension is theft by lobbies pressuring the
| legislative body against the spirit (and original letter)
| of the law.
|
| In this sense, thousands of movies and albums (stuff
| recorded before 1970) would be public domain now based on
| the 1901 copyright terms...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Ac
| t
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Yeah. They reap all these benefits. When it's OUR turn to
| exercise our public domain rights, they change the rules
| of the game. They move the goalposts.
|
| Why respect their rights when they don't respect ours?
| There is absolutely no reason to recognize their
| "property" as legitimate.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I don't know if that will be unrealistic in the future.
| Once AI is making the content you consume, the price
| seems like it would rapidly approach zero.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Too bad theft is an option then, because the paid
| services must compete with it. There are more dimensions
| than price.
|
| (Also infringement isn't theft but if you haven't been
| convinced by now...)
| mewse-hn wrote:
| Yeah, netflix saw this balkanization of streaming services
| coming and they started spending other people's money on
| original content so they couldn't have the ball taken away
| from them. It seems to be working for now - they've had 619
| emmy nominations - but when there's 15 services that each
| have 1 show you want to watch, piracy will flourish
| blahblahblogger wrote:
| > It seems to be working for now - they've had 619 emmy
| nominations
|
| I canceled my Netflix sub. Maybe this is why? Netflix
| became desperate to be legitimized by "big Hollywood"/"big
| entertainment". It used to be the new thing that didn't
| need to conform with its titles.
| emkoemko wrote:
| i bet eventually they will be doing cross platform streaming
| rights deals, only one i can think off that might never do
| that is Disney. Your content can only be consumed so much on
| a closed platform before it losses its profitability and then
| you just sell its rights to bring extra profits.
|
| otherwise i can't see how this will be sustainable this is
| going to be more expensive then tv channels were . Yes the
| content have much better production value but who will be
| able to afford so many stream services other then just people
| hopping after consuming what they wanted to watch.
|
| maybe there will be a pay to watch service that has
| everything and you just pay for the right to watch the
| specific content.
| xmprt wrote:
| A big issue for me is that Netflix now has so much content that
| everyone watching different things and there's no longer "the
| show" that you have to watch to talk about with your friends.
| Instead, there are a handful of good shows every year spread
| across all platforms and it's come to the point where if I'm
| just going to watch things on my own, I might as well just
| watch YouTube.
| alistairSH wrote:
| This.
|
| A few years ago, I subscribed to Netflix. That was it (no
| cable, no other streaming). The amount of good content was
| reasonable.
|
| Now, I have to cycle through Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Apple, and
| Amazon. I unsubscribed to most of them most of the time, and
| resubscribe as a show or movie comes to my attention (Dune
| will get me resubscribed to HBO for a month or two, etc).
|
| I still spend less on streaming than I did on cable, but if
| the whole ecosystem gets any more fractured or any more
| expensive or any more annoying to navigate, I'll probably
| start cancelling and just find something else to do.
|
| Unfortunately, finding books isn't much better, or I'd likely
| spend more time reading than watching TV. But a bad book, for
| me, is 100x worse than a bad TV show.
| ggggtez wrote:
| Maybe you should treat books like TV then: give it a half
| hour, and if you're not hooked, close it and find another.
|
| I know many people say books take longer to enjoy, but a
| bad TV series can take ~12 hours per season. Most people
| can probably finish a novel in 12 hours.
| vdqtp3 wrote:
| I continue to subscribe to Netflix not because I'm thrilled
| with their selection but because there are a few things I
| want and it's the business model I want to support.
| Unlimited watches, no ads, I pay for access to a library.
| Fuck everything like Hulu and Prime with paid subscriptions
| that still include ads.
| crateless wrote:
| That's been pretty much my conclusion as well. I can mostly
| find some kind of long-form content to consume and although
| the feed algorithm sucks, the recommendations on the video
| page itself usually make up for it.
| tsjq wrote:
| >Would Netflix have to do this if it actually had content
| people wanted to watch?
|
| very well said. that line is spot-on.
|
| for my taste / prefs, I could notice a clear state of
| uselessness around late 2019. I stopped netflix subscription
| starting Jan 2020.
| blahblahblogger wrote:
| I also stopped Netflix at some point early in the pandemic.
| More and more I was seeing good shows go away and nothing
| decent replacing it. Then they had all these weird shows
| (Cuties?) coming around that left a bad impression.
|
| Ultimately my canceling of Netflix went along with canceling
| big tech as my disillusion has grown across the board: *
| Amazon (this was hard to cancel, my prime subscription is
| still paid for the next 6 months) * Facebook (still use the
| messenger app to chat w/ friends though) * Google (search and
| Chrome - but still use gmail of course and at work)
|
| I'm going to cancel something from Apple to do a full de-
| fanging of FAANG :)
|
| Actually here's what I'll cancel: Apple Arcade. Everything
| they release now is just a "+" game from a non-Apple-Arcade
| title. "Somegame+" where it means no ads and maybe a little
| extra content. Originals on Apple Arcade are now harder to
| find and everything in my new/recommended/trending/etc is a
| "plus title".
| dazc wrote:
| And this is the obvious answer that they somehow manage to keep
| overlooking.
|
| Just cancelled my sub and won't be activating it again until
| Christmas. I should then get a decent month of viewing before I
| cancel it again.
|
| In the meantime I'll be paying amazon much more money for stuff
| outside of the Prime offering that I want to watch and am
| willing to pay for (albeit grudgingly).
| throwawaysea wrote:
| Personally although I do see "sexy" titles on Netflix strewn
| about, it isn't a big distraction or problem the way this article
| makes it out to be. The real problem is that most of the content
| is B tier straight to video content. I'm drowning in choices and
| I don't mean within Netflix but elsewhere - I'm simply not
| compelled to spend my valuable minutes there and these days I
| rarely load their app. I'll probably end up cancelling it, as my
| household has increasingly returned to analog entertainment
| (books, conversations) over the pandemic, with other viewing time
| going to content we deliberately seek out rather than content we
| casually surf. At one point I was hopeful Netflix could produce
| first party content that was great. But each promising attempt
| (for example House of Cards, Marco Polo, or Altered Carbon)
| fizzles and gets cancelled after a season or two. Today I can't
| see myself investing my time into their new content because I
| don't want to be disappointed by their eventual cancellation, and
| I am left wondering who their service is for.
| arcturus17 wrote:
| I feel the same. I think their content is a sea of mediocrity.
|
| I cancelled my sub and I make do with Amazon Prime which is not
| much better but does have some good exclusives and obviously
| the shipping benefits.
|
| I'm also considering a return to piracy with a NAS since a lot
| of movies (esp. classics) are simply unavailable anywhere, even
| pay-per-view services like Amazon, Apple or Google.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I am wondering if this is what getting old is like. I get
| more enjoyment out of rewatching all the stuff from my youth
| than new content. And I am only mid 30s, but I would rather
| close my eyes and pick a random movie or tv show on my NAS
| from 80s/90s/00s and watch that over new content.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-08-26 23:03 UTC)