Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#171

Post by agmcleod » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 4:43 PM UTC

M_Grey wrote: post #123

ProAm wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are diluting the meaning of quality and instead are opting for a saccharine "enjoyment" factor. They are just trying to increase number of views for a poor quality library. This will mask how bad most of the content is and increase their numbers.

Or edge cases like me will get that little boost to just give up on Netflix. I already use them less than other streaming services, and I could always just turn it on and off again.

What other services do you use? I paid for prime, so i've watched some stuff on prime video, but there's really not much on there. Netflix is pretty much my only option for most TV shows. Worth noting I'm in Canada.

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#172

Post by minimaxir » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 4:45 PM UTC

Markoff wrote: post #169

minimaxir wrote: post #140

It's about damn time. 5-star rating systems are broken . A 1/2/3-star rating is effectively a dislike, and a 4/5-rating is effectively a like. In the big data sense, a deviation from a 1-star for dislike and 5-star for like is statistically meaningless. (and this is universal ; star ratings on Amazon Products and Yelp Locations have the exact same distribution ). The interesting part of this is what Netflix gains fro…

no, 1 is bad movie, 2.5 is average movie, not bad, not really good, 5 is masterpiece seen once in few years it's sad teenagers who think life is black and white are the ones deciding it for others luckily there is TMDb where i have my watchlist, imported ratings from IMDb and can discuss there each individual movie

> 2.5 is average movie

That's the other problem: since the breakdowns of ratings are skewed, the average movie (the arithmetic mean) tends to have a rating of ~4 stars. Another reason to get rid of the system.

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#173

Post by j_s » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 4:46 PM UTC

new_hackers wrote: post #111

j_s wrote: post #30

The best way to rate a movie for me would be: when will I watch it again? They kind of already know this though. (How many times have I watched a particular movie on Netflix?)

not for me. I rarely watch movies twice, even those I really enjoy. A better metric for me would be "am I glad I watched this movie"

Therefore, any movie you've watched more than once becomes pure gold for Netflix! Spread that across several million subscribers and get enough data to be useful.

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#174

Post by oculusthrift » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 4:46 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #134

pizzetta wrote: post #74

As I posted in the dupe: This saddens me. >Users would rate documentaries with 5 stars, and silly movies with just 3 stars, but still watch silly movies more often than those high-rated documentaries That's not incongruous to me. The stars are not about "enjoyment" factor, they are about perceived quality. I may have a go to cheap ice-cream and rate it 3-stars but rate a good affogato 5-stars and only have it once in…

They're optimizing the wrong metric. They should be optimizing "number of people who pay for Netflix". Instead they are optimizing "number of hours spent watching Netflix". Those two metrics are correlated, but definitely not fully. If I spend hundreds of hours a month watching meaningless action movies and TV on Netflix, I can cancel my subscription and save myself hundreds of hours and $10. I've got lots of other w…

it's interesting because the more someone uses netflix, the less money netflix makes.

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#175

Post by Markoff » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 4:46 PM UTC

chrisper wrote: post #113

After almost 5 years I finally cancelled my Netflix subscription. I just realized I was watching more movies / shows on Amazon, Youtube, or any of the other paid ones more than Netflix. I used to enjoy it a lot more back then.

i would recommend FMovies.se or 123movies.gs

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#176

Post by FussyZeus » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 4:48 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #16

FussyZeus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read something (on HN actually) awhile ago about how Amazon seems to be actively trying to kill Netflix, not by going after subscribers but by going after licenses for programming by over-bidding. I think Netflix though is making more off of their in-house produced content these days so I wouldn't say they're in danger, they just might look quite different in a few years.

I use amazon channel instead of Netflix now. I subscribe to channel for a while and watch their content exclusively till I am ready to move on. I am currently watching the excellet Xive Tv channel on amazon [1]. Netflix is waay overhyped for what they actually have in their catalog. https://www.amazon.com/Instant-Video/b?benefitId=xivetv&node...

They used to have more. As they've built up their own programming they've been losing a lot more of the other content, but like I said, I think they're doing it out of necessity.

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#177

Post by oculusthrift » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 4:49 PM UTC

this makes sense to me considering most people only leave bother to use the extreme star amounts anyway. anyway, you're kind of a sap if you take netflix ratings seriously and don't use something like rotten tomatoes

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#178

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

sweezyjeezy wrote: post #150

pizzetta wrote: post #74

As I posted in the dupe: This saddens me. >Users would rate documentaries with 5 stars, and silly movies with just 3 stars, but still watch silly movies more often than those high-rated documentaries That's not incongruous to me. The stars are not about "enjoyment" factor, they are about perceived quality. I may have a go to cheap ice-cream and rate it 3-stars but rate a good affogato 5-stars and only have it once in…

Netflix have said for years that the star ratings they gather are not actually very good indicators for their recommendation engines compared to implicit signals such as - 'did the user watch the show / film to the end?' If they still believe this, it seems fairly irrelevant what they use.

> implicit signals such as - 'did the user watch the show / film to the end?'

I hope their version of that signal is better than what they're presenting in the UI. I have a few movies Netflix shows me as not finished, becaue I closed them just as the ending credits started.

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#179

Post by e12e » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 4:52 PM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #152

wwarren wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> star ratings on Amazon Products and Yelp Locations have the exact same distribution Source?

Glad you asked! http://minimaxir.com/2017/01/amazon-spark/ http://minimaxir.com/2014/09/one-star-five-stars/

I actually thought Randy Farmer touched on this in his Google talk on "Building Web Reputation Systems" - but maybe I saw it somewhere else, years ago. Like this:

http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2006/08/using_5star_rat.html

At any rate I thought it was common knowledge that 5-point ratings have issues - especially as a "social rating system"?

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#180

Post by sterex » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 4:52 PM UTC

philh wrote: post #63

kartickv wrote: post #14

If you have many reviewers, you don't need to get more information than thumbs up or down from each person. How much people thumbed it up is a good indicator. Star-rating can be too much detail, anyway: if you're comparing two shows, and one has a higher fraction of five-star ratings, but the other has a higher fraction of ratings that are four or above, which is better? Star ratings can be too much detail and cause…

I do find IMDB's ratings breakdown fascinating to explore, though. For example, you can look at the 50 Shades films or A Dog's Purpose or (especially) Gunday and have a pretty good idea that lots people are giving them bad ratings without having seen the films. (Their weighted average ratings are supposed to combat that, but they don't seem to be doing a very good job.)

Actually, Netflix is poised in a better position to filter between people who just rated the item vs people rating it AFTER viewing it (for a minimum duration). The latter class of people will have have more weight attached to their voting.