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Netflix Has Deleted Every User Review Ever Posted to Its Website

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Re: Netflix Has Deleted Every User Review Ever Posted to Its Website

#51

Post by scarface74 »

ghaff wrote: post #29

It's hard for me to get too upset. Personally, it seems a bit conspiracy theory to think it's people might read negative reviews. Seems more likely it was a poorly used resource and Netflix didn't see the value in continue to support, maintain, and screen it. That aside, it points to a couple of issues. There is a lot of bad content on Netflix. It never had a good film catalog and their TV strategy has clearly evolve…

It's hard for me to get too upset. Personally, it seems a bit conspiracy theory to think it's people might read negative reviews.

I agree. Why would I care about whether reviews are positive or negative about a movie before I started watching it? It’s not like I have spent money if 30 minutes in I realize it’s trash.

I feel the same way about movie reviews now that I have AMC subscription movie service. If a movie is bad, We’ve wasted nothing except for 2 hours of our life and a little gas money.

Re: Netflix Has Deleted Every User Review Ever Posted to Its Website

#52

Post by bastijn »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #30
always_good wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why take someone's word for what they like or don't like when you know what they actually watch?

How do you know a user liked a movie or TV show after watching it? I think a movie has to be really really bad for people to actually stop halfway through. For TV shows it might be more likely that people drop out after a couple episodes but if it's just "meh" or the show's finale was disappointing, how do your algorithms know?

They won't watch the next show in the same category or series. Or the next. Seeing one 'meh' to the end is one thing, seeing two to the end is unlikely, seeing three and they are lying in their comments. I fact I believe minutes watched are more accurate than ratings. Very few people take time to rate, and of that category even less rate properly for algorithms to make sense.

Still, they could have left it in and just collect the data. Even if for providing a false sense/feeling of choice and ownership in the matter ;).

Re: Netflix Has Deleted Every User Review Ever Posted to Its Website

#53

Post by smnrchrds »

parent5446 wrote: post #4
hak8or wrote: post #2

Wow, what a massive total waste, shame on netflix. In the early days people relied heavily on those reviews, and spent hours writing those reviews. I understand them wanting to keep that data for data analysis purposes, and I understand them wanting to not share it, but to delete it? At least make it rate limited tied to a paid Netflix account or something, not wipe it away for ever. What a shame.

How is it a shame if nobody uses the reviews and they're basically useless? Sounds like they're just deleting an unmaintained and unused feature.

> How is it a shame if nobody uses the reviews

I am not a Netflix user, so this is just a guess, not an analysis. But could it be because user reviews used to be featured more prominently, but they were de-emphasized into oblivion over multiple years and UI updates?

I know a news organization I visit frequently did this to their comment section. After their last UI design, they might as well have been put them the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.

Re: Netflix Has Deleted Every User Review Ever Posted to Its Website

#54

Post by danmaz74 »

MiddleEndian wrote: post #36
ajmurmann wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, wouldn't you love it if the junk was removed and one day you log on and you just get a message telling you that you've watched all the stuff the algorithm thinks you'll like and you might as well go do something else?

The one thing I liked most about Netflix back when it was a DVD service was the recommendation system. I could rate things with stars, and Netflix could figure out, with reasonable accuracy, what movies I would consider junk and what I would consider quality, rather than the opinions of the general public. They have some good shows but their streaming movie selection and recommendation system doesn't hold a candle to…

I remember that in the beginning the recommendations for the streaming service were pretty good. But they became worse and worse, at least for me.

Re: Netflix Has Deleted Every User Review Ever Posted to Its Website

#55

Post by ghaff »

derefr wrote: post #41
ghaff wrote: post #29

It's hard for me to get too upset. Personally, it seems a bit conspiracy theory to think it's people might read negative reviews. Seems more likely it was a poorly used resource and Netflix didn't see the value in continue to support, maintain, and screen it. That aside, it points to a couple of issues. There is a lot of bad content on Netflix. It never had a good film catalog and their TV strategy has clearly evolve…

> their TV strategy has clearly evolved from at least a supposed "mine data to create great shows" (which always seemed a bit unlikely create all sorts of content, including niche content, throw it at the wall, see what sticks, and plump up the catalog in any case. Are you sure? I feel like Netflix is making more data-driven decisions now than ever. If they aren't producing a constant crop of "HBO-quality" show, I wo…

Sure. They need a variety of content. The number of heavily serialized "great" shows I'm going to watch that may require me to rewatch once or twice and head to the recaps and discussion boards to totally grok what happened this week is extremely limited.

But beyond that, while I'm sure Netflix uses data to allocate money for genres and other types of planning (and help determine whether to keep shows on the air--maybe it's a small audience but they watch every episode 3 times), shows are ultimately creative processes. Casts don't click. Leads become toxic. The audience just doesn't warm to it. No matter what the data said.

Re: Netflix Has Deleted Every User Review Ever Posted to Its Website

#56

Post by ghaff »

scarface74 wrote: post #51
ghaff wrote: post #29

It's hard for me to get too upset. Personally, it seems a bit conspiracy theory to think it's people might read negative reviews. Seems more likely it was a poorly used resource and Netflix didn't see the value in continue to support, maintain, and screen it. That aside, it points to a couple of issues. There is a lot of bad content on Netflix. It never had a good film catalog and their TV strategy has clearly evolve…

It's hard for me to get too upset. Personally, it seems a bit conspiracy theory to think it's people might read negative reviews. I agree. Why would I care about whether reviews are positive or negative about a movie before I started watching it? It’s not like I have spent money if 30 minutes in I realize it’s trash. I feel the same way about movie reviews now that I have AMC subscription movie service. If a movie is…

Well, I do sometimes read reviews. But there's no shortage of reviews on the Internet and Netflix was never a particularly great source of them.

Re: Netflix Has Deleted Every User Review Ever Posted to Its Website

#57

Post by scarface74 »

derefr wrote: post #41
ghaff wrote: post #29

It's hard for me to get too upset. Personally, it seems a bit conspiracy theory to think it's people might read negative reviews. Seems more likely it was a poorly used resource and Netflix didn't see the value in continue to support, maintain, and screen it. That aside, it points to a couple of issues. There is a lot of bad content on Netflix. It never had a good film catalog and their TV strategy has clearly evolve…

> their TV strategy has clearly evolved from at least a supposed "mine data to create great shows" (which always seemed a bit unlikely create all sorts of content, including niche content, throw it at the wall, see what sticks, and plump up the catalog in any case. Are you sure? I feel like Netflix is making more data-driven decisions now than ever. If they aren't producing a constant crop of "HBO-quality" show, I wo…

Consider: television networks have been in Malthusian competition for decades. You'd think the quality of the median TV show would increase. Instead, it seems like the quality of the best TV shows (on every network) consistently increases, but the median show stays the same.

It’s simple economics. AMC, as an example, doesn’t have to have a ton of great shows to be carried on cable companies and to get them to pay to keep AMC on. They only need the “Walking Dead”. Enough people would be very upset if they couldn’t get that one show via cable.

Re: Netflix Has Deleted Every User Review Ever Posted to Its Website

#58

Post by aestetix »

ghaff wrote: post #29

It's hard for me to get too upset. Personally, it seems a bit conspiracy theory to think it's people might read negative reviews. Seems more likely it was a poorly used resource and Netflix didn't see the value in continue to support, maintain, and screen it. That aside, it points to a couple of issues. There is a lot of bad content on Netflix. It never had a good film catalog and their TV strategy has clearly evolve…

> It never had a good film catalog

This is false. I remember in 2007/2008 using Netflix a lot to get some really amazing and hard to find movies. The same was true of their streaming service in its infancy. Now they seem to have abandoned their movie selection altogether and are focusing on making their own stuff. I'm guessing it's because licensing became a huge headache for them.

Re: Netflix Has Deleted Every User Review Ever Posted to Its Website

#59

Post by smsm42 »

danmaz74 wrote: post #54
MiddleEndian wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing I liked most about Netflix back when it was a DVD service was the recommendation system. I could rate things with stars, and Netflix could figure out, with reasonable accuracy, what movies I would consider junk and what I would consider quality, rather than the opinions of the general public. They have some good shows but their streaming movie selection and recommendation system doesn't hold a candle to…

I remember that in the beginning the recommendations for the streaming service were pretty good. But they became worse and worse, at least for me.

One has to wonder how comes that recommendations were pretty good, but then they spent millions of dollars on improving them, including highly-publicized competitions and a lot of work inhouse I assume, and not they are not.
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