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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

#111
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…

> No one has come close to solving recommendation.

Recommendation is a solved problem from a computer science point of view. The problem with recommendation systems is that their outputs always get overridden by political and marketing concerns.

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

#112
Recently, I watched a few horror movies because they got good ratings (which I interpret as good-for-a-horror-movie, rather than good per se). Between seeing the rating, watching (half usually) of them and going to rate it myself, the ratings had gone from 4-5 stars to 1-2. That's a big drop in star rating in a period of, at most, 90 minutes, usually, 40.

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

#113
post #15

I've noticed for a while that Netflix seems to be making it a lot harder to rate content and find high quality content. It's like they want you to watch junk. Maybe junk has lower licensing fees so it increases their margins. I've found some amazing gems digging through Netflix and relying on user ratings. They were films I probably never would have found otherwise. A few somewhat recent examples that come to mind ar…

> Maybe junk has lower licensing fees so it increases their margins. It has to be something like this. Licensing fees based on views, or maybe the license terms stipulate that they're not allowed to promote it or something. Often I'll be browsing around in some deep page in Netflix and randomly see some AAA major Oscar title that's not mentioned or promoted anywhere. It just makes no sense. Maybe these are expensive…

I've noticed that too. Looking and looking for a certain type of thing, can't find anything worthwhile until, randomly, something good in the you might like trio which should have obviously shown up in the genre browsing.

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

#114
post #82
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe it is because netflix doesn't host that much good content? When they have you dialed in you've already watched everything worth watching so there is no good content left to recommend.

This is the part I don’t understand. Why do they go through so much effort to have me binge watch Netflix. It costs them bandwidth, and it makes me go through the quality stuff quicker.

If they instead tried to get me watching just enough to keep the subscription it would be cheaper for them and I would have be more happy with the mean quality of available options

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

#116
post #87
post #22

It may also be the case that negative reviews of movies, TV shows, and stand-up specials did more to dissuade potential viewers than positive reviews did them to draw in; ... Netflix's bigger problem is that much of its content looks good on the surface, but on closer inspection is not worth the time. A lot of this stuff is produced by Netflix itself. Bill Nye's most recent show comes to mind, but there's a lot more.…

Whether a show, book, movie, song, etc is "worth the time" is entirely subjective. There are million dollar franchises based on material that I don't consider worth my time. But you better believe that stuff is worth Netflix's time. A perfect example of this is "Bright," a netflix movie that was critically panned. But people watched it. And now they're making "Bright 2". Are you really suggesting that Netflix should…

You’re on the right track, but there is an objective way to measure this stuff: views and retention. Netflix is a retention machine, not a quality content machine. According to their models, the content they are making keeps people around.

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

#117
post #22

It may also be the case that negative reviews of movies, TV shows, and stand-up specials did more to dissuade potential viewers than positive reviews did them to draw in; ... Netflix's bigger problem is that much of its content looks good on the surface, but on closer inspection is not worth the time. A lot of this stuff is produced by Netflix itself. Bill Nye's most recent show comes to mind, but there's a lot more.…

Much of their current content is Chinese (much of which doesn't translate well, although I kind of like the Australian version of the Monkey King story), Korean (which is often quite good), and strange Malaysian things.

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

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Netfilx account and yet torrent all their stuff because I watch on my monitor and can't stand watching videos on a browser. I don't watch Youtube on a browser either. Using stuff like Radarr/Sonarr/Jackett/... makes for a higher quality experience.

How is watching a movie or a clip in a browser on full screen not highest possible quality experience? What is gained from not watching in a browser?

Some examples are:

- A lot less CPU intensive

- Offline watching

- Not limited to one system (especially for some quality versions)

- Audio only

- Easy bookmarking

- Every option a good video player can offer, from Audio/Video/Subtitles tweaking

And so many more.

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

#119
post #22

It may also be the case that negative reviews of movies, TV shows, and stand-up specials did more to dissuade potential viewers than positive reviews did them to draw in; ... Netflix's bigger problem is that much of its content looks good on the surface, but on closer inspection is not worth the time. A lot of this stuff is produced by Netflix itself. Bill Nye's most recent show comes to mind, but there's a lot more.…

Netflix is in the game of "filler" content. They will make money even if the content is mediocre because (many) people will turn to Netflix even if the quality is not stellar. That's unfortunate but a reality of the business model. If it didn't work, they wouldn't keep making lots of crap.

You pay per month, not per view.

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

#120
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I reckon internal politics weigh down good ideas.

It might have more to do with the content suppliers wanting to get into the same market and competing with Netflix.
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