Live data from Hacker News

Netflix Has Deleted Every User Review Ever Posted to Its Website

indiewire.com

131–140 of 180 posts

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

#131
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.

I have movies I have already rated (i.e. watched) in the "watch next" list. Sure, it can happen that I want to watch them again, but it seems unlikely. It seems clear netflix is optimizing for something which is not just "the movie this user would like to watch next".

It might seem unlikely to you, but I would be surprised if it wasn't the most common action. Many people will watch the same thing over and over.

To that end, training the model in their users, it would not surprise me to have that be an emergent recommendation.

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

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It got bad enough for me that I deleted my Netflix account a few months ago and haven't really missed it. I got tired of scrolling through for ages and never finding anything I felt like watching. It still surprises me that they don't do a better job of recommendations given they used to make a big deal out of it.

So, what are you watching instead?..

Well since then my TV broke and I haven't bothered replacing it, so nothing. We haven't really missed it but that might change when summer is over, we'll see.

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

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of. I run Streama https://github.com/streamaserver/streama Combined with ripped dvds and/or pirate bay, can make for a refreshing video streaming service you own and host.

I left my bootlegging days behind ...

Time for moonshine again then, because you're not getting it any other way. I work in TV and Film industry (also in Europe) and there's just no way, no service, which will give you things you're after. Probably all of my peers pirate, it's the way it is. I even pirate my own content, because it's more convenient then asking for a master copy and getting it from the archive. No one loses any money out of it. Industry knows that. Netflix did damage to the industry and to themselves though. Lynda Obst talks about it here (how Netflix did damage): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_oHW31jQfg

I wrote, in detail, several times here why Netflix and similar will never (in foreseeable future) crack the code with their business model in this industry. And no, you can't draw analogies with music and games. It's a vastly different business, even though it might seem it's not.

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

#135

> Netflix said in a statement that “the reviews and our redesigned ratings system (thumbs up/down) never contributed to how we approach personalizing recommendations for members and writing a ‘bad’ review never had any bearing to whether a title was recommended to another viewer or not.” THAT explains why Netflix keeps recommending me garbage quality content! I had a suspicion this was true, but couldn’t imagine anyo…

A long time ago netflix would allow you to go into a genre and sort movies by star rating. Finding something good to watch was very straight forward back then.

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

#136
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.…

I like the part where they silently remove shows, but very publicly announce all of the wonderful additions they’ve made to their selection in the past month.

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

#137
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…

Netflix recommendation system is a joke today, but it used to be much better in the past. Executives have decided to dumb it down for marketing reasons (promoting their own shows, hiding how their catalog is limited, etc...).

> No one has come close to solving recommendation.

Try this app and we'll talk:

https://www.coollector.com/help.html#recommendations

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

#138
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…

If you like Enter the Void, have you seen Irreversible? [Edit: typo]

[deleted]

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

#139

Are there alternatives to Netflix? Amazon Prime certainly isn't. Serious question - especially for German audience. I would like something with older and more niche movies. F.x. on Netflix Germany neither is nor ever was a Fellini flick ... actually "Federico Fellini" is not even suggested upon searching for "Fellini". https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/shortcuts/2017/oct/... - Fandor: only US and CAN - Mubi: a…

Kind of. I run Streama https://github.com/streamaserver/streama Combined with ripped dvds and/or pirate bay, can make for a refreshing video streaming service you own and host.

Chinese here. How do you guys reconcile your own torrenting, usage of sci-hub etc with the tendency to portray us as monsters for "theft of American intellectual property"?

I'm granting that we did (and on a large enough scale) for the sake of argument.

Is the idea that it's okay to steal so long as it's stealing from the rich and powerful (netflix, disney, record labels whatever)? If so, do you see how that argument might be something we can also appeal to?

(I would add "genuinely curious", but I feel it's become a device not for canceling for but for indicating sarcasm, so I won't do it)

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

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

For me personally, if I lose half an hour, I lose as much money as I get for half an hour of work. That's why I love content recommendation systems which actually work. Though the downside is, that today's systems (looking at you, Spotify) close you in kind of a bubble. The best I've met was Google play music, the recommendations were great and at the same time you got to know a lot of great content unlike anything y…

I don’t buy this “what my time is worth” argument. Can you really say that if you weren’t watching a Netflix show, you would be working for pay? That assumes that (1) your sole leisure activity is Netflix, and (2) you can work 24 hours a day if you want to. It seems dubious at best.
Post reply on HN