Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#311

Post by allthecybers » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 3:42 AM UTC

elihu wrote: post #179

adrianmonk wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time, Netflix gave away $1 million to contest winners in an attempt to get the best recommendation algorithm they could ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_Prize ). Now the recommendations are just not that great. It's like they're not trying too hard because they are comfy in their market position. I have never watched any anime at all (really not my thing), but Netflix keeps recommending it to me de…

Perhaps their recommendation engine is working as designed, but it's tuned for some other metric besides maximum viewer enjoyment. For instance, rankings might be influenced by the royalties they pay, or the likelihood that you'll recommend a Netflix-only show to a non-Netflix-subscribing friend.

Their discovery algorithm is hideous and on most of their TV streaming apps the search is shit.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#312

Post by zxcmx » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 3:43 AM UTC

jdsully wrote: post #155

perl4ever wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like there is some pitfall in making a recommendation algorithm that more and more people are falling in to. I don't watch TV or have Netflix, but I listen to streaming music, and I noticed something weird. I used to listen to Pandora, and it recommended a lot of different artists that I liked on hearing them for the first time. It single-handedly gave me a taste for 21st century music. But there wasn't enou…

Its less risky to give you things you already like than to try and guess if something new will be appreciated. Its the same reason hollywood keeps doing remakes. If you only go by statistics and don’t think through the “what if everyone did this” question then giving you the same old content on repeat will have better metrics.

Right, it feels like things are optimising purely for “next click”, i.e, what will keep you mindlessly in flow, forgetting the time and consuming more content.

So if I’m watching a video about TIG welding say, to optimise “next click” I suppose I should be recommended mostly more welding videos, with a smattering of engineering and finally a bit of clickbait mixed in case I’m starting to get distracted.

If services are optimising for “keep going right now”, they might be modelling as something like a markov chain of “clicked on next” and that’s how we get stuck in this kind of short-sighted local optimum.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#313

Post by autokad » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 3:45 AM UTC

noelsusman wrote: post #147

archey1 wrote: post #75

Netflix is just getting more expensive and less interesting to me. With all of the content I like being taken off to be hosted on network exclusive streaming platforms that I refuse to pay for - I'll probably eventually just cancel Netflix as well going back to the tried and true method of just buying bluray box-sets of the content I want to watch. Or piracy. I think the critical mistake that all these megacorps are…

Of course people would rather pay $10 a month to access everything, but that's just not sustainable. Look at Netflix's own financials. They got into content creation and they're now deep in debt despite their massive subscriber base. I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Isn't that what we hated about cable? Didn't we beg for the ability to pick an…

I think streaming is incredibly worth it. if you watch anything with advertisements, that's typically 1/3 of your time watching commercials, thus if you make 50 an hour, you pay for your streaming service in just 1 hour. 10 hours if you make a 10th that, which its still paid for in a week for most people. its a fair argument that I spent about a year of my childhood watching commercials. thats 3240$ in netflix subscriptions to get that back.

I think streaming has incredible value, and broadcast television's value proposition is extremely poor. I hope once people start doing the math, tv commercials is a thing of the past, or at least there is 1 commercial per break.

that being said, netflix does have some deep concerns for me if I were to invest in it. its still never made a profit, subscribers are maxing out, and competition is just getting started.

Netflix has also been extremely liberal politically, and that's a recipe to divide your customer base by 2, something with their extreme debt loads is problematic.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#314

Post by hiram112 » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 3:52 AM UTC

lonelappde wrote: post #297

adventured wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People aren't asking for a single distribution channel in the sense of a single monolithic company owning all the IP. They do want (1) convenient apps that aggregate I generally agree with that. I don't care about one platform at all. I'll pay up to ~$30 total per month for nearly everything (TV + movies), whether that's on one site or spread across four. With the way things are going, it looks more likely that I'l…

Premium cables costs $100/mo, and some stuff is still pay per view. Why wout you expect to get it for $30/no?

Not the parent, but because that's all I'm willing to pay for Hollywood's mostly recycled content.

Push the price to more than $30, and I'll just use my antenna and find other things to do. I cut the cable cord years ago, and I lived.

Only when when reasonably priced subscriptions like Prime, Netflix, and maybe HBO or Showtime, often rotated, could be had for $30 / month did I come back to Hollywood.

Exact same for music. I'm old enough to remember making $6 / hour at the grocery store and then taking my paycheck straight to BestBuy to purchase $17 CDs. But ever since I got my first DSL connection about 20 years ago, the music industry hasn't earned a cent off me.

Only recently did Spotify at $10 / month bring me back as a customer. I guarantee you if I start finding songs I want to play are premium priced or missing, or they start raising prices like Netflix, well I guess the music companies won't be getting my $10 anymore either.

The $100 / month for commercial TV that Cox, Comcast, and friends have enjoyed, same as the $17 / CD that the music industry once took for granted, isn't going to work with the next generation like it did with the Boomers. We don't have as much disposable income, and there are too many other options out there.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#315

Post by dontbenebby » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 3:58 AM UTC

archey1 wrote: post #75

Netflix is just getting more expensive and less interesting to me. With all of the content I like being taken off to be hosted on network exclusive streaming platforms that I refuse to pay for - I'll probably eventually just cancel Netflix as well going back to the tried and true method of just buying bluray box-sets of the content I want to watch. Or piracy. I think the critical mistake that all these megacorps are…

I just went to download a movie - legally. I have streaming access, but apparently I can't download it for offline viewing (not even within Netflix's DRM'd app).

To me, that's unreasonable, especially since the movie in question is >14 years old - at the time of the founders it would be in the public domain by now!

That being said, Netflix currently has enough content I find it useful - a lot of older shows I never caught on the air like Frasier or Star Trek. But longer term I may ditch it and stick to Prime Video.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#316

Post by hiram112 » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 3:59 AM UTC

bcrosby95 wrote: post #253

inetknght wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Isn't that what we hated about cable? Didn't we beg for the ability to pick and choose what we actually want to pay for? Now we finally have that and people instantly want to go back? Why? 1) I don't want to pay for content I won't watch. 2) I don't want to be required to pay for content I won't watch in orde…

Use PLEX, buy dvds, and copy them onto your PLEX server. It satisfies all of your listed requirements.

Yeah if you have tons of free time and want to watch the same DVDs over and over.

Some of us don't have that much time anymore (I did run Plex when I was younger, though). I'm either willing to pay about $$25-$30 / month for a few services like HBO and Prime without commercials*, and available in demand, with plenty of quality series to keep my 1 hour / day TV habit satiated, or I'll just take my ball and go home. Cable TV and $100 / month for 30% commercials is something I can and will live without.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#317

Post by crikli » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 4:03 AM UTC

TimJRobinson wrote: post #242

noelsusman wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to them, everyone is failing at this. Recommendation algorithms, once held up as a crowning achievement of machine learning, have turned out to be terrible at their jobs. Amazon, Youtube, Netflix. None of them have it figured out.

Spotifys algorithm is amazing, I'm constantly finding new indie bands that I love on it. YouTube is also really good. Netflix is terrible for me, I don't think it's ever recommended a show I've loved.

Huh. My experience is the opposite. Somehow my Discover Weekly was mostly mariachi bands for a month. Finally told it I didn’t like enough of them that it got the hint. Now it’s overloaded with Scandinavian adult contemporary or something. It’s like all the other algorithms from one I’ve seen: listen to something accidentally that’s in a niche and it just loads up on recommendations from that niche.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#318

Post by hiram112 » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 4:08 AM UTC

cyborgx7 wrote: post #163

noelsusman wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course people would rather pay $10 a month to access everything, but that's just not sustainable. Look at Netflix's own financials. They got into content creation and they're now deep in debt despite their massive subscriber base. I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Isn't that what we hated about cable? Didn't we beg for the ability to pick an…

> I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Sounds like a perfect case for publicly funded infrastructure to me. > Now we finally have that We don't. We still have the one or two things we want packaged in with a ton of stuff we don't. It's actually worse. Each package (subscription platform) has one or two things we want distributed accross all of the…

> Sounds like a perfect case for publicly funded infrastructure to me.

No thanks. My paychecks, after state and fed taxes, fica, retirement, insurance, etc are down to literally half of my actual salary.

I don't want another few percent pilfered so I can subsidize my fellow Americans' NCIS and Dog the Bounty Hunter habits.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#319

Post by toast0 » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 4:09 AM UTC

atombender wrote: post #168

noelsusman wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course people would rather pay $10 a month to access everything, but that's just not sustainable. Look at Netflix's own financials. They got into content creation and they're now deep in debt despite their massive subscriber base. I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Isn't that what we hated about cable? Didn't we beg for the ability to pick an…

People aren't asking for a single distribution channel in the sense of a single monolithic company owning all the IP. They do want (1) convenient apps that aggregate, such as Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video, and (2) a way to get all the content without having to pay lots of individual companies (I'm subscribing to around 5 streaming services myself). Why can't video be like music? Spotify and Apple Music aggregate pr…

> Why can't video be like music? Spotify and Apple Music aggregate pretty much all the music in the world now

Compulsory licensing in general, and specifically for radio style plays makes a big difference in the rights landscape. Movies and TV don't have anything like that, so you have to get agreement with content owners to do anything.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#320

Post by Osiris » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 4:11 AM UTC

isbjorn16 wrote: post #77

My problem with Netflix isn't the slate of shows and movies it has in its catalog. It's definitely not as nice as it used to be, but there are a jillion and a half shows and movies out there. My problem is that Netflix has taken note that we watch anime a few times a week, which doubtless means we want every single band/carousel/whatever to be about anime. New Anime, Critically Acclaimed Anime, Popular Anime, Watch i…

Year ago, Netflix has a "Not Interested" option.

If Netflix was recommending something that you didn't care about, you could use "Not Interested" to make it not show up in your list anymore.

Now, it just keeps recommending these same content over and over again. There's no way to say "I don't want to watch that". There's also no variety to the suggestions.

I agree that "decision fatigue" is a big deal for me.