Turning Off Autoplaying Previews • Hacker News Board

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#51

Post by mirroregami » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

FINALLY

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#52

Post by paxys » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

Now PLEASE give an option to turn off autoplaying the next episode like 3 seconds into the end credits.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#53

Post by joegahona » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

underbluewaters wrote: post #20

It's amazing it took this long. I can understand how some people might be okay with this feature but it causes me actual anxiety to use the Netflix app on my AppleTV. Before autoplay I could mindlessly browse looking for content. Now I hurry through to check if there is anything new and get out as fast as possible. They must know that people use the app less since this change... right?

> They must know that people use the app less since this change... right?

Whether they make `autoplay=true` default will answer this.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#54

Post by _bxg1 » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

I'd just stopped using Netflix unless I knew exactly what I wanted to watch. When I had to use it, I'd bounce around between tiles constantly to prevent the clips from playing, knowing full well that they must record every interaction you have with the app. For once I was glad they did.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#55

Post by pgrote » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

2bitencryption wrote: post #4

Didn't ever expect to see this capability. A bit unrelated, but: anyone remember in the "early" days when Netflix held competitions to develop the most accurate recommendation and ratings engines? Giving out million dollar prizes? And held possibly state-of-the-art tech for this? And then one day completely gutted the star rating system, replacing it with a much-despised "thumbs up/down" system, giving up their "so g…

The supposedly killed it when the Amy Schumer special was bombed.

https://www.whas11.com/article/news/entertainment-news/poof-...

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#56

Post by Ayraa » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

Finally! Whenever Netflix features a scary show or movie on their homepage and their preview auto-plays, it always make me jump.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#57

Post by Carpetsmoker » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

2bitencryption wrote: post #4

Didn't ever expect to see this capability. A bit unrelated, but: anyone remember in the "early" days when Netflix held competitions to develop the most accurate recommendation and ratings engines? Giving out million dollar prizes? And held possibly state-of-the-art tech for this? And then one day completely gutted the star rating system, replacing it with a much-despised "thumbs up/down" system, giving up their "so g…

I don't really like star systems because I spend way too much time deciding if something is 3 or 4 stars, or 4 or 5 stars.

I much prefer textual descriptions; for example "Terrible", "Don't like", "Okay", "Like", "Favourite", which has the same options as a 5-star rating system, but choosing between 3/4 and 4/5 is much easier IMHO.

I don't really know of any system that uses this, except this one music player I wrote myself (which has "Crap", "Meh", "Okay", "Super").

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#58

Post by PopeDotNinja » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

jonplackett wrote: post #49

Thanks Netflix! Next feature request: AUTO-SKIP-ALL-INTROS-AND-RECAPS-WHILE-BINGING

I like the intros too many series. The intro to House of Cards really set the mood for me.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#59

Post by _bxg1 » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 9:57 PM UTC

underbluewaters wrote: post #20

It's amazing it took this long. I can understand how some people might be okay with this feature but it causes me actual anxiety to use the Netflix app on my AppleTV. Before autoplay I could mindlessly browse looking for content. Now I hurry through to check if there is anything new and get out as fast as possible. They must know that people use the app less since this change... right?

I believe I read somewhere that it did result in an overall increase in viewership. There's no way they don't have those metrics.

My guess is that for some majority of users who weren't super bothered by it it genuinely caused them to watch more things. Even though a vocal minority was extremely upset about it, the numbers still worked out overall. Of course adding a preference is easy, and people who aren't upset won't bother to change the default, so this is probably a win/win for them.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#60

Post by EpicEng » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 9:57 PM UTC

psychometry wrote: post #41

2bitencryption wrote: post #4

Didn't ever expect to see this capability. A bit unrelated, but: anyone remember in the "early" days when Netflix held competitions to develop the most accurate recommendation and ratings engines? Giving out million dollar prizes? And held possibly state-of-the-art tech for this? And then one day completely gutted the star rating system, replacing it with a much-despised "thumbs up/down" system, giving up their "so g…

They obviously determined that thumbs up/down either generated better training data or more training data. They wouldn't intentionally make their recommendations worse just for the sake of it.

>They wouldn't intentionally make their recommendations worse just for the sake of it. reply

As has been mentioned before, there is at least some motivation for doing so. One, it means their originals don't rate below third party titles (as far as we can tell), and two, as they lose content the average rating of what's left will likely fall.