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I wasn't old enough to remember it, but when search engines tried to do this in the 90s, it became clear that people preferred machine recommendations. See yahoo directory, look smart.
Filter bubble is the term for when algorithms select the content you watch instead of you.
Filter bubble https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble
Lately it feels like Netflix's algorithm is "just show Netflix produced content". Maybe I'm being nostalgic but I really miss the old shooting star recommendation system where you rated content and got similar likes from other viewers.
On the flip side, Netflix is creating their own content. People have no idea what content is on Netflix. They have to try really hard to push content and generate engagement. I've never heard of Outer Banks, but they keep pushing it to me and so I saw the pilot and now I'm watching the series. I watch one comedy show and now they keep throwing comedy shows at me so I saw and enjoyed another. Their need to create is different.
As Netflix has moved away from carrying lots of other people's movies to largely producing their own in-house TV shows, it feels like they barely have enough content to need an algorithm to curate it. They just show the same new Netflix originals over and over in ever category. I'm sure Netflix has piles of data that shows this is the best strategy. It just seems like a differentiated curation strategy doesn't matter…
ok so how do I know which human's taste is the same as mine. If only there was a recommendation engine for that.
I wasn't old enough to remember it, but when search engines tried to do this in the 90s, it became clear that people preferred machine recommendations. See yahoo directory, look smart.
HBO is operating on a much more tractable problem. Human curation may work better here.
"Curators, ranging from WarnerMedia editors to celebrities, put together a list of movies and TV shows they’re watching" ok so how do I know which human's taste is the same as mine. If only there was a recommendation engine for that.
This is like when Apple said their Music platform would be more human curated rather than algorithms like competitors such as Spotify. But the reason why I love Spotify's recommendations and not Apple's is because Spotify focuses on algorithms and does them so well. Same with Netflix, in my experience they truly know what I will like to watch, they seem to know what shows I'll love and what shows I won't love but wil…
Wow, I'd love to live in that world. Once Netflix abandoned their 5 star system their recommendations really tanked for me. It feels like it's recommending more based on outrage & "engagement" than enjoyment for me. Meanwhile MovieLens [1] consistently guesses what I would rate a movie within +/- half a star, I think I'm using their Warrior recommendation algorithm. The tagging features on MovieLens help - apparently I most enjoy "visually appealing surreal mysteries".
But I absolutely agree about Spotify. Spotify seems like its actually learning from my Liked tracks, curated playlists and behaviour, and picks up on when my tastes shift to wildly different genres for a while.