Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

HBO Max taking on Netflix with human curation instead of relying on algorithms

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 168 posts

Re: HBO Max taking on Netflix with human curation instead of relying on algorithms

#131

Post by scarface74 »

_-david-_ wrote: post #129
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This balkanization is a good thing. I'd far rather have the choice between many competing providers each offering a service at £8/month, than have the choice to take or leave a single expensive all-in-one subscription, like cable. It's also good that market forces are driving content-creation.

Competition is good, but each of the competitors are creating their own shows. This potentially requires you to buy multiple services to view all the content you want. I would prefer the competition to not be content but on UI, speed, downtime, viewing suggestions, etc. The best part of cable was that you could get any channel regardless of your provider. You could have Spectrum, AT&T, Direct TV or whoever and get an…

It’s just the opposite now. You use to have to pay for cable to get HBO, CNN and NBC (if you didn’t live in a good coverage area.) and you were stuck paying sports fees, broadcast fees, franchise fees, etc.

Now you can get HBO a la carte, NBC prime time either for free on their website or with no commercials or with Hulu for $12.

Really there is little on network TV that I care to watch anymore. Between Netflix ($5 with Tmobile), Hulu w/ no commercials, Amazon Prime, AppleTV+ (free for now), and Disney+ (Mostly for the kids), I have plenty to watch. I sign up for other services (Starz, CBS, DCUniverse) occasionally to binge and then cancel.

Re: HBO Max taking on Netflix with human curation instead of relying on algorithms

#132

Post by scarface74 »

krzyk wrote: post #90
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This balkanization is a good thing. I'd far rather have the choice between many competing providers each offering a service at £8/month, than have the choice to take or leave a single expensive all-in-one subscription, like cable. It's also good that market forces are driving content-creation.

No, it is not. Not when they compete with exclusive content. It would be good if they had the same content but compete with the UI (in such case Netflix would win, and HBO would loose, as they have the worst possible UI), streaming content etc.

Do we really want to go back to aggregators?

Re: HBO Max taking on Netflix with human curation instead of relying on algorithms

#133

Post by scarface74 »

paul7986 wrote: post #126

I subscribed to HBO Max for $11 and just see they don't have a Roku app (the most popular streaming platform)??

Blame Roku’s “walled garden”. They won’t let an app be on their service without making a deal that gives them a cut.

https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/why-hbo-max-not-availa...

As much as people complain about Apple’s 30% cut, Apple doesn’t get a cut of third party content apps if a user subscribes on the providers website.

No, Apple doesn’t force content app makers to offer payment through Apple - see Netflix, Spotify, Hulu Live TV, Sling, ATT Now, etc.

Re: HBO Max taking on Netflix with human curation instead of relying on algorithms

#134

Post by giancarlostoro »

jeromegv wrote: post #125
giancarlostoro wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time you check you might be paying more than cable. We all hoped to have a cheaper alternative to cable. Not a fragmented variation of it.

How much is cable those days? That would require at least 10-12 streaming services.

Throw in one of the streaming services that support 'live' cable TV and that hikes up the prices, plus adding things like HBO, Showtime, etc to a Hulu subscription, and you get there rather quickly.

Personally I try to keep the number of services I'm subscribed to to a sane minimum.

Re: HBO Max taking on Netflix with human curation instead of relying on algorithms

#135

Post by smabie »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #103
tourist_on_road wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read somewhere they realized that just giving a thumbs up or down on a title is much reliable than having star recommendation system

I thought it was that people were using the stars 'wrongly' according to Netflix. How one can use a star rating system wrongly is beyond me.

I'm guessing the distribution of reviews was bimodel. Ideally, people should use a 5-star system in a way that it provides a normal distribution. Most content should fall between 2 or 3 stars.

But it doesn't actually work that way, 4 star uber drivers get kicked off the platform, 2 star Amazon products suck, 2-3 star movies suck. 4-star movies are okay.

As such, I think we can conclude that people don't actually know how to use a star rating system and we should just get rid of it.

Re: HBO Max taking on Netflix with human curation instead of relying on algorithms

#136

Post by smabie »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #18
ape4 wrote: post #16

"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.

You beat me to it. I certainly want to be able to watch things recommended by $celebrity2.

Why not? I know a lot of people who read and watch stuff that Bill Gates or Gwyneth Paltrow recommends. He's a celebrity. Other people have different celebrities. If you look up to a person, it's only natural to be interested in what they are interested in. People on HN think they are too good to care about celebrities, but we all know that's a total lie.

Re: HBO Max taking on Netflix with human curation instead of relying on algorithms

#137

Post by anyyw »

rogerkirkness wrote: post #128

Are there any examples to counter argue the vast superiority of computational curation? Walmart (active merchandising) > Amazon (passive SEO) Mutual funds (active picking) > ETFs (passive baskets) It seems like a one directional shift. Every time I see human curation, it just ends up being long term worse.

Might not be an apples to apples comparison, but Costco vs Amazon is the example I tend to use for curation vs SEO. The reason it might not be the best comparison is that Costco tends to be for bulk items while Amazon tends to be for one off purchases, but anecdotally I know of many who consider Costco’s experience to be the better of the two.

Re: HBO Max taking on Netflix with human curation instead of relying on algorithms

#138

Post by smabie »

jtreminio wrote: post #74
romanovtexas wrote: post #67

HBO is betting on their content to be superior right now, but there are some obvious areas where the streaming experience isn't on par with Netflix. No 4K/HDR, one plan costing a premium that limits simultaneous streaming to only 3 screens, etc. Hope that they catch up eventually else it's gonna be hard to compete solely based on content.

Netflix, Disney+, and Apple TV+ have also realized that adding more language tracks to their content is a _must_. My family's viewership of Amazon Prime Video is severely limited because they refuse to add Spanish audio to their content. They have a few Spanish-language shows and movies but it's slim pickings. HBO has no excuse on this, imho. I _know_ they have Spanish audio for every single one of their shows and mo…

Why not just use subtitles? I can't stand dubbed live action content (anime is a little better though), so I stick with subs exclusively.

Re: HBO Max taking on Netflix with human curation instead of relying on algorithms

#139

Post by _-david-_ »

scarface74 wrote: post #131
_-david-_ wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competition is good, but each of the competitors are creating their own shows. This potentially requires you to buy multiple services to view all the content you want. I would prefer the competition to not be content but on UI, speed, downtime, viewing suggestions, etc. The best part of cable was that you could get any channel regardless of your provider. You could have Spectrum, AT&T, Direct TV or whoever and get an…

It’s just the opposite now. You use to have to pay for cable to get HBO, CNN and NBC (if you didn’t live in a good coverage area.) and you were stuck paying sports fees, broadcast fees, franchise fees, etc. Now you can get HBO a la carte, NBC prime time either for free on their website or with no commercials or with Hulu for $12. Really there is little on network TV that I care to watch anymore. Between Netflix ($5 w…

I didn't mean to suggest that you couldn't currently pay for whatever you want a la carte. It is of course better that you don't have to pay for cable but worse that you have to pay multiple content providers (Netflix, Hulu, CBS, HBO) to get the shows you want.

When you pay for Spectrum you get TBS, CW, Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc. When you pay for AT&T you get the same channels. It doesn't matter your cable provider, you would have access to pretty much any channel you wanted.

With Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO, etc you have to pay for all of the services to get the content you want. This is beneficial for people who only want shows on a few streaming services but bad for people who now have to pay 10 different companies.

Ideally all the content creators would work together and make their content available to all of the streaming companies at a reasonable price even if they had their own streaming product. Paying for Netflix would provide the same shows as paying for Hulu.

Each of the streaming companies would then allow you to pay a set price for all the content like a traditional cable company (and their current business model) or allow you to pay for the shows you want. If you only want 5 shows you shouldn't have to subscribe to Netflix, Hulu and Disney+. You could pay Netflix and get all 5 shows instead of paying 3 different companies. Since you don't care about the other shows you shouldn't have to pay for the streaming company to obtain / keep the rights of those shows or to pay for them to create content you don't care about.

This is a pipe dream and will likely never happen.

Re: HBO Max taking on Netflix with human curation instead of relying on algorithms

#140

Post by kcatskcolbdi »

ikeboy wrote: post #72

Is there any halfway decent third party recommendation system? I've got a list of everything I've watched in the last year or so since I've started tracking it, plus older TV shows I've seen in full. I'd be interested in manually inputting that with ratings into some system where it can recommend what else I'd like given everyone else's data.

Oh, I've actually been working at that for the last six months! The DS model we have going at https://groa.us is really solid. We are working on integrating list functionality so that you can put together different "mood boards" of lists so you are in the driver's seat when it comes to steering the algo.

But currently the vanilla version we have up now, I've found, has provided really solid results.

Post reply on HN