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The Clickbaitification of Netflix

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Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#161

Post by uCantCauseUCant »

wepple wrote: post #152
m12k wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are instinctively drawn to a lot of things that are really bad for us in significant amounts, because we are designed to fit into an environment where those things are scarce. Sugar, fat, inactivity, "interesting news", outrage. These all steal our attention because that response helped our ancestors survive and pick out these rare but important treats. But in typical human fashion we've now crafted a world th…

> But if Facebook was running our diets, their algorithm would long since have "optimized" its way to junk food for all of us. I really, really like this comparison. If we fed our bodies in the same way we let tech company algorithms feed our minds, we’d have three Big Macs for breakfast washed down with a shot of whiskey and a couple lines of cocaine

Traditional american breakfast..

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#162

Post by dangus »

personjerry wrote: post #7

I worked at Facebook for some time, and did a bunch of data work. We had this culture of building something, looking at the results between the experiment groups, and then choosing the statistically more successful one -- i.e. a newsfeed algorithm that had better engagement. This sounds great at first, and certainly is straightforward if you want a promotion. But behind the scenes some of us had this thought that our…

Unfortunately it probably works because the business model depends on people forgetting about their subscription, e.g., Planet Fitness.

If you have a nice experience for a week or two and the price is low enough you'll probably never watch Netflix (e.g., ME) and keep on paying for it.

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#163

Post by davemp »

pizza234 wrote: post #45
keiferski wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the consequence of lack of vision. What is Netflix's long term goal? Ideally, it would be to fund and broadcast fantastic cinema. Yet, I really don't get the impression that contributing to the art form of film is very high up on the metrics chart.

I'm of the opposite opinion. They're executing their vision perfectly. Netflix is very aggressively pursuing the bottom line, and they're not doing it differently from a drug dealer. It's not random that the term "Netflix binge" exists. Netflix interface is designed to shove content at the users' face at all costs, and in a very disrespectful way. Here there are some disgusting dark patterns: - it took them a long ti…

They also cycle through 'box art' on Netflix originals so you can't scroll past them if you recognize art from a title you're not interest in.

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#164

Post by coldtea »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #11
matheusmoreira wrote: post #3

Would Netflix have to do this if it actually had content people wanted to watch? It's just sad watching it double down on this pulp because every other copyright holder took their ball and went home.

Nobody was ever going to make all TV and movie content available for $9 a month to everyone. The idea that Netflix could last the way it used to be was ridiculous.

Deals with content companies aside, why not?

Storage and delivery wise its much chaper than YouTube (which is 100000 times bigger in storage needs due to user generated content), and makes all this available for $9 without ads...

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#165

Post by coldtea »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #15
matheusmoreira wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright infringement makes everything ever created available for $0 a month. If streaming services can't do the same, they suck and are failing to compete.

The position that "theft is free, so anything not given away fails to compete" is not a realistic position to argue with.

Copyright extension is theft by lobbies pressuring the legislative body against the spirit (and original letter) of the law.

In this sense, thousands of movies and albums (stuff recorded before 1970) would be public domain now based on the 1901 copyright terms...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#166

Post by dangus »

yarcob wrote: post #102

This is why I quit my Netflix subscription. The algorithm seems to have picked up the fact that I like watching SciFi and Zombie movies, so my Netflix homepage was this dark place filled with Sci Fi and Zombie movies. One problem with this is that Netflix only has a handful of good SciFi and Zombie movies, and I've seen them all. So the homepage was filled with movies I've seen already, or the dime-a-dozen copycat mo…

+1 on renting films with some level of purpose. A lot of people I know refuse to pay for movie rentals.

I've seen this too many times: endless scrolling to try to find that one decent movie that comes free with the subscription.

But movie studios aren't stupid. They don't just give away their best movies for free. So those who simply aren't willing to pay are left watching Hitman or The Quake (fine Hulu content).

The price of movie rentals might seem high, but life is far too short to waste it watching things you don't even like that much.

Also: iTunes in particular happens to have very decent staff recommendations (i.e., actual human curation). I wouldn't be surprised if movie rental services like iTunes understand that their customers are looking for quality and not quantity, otherwise those customers would be on the streaming services.

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#167

Post by dangus »

janfoeh wrote: post #117
yarcob wrote: post #102

This is why I quit my Netflix subscription. The algorithm seems to have picked up the fact that I like watching SciFi and Zombie movies, so my Netflix homepage was this dark place filled with Sci Fi and Zombie movies. One problem with this is that Netflix only has a handful of good SciFi and Zombie movies, and I've seen them all. So the homepage was filled with movies I've seen already, or the dime-a-dozen copycat mo…

> So I cancelled my Netflix subscription, and went back to occasionally renting a film on iTunes or Amazon. I did that too, and then went one step further, because some fifteen years down the line, online video rental still hilariously, bafflingly sucks. Twelve, thirteen years ago I was still renting physical DVDs. Back then, renting a physical item that was produced halfway around the world, shipped to Germany and d…

You can also do exactly this with Blu-rays and get really stunning above-streaming quality, though of course the selection and pricing isn't as desirable as DVDs.

What I'm saying is invest in a USB or internal Blu-ray drive, the extra cost is worth it.

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#168

Post by mlac »

mojuba wrote: post #154
m12k wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are instinctively drawn to a lot of things that are really bad for us in significant amounts, because we are designed to fit into an environment where those things are scarce. Sugar, fat, inactivity, "interesting news", outrage. These all steal our attention because that response helped our ancestors survive and pick out these rare but important treats. But in typical human fashion we've now crafted a world th…

Very well put! I have another related theory that goes: Over time, everything converges into mediocrity . By everything I mean products sold to us, entertainment, media, the Internet itself. Look at the car designs of the 1970s and now. Look at cinematography then and now. As soon as marketing steps in and start telling otherwise innovative companies or artists how to sell, things begin slowly converging into mediocr…

I was driving to work (a foreign experience) and Joe Walsh was singing about a Maserati. And it made me thing “man, if you grew up in middle America, hearing about a Maserati, you might not even know what it was, let alone that it existed”. Now you can hit Google and see millions of pictures, join the fan club, watch hours of videos and reviews, and become an arm chair Maserati expert. Which is cool, but if sort of takes away the mystique behind things. You wouldn’t even know how it was spelled unless you had the album itself and the artist included lyrics.

Similarly with guitar, it would have been almost impossible to figure out what type of pedal someone was using to get “that sound” without interacting with other humans in person. And I think that served as a filter for people who cared and also led to interesting introductions and local experts (music shops and store owners, etc).

I think that’s what we lose. And while I think converging to average makes sense, I think peoples tastes have shifted to quality in more areas, because they can quickly google and see what the best looks like. And most people will use debt to get there.

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#169

Post by brap »

yarcob wrote: post #102

This is why I quit my Netflix subscription. The algorithm seems to have picked up the fact that I like watching SciFi and Zombie movies, so my Netflix homepage was this dark place filled with Sci Fi and Zombie movies. One problem with this is that Netflix only has a handful of good SciFi and Zombie movies, and I've seen them all. So the homepage was filled with movies I've seen already, or the dime-a-dozen copycat mo…

Just fyi, you can reset your watch history and that resets the recommendations as well.

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#170

Post by skocznymroczny »

dannyr wrote: post #30

YouTube is pretty much like this but it's the creators selecting the thumbnails. The most common thumbnail I see is a picture of someone looks like they are blown away with their hands on their head and their mouth wide open.

Is there some Youtube thumbnail generator or a guide? They all literally look the same. Have the same kind of thick white outline around the person and they seem to use the same fonts too.
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