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The Clickbaitification of Netflix

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Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#181

Post by yarcob »

dangus wrote: post #166
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…

In my experience the iTunes store is such a horrible, slow piece of shit software that I only use it to search and rent films I heard about elsewhere.

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#182

Post by ricardobeat »

fumblebee wrote: post #144
mdoms wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Human factors" could include doing something as radical as observing how someone uses your product (no, not with a computer - just watch) and then - and this is the shocking part - speak to them. Ask them why they did that or what they liked and didn't like.

What fantasy world are you living in where you think Netflix and Facebook don't already do this? They constantly run paid interviews with people to source this information. The issue is many-fold: 1) formalising multiple half hour interviews into something you can A/B test is non-trivial, 2) given the logistics of these interviews the sample you end up with is small and therefore bias.

I worked for the company running the most A/B tests in the industry for most of my career.

Having a user testing session is relatively rare, saved for special one-off products/features. Actually having feedback from those sessions distilled into product feature proposals, and getting them into the product roadmap is even rarer.

In the meantime, hundreds of A/B tests based on metrics like these would have been ran and resulted in a permanent change to the product. It’s just so much easier for everyone involved to trust “the data” vs something that requires nuanced interpretation.

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#183

Post by JohnWhigham »

tomnipotent wrote: post #32
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…

> The data/engineering/product loops at tech companies favor boosting short-term metrics I think this hits the nail on the head. Leadership is hard, and executives can be many layers removed from the frontline. It seems that A/B tests and family have proven a really effective vehicle to communicate across leadership levels what has happened, why it happened, and the impact it had on the business. I'm definitely guilt…

Early in his term, Trump flirted with the idea of changing quarterly earnings reports to be biannual. I wonder how much that would have shook up corporate culture.

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#184

Post by stonemetal12 »

m12k wrote: post #107
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…

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…

Isn't that more because of what they are optimizing for than the fact that they are optimizing? To continue the food analogy engagement is blood sugar levels and they are seeing how high they can crank it. If they optimized for "happier and healthier in the long run" then they would probably loose short term engagement spikes, but have fewer people quitting for health reasons. Basically they could be broccoli if they wanted to be but they choose to be soda.

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#185

Post by stronglikedan »

omniscient_oce wrote: post #146
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…

Spotify's UI feels like it has succumbed to this.

I recently got a very gracious trial period for Youtube Music Premium, so I'm giving it a shot. It's UI is what Spotify used to be, before they crippled it nearly completely for my use cases. I'm seriously considering switching because of this. I'm just hoping that YT Music can replicate Spotify's one killer feature - Spotify Connect - before my trial is over.

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#186

Post by pndy »

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.

You might find this interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16803937

freetube client allows you to control how thumbnails are displayed; default - youtube one or manual fetch frame from beginning, mid or end of the video

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#187

Post by rchaud »

I dumped Netflix the second it became clear that they were pulling a bait-and-switch, replacing AAA content from major networks with their own material.

Algorithm-driven content feeds simply do not work for me. I don't want to watch TV all day, nor do I have a genre that I watch to the exclusion of all others.

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#188

Post by Spellman »

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.

Luckily they can't send different thumbnails to different viewers. Yet.

Veritasium actually did an interesting episode recently about how the major YouTubers optimize their titles and thumbnails using real time data now to figure out what works to go more viral. And apparently there's a convergence on "shocked" face.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#189

Post by dogman144 »

nsgi wrote: post #56
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.

They do, though. They produce a lot of garbage but their best rivals HBO

The best get cancelled two seasons in, while HBO does not.

Re: The Clickbaitification of Netflix

#190

Post by rchaud »

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.

Even somewhat respectable channels do this thumbnail 'hack' because they claim they've A/B tested it and the "I am yelling loudly" look perform better. Possibly because more children click the thumbs than they otherwise would.

But, having watched the 'crate challenge' that is hot on IG and TT, I'm thinking my thumbnail comment might be giving adults too much credit.

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