Netflix and the Napoleon Dynamite Problem (2008) • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix and the Napoleon Dynamite Problem (2008)

#21

Post by davisclark » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 6:20 PM UTC

pcmaffey wrote: post #20

davisclark wrote: post #18

In Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky nailed the reason computers and science and algorithms will never be able to replicate humanity or predict the actions of man, when he wrote: “What is to be done with the millions of facts that bear witness that men, consciously, that is fully understanding their real interests, have left them in the background and have rushed headlong on another path, to meet peril and danger, c…

The point of any system should never be to choose for a person, but rather, to improve the quality of available choices.

In that case, aren't you, in effect, choosing for me the set of choices available to me for selection, based upon a preconceived notion of "quality"?

The Underground Man goes on to say, “I agree that two times two makes four is an excellent thing; but if we are dispensing praise, then two times two makes five is sometimes a most charming little thing as well.”

Would two times two makes five be included in a set of high-quality choices?

Re: Netflix and the Napoleon Dynamite Problem (2008)

#22

Post by gknoy » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 6:22 PM UTC

underbluewaters wrote: post #10

rogerbinns wrote: post #3

I've been getting increasingly frustrated at Netflix, because it keeps recommended things I have already seen, or definitely do not want to see. Having to keep scrolling through unwanted content like that really reinforces just how dumb it is, despite all these claims about their intelligence. Eventually I did figure out that on the website you can say you aren't interested in particular items, but Android/Roku etc d…

Netflix: "I see you liked a couple scifi anime movies. Perhaps you'd like to watch our entire catalog of big breast anime aimed at a completely different audience."

Exactly. I wish I could do something like...

Movies.objects.filter(tags__in=['anime', 'sci-fi', 'robots', 'cyberpunk']).exclude(tags__in=['nuns', 'schoolgirls', 'demons', 'demon-hunting-nun-schoolgirls'])

or even just see all of the tags that they tag things with, and allow searching by those.

Of course, I also would love to be able to blacklist films that I know I'm never going to watch (some horror films, some of aforementioned anime :)), and have them hidden from browsing or search results (or even just sequester them at the end of the list, or dim them out?).

Re: Netflix and the Napoleon Dynamite Problem (2008)

#23

Post by elijahmoore » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 6:23 PM UTC

mozumder wrote: post #12

To be fair, even people aren't able to judge a movie properly. People often change their opinion of movies on second viewing. Just watching a movie at different times of day can significantly alter your opinion of a movie.

Agreed here. I also think that the overall vagueness of the five-star rating system makes it hard for users to express their true opinion. Algorithms are "garbage-in, garbage-out", and I think a five-star rating response represents "garbage-in". Unfortunately it would be risky and expensive for Netflix to change its rating system at this point.

Re: Netflix and the Napoleon Dynamite Problem (2008)

#24

Post by noir_lord » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 6:27 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #19

AlwaysBCoding wrote: post #8

All those hours and millions of dollars into perfecting their recommendation system, and Popcorn Time still has a better UI for viewing movies than Netflix does. Just show me all the top movies and let me pick one, why partition them into drama/comedy and filter out the one's you don't think I'll like? it makes the experience worse.

Or you know, just let me use scrollbars instead of having to wait for your stupid javascript to SLOOOOOWLY pan the movie list. And then I have to hover and usually click through to get details about a movie. What's wrong with vertical lists with relevant information next to the picture? Something like every shopping interface ever? Using Netflix is like going to a grocery store, deciding that you want some canned cor…

Agreed on every point, the sideways scroll is a UX disaster, I use a media PC with a cordless keyboard/integrated touchpad and it's horrible, it's not much better with a mouse.

I probably watch netflix once or twice a month, I'd cancel but I'm not the only user.

Re: Netflix and the Napoleon Dynamite Problem (2008)

#25

Post by redthrowaway » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 6:29 PM UTC

mrspeaker wrote: post #14

"If you use a computerized system based on ratings, you will tend to get very relevant but safe answers"... I call this my "Radiohead metric": for a given music recommendation system, how long do I have to use it before it tries to recommend me Radiohead. One of the problems I find in music algorithms is they can't know how I've changed - suggesting music based on what I play or input - but that's stuff I liked in mi…

Applying weight to each rating based on its age seems like such an obvious fix that someone must have tried it and realized that it makes things worse.

Re: Netflix and the Napoleon Dynamite Problem (2008)

#26

Post by taco_emoji » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 6:30 PM UTC

mozumder wrote: post #12

To be fair, even people aren't able to judge a movie properly. People often change their opinion of movies on second viewing. Just watching a movie at different times of day can significantly alter your opinion of a movie.

Absolutely. Another anecdote: I just recently watched Gone Girl about two days after finishing the book. At this point I have no idea if I liked the movie or not - basically my brain was just comparing and contrasting story points and dialog from each. I wasn't really experiencing the movie.

In my case I didn't bother rating it because it A) didn't seem fair, and B) rating stuff with any more precision than "like/didn't like" seems really pointless to me.

Re: Netflix and the Napoleon Dynamite Problem (2008)

#27

Post by kenjackson » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 6:34 PM UTC

I feel like one thing Netflix doesn't do a good job of noticing is what movies I actually order/watch. That is, the mere fact that I ordered a movie means a lot, whether or not I rate it.

The biggest manifestation of this issue is that I tend to order new movies, but I seem to get a lot of recommendations for older movies. Netflix should see that I've ordered maybe 2 out of 200 movies that are older than the year 2000.

Re: Netflix and the Napoleon Dynamite Problem (2008)

#28

Post by tyingq » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 6:36 PM UTC

I'm not sure there's a reasonable way past the "Napoleon Dynamite Problem". They mentioned, in the article, other movies where it's difficult to predict if someone would like them or not.

The list was “I Heart Huckabees,” “Lost in Translation,” “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” “Kill Bill: Volume 1” and “Sideways.”

Personally, the common thread I see across those is that the viewer would be more likely to enjoy the movie if they had the right context.

Kill Bill, for example, is far easier to enjoy if you've seen (not necessarily liked...but have seen) cheesy old Kung Fu / Karate movies.

Napoleon Dynamite is easier to appreciate if you were socially awkward yourself in high school. There's also some humor in there that's more relevant if you were a kid in the 80's, as well as some humor that might make more sense if you lived somewhere rural, or even more specifically, rural Idaho/Utah/Wisconsin.

All that to say that Netflix may not have enough data at their disposal to know if you have the right context to enjoy movies that almost require it.

Re: Netflix and the Napoleon Dynamite Problem (2008)

#29

Post by rch » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 6:36 PM UTC

AlwaysBCoding wrote: post #8

All those hours and millions of dollars into perfecting their recommendation system, and Popcorn Time still has a better UI for viewing movies than Netflix does. Just show me all the top movies and let me pick one, why partition them into drama/comedy and filter out the one's you don't think I'll like? it makes the experience worse.

I think that rather than simply letting users find and watch all their favorite movies in the (finite) library as quickly as possible, the objective is to use content presentation to maximize subscriptions. In that context it becomes worthwhile to present movies that one might be willing to watch, along with just enough 'top' movies to maintain the perception of quality, while optimizing the depth of an exhaustive search to prevent frustration.

Re: Netflix and the Napoleon Dynamite Problem (2008)

#30

Post by Pxtl » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 6:38 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #19

AlwaysBCoding wrote: post #8

All those hours and millions of dollars into perfecting their recommendation system, and Popcorn Time still has a better UI for viewing movies than Netflix does. Just show me all the top movies and let me pick one, why partition them into drama/comedy and filter out the one's you don't think I'll like? it makes the experience worse.

Or you know, just let me use scrollbars instead of having to wait for your stupid javascript to SLOOOOOWLY pan the movie list. And then I have to hover and usually click through to get details about a movie. What's wrong with vertical lists with relevant information next to the picture? Something like every shopping interface ever? Using Netflix is like going to a grocery store, deciding that you want some canned cor…

Seriously, Netflix' UI is a complete trainwreck. The searching is painful too. I still cannot find a way to say "give me all your View Askew movies" or "all your DC Animated movies". The search is woefully primitive and there is functionally no UI for categories... can't I just pick multiple category tags? Or see all the categories you're using under the hood?