[timfrietas]

All due respect for the authors and engineers that worked on this, but this solves a problem that does not exist. In fact, it has produced confusion as my wife and I can't find a title if the artwork has changed or is different on mobile vs web vs FireTV, etc and the sands are shifting on each depending on whose account we are on.

You're gonna get higher click through in the short term but lower satisfaction in the longer term. This "up-and-to-the-right" disease will erode your credibility by not treating artwork as canon in subtle ways and alienate your audience who are disappointed Good Will Hunting, in this example is more drama/romance than comedy, and that Robin Williams, (usually) a comedian, is the most serious character (he graduated from Juliard).

tl;dr Long time personalization product manager here, don't do this: it will hurt you

[qnk]

My thoughts exactly as how much confusion this causes. It has happened to me several times that I'm scanning the catalog for a movie that my graphic memory had previously located, just to end up frustrated at first for not being able to find it and angry after realizing Netflix simply decides to A/B test the artwork.

This is like having a vinyl music collection made up of hundreds of items where the covers change randomly. Please Netflix, stop doing this.

[xrd]

Aren't they proposing this would be shown to you for titles you haven't seen, and haven't made an association with yet?

I actually think this algorithmic discussion is really fascinating.

[mortenjorck]

Even for films you haven't seen, it's a pretty terrible system. I didn't see Good Will Hunting until maybe a decade after it came out, but I was aware of it and knew it starred Matt Damon. If I had looked for it on Netflix and found a cover with Robin Williams, I might have wondered - was this another film with the same title?

[TeMPOraL]

> Aren't they proposing this would be shown to you for titles you haven't seen, and haven't made an association with yet?

Haven't seen on Netflix, using your (sub)account. This breaks in an annoying way when you saw the artwork previously at your friend's party, or on your spouse's subaccount, etc., and are now skimming the catalogue for the movie (maybe you don't remember the exact title, but know it's in a particular genre list).

[ec109685]

They don’t use click through as their success metric.

It is based on their engagement score for the title. With this change, folks are consuming more content, so I don’t think it is correct saying this will hurt them based on your own negative reaction.

[sadikkapadia1]

There are many intelligent replies here.

5 years ago I wrote the recommendation system that Netflix uses (and has degraded since then). One major problem is in the past certain senior Netflix managers are only interested in self promotion (I would hate to extrapolate to the current ones - even if the extrapolation is reasonable). A/B tests are a perfect device for this. What is a better recommender? They were not interested in improving the product. It is easier to win by politics/lying/obfuscation/omission/plagiarism then come up with better ideas. If the company goes down they move on with a good resume and the games they played (for instance USPTO fraud), are hidden.

Scroll down for my comments here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/6xiwr4/d_w...

Some companies are like this. For instance the "Netflix prize team" at Verizon/Yahoo refuse to share recommendations data with other teams leaving them nothing to do. They work in a bubble and will actively try and remove anyone who might be a competitor.

It's sad that Netflix decided to pursue this work (+ other even more brain-dead projects like rewriting the command-line parser, "switching to OO" - examples of Xavier's initiatives). They could of 5 years ago pushed the beta system that has 40% extra performance. (I'm currently at a factor of 3 better performance).

[krzat]

I think it's a mistake to optimize for most hours watched. The price for user is constant, but cost for Netflix - probably not.

For example I watched some shitty movie recommended by Netflix and I feel less satisfied with the service than if I didn't watch it at all.

[user5994461]

That's the best explanation I have seen so far. They're optimizing right but maybe for the wrong metrics.

[formatkaka]

Haha yes. It'll be like , if I watch lots of war drama, then they will show artwork of noah as soldier from The Notebook. Man, that will be epic

[mbauman]

This was my thought after seeing the Pulp Fiction example. The Uma image is iconic, and a lot of work has been done to get it littered around big box stores and plastered on dorm room walls. Using a different image ignores the strength of that brand.