[jhallenworld]

My theory is that it increases the likelihood that you'll stop browsing and just watch something. This would reduce the variety of shows that people watch and ease the requirements on their servers.

[afiori]

I think more than server strain it could be meant to avoid the "mah, I looked for 20 minutes and found nothing, maybe I should just delete the subscription"

[cameronbrown]

If this is true it's a perfect example of Goodheart's law. Maybe they assumed they were making it faster to choose content.