[laurent92]

I suspect their algorithm is stuck in a local minimum, where it has proven to itself that, if a movie is presented to you hundreds of time, there will be a moment where you click, either inadvertently or because there is nothing else presented to you, and it counts as a validation of their engine. It is so optimized for this that it doesn’t try just presenting all movies anymore - which is a recurrent problem in A/B testing in general.

Yes, Netflix’ engine is the reason I left Netflix…

[dspillett]

> Yes, Netflix’ engine is the reason I left Netflix

That seems rather odd to me. I can believe it was a final straw after other reasons like running out of content you particularly want (absolutely or in comparison with other services), but not it begin "the" reason.

I don't particularly pay attention to the recommendations on either Netflix or Amazon, instead picking up things I might like to try from external sources (friends & family, discussions or records in various media, having liked something or some part of it looking into what else the performers/writers/directors/other have done it are involved in now, sometimes the does own external advertising).

I feel that the recommendation systems are more optimised for people who use TV/movies as background noise rather than actively watching. That would explain re-recommending long running series that they have already watched, amongst other things people have mentioned in this discussion.

Maybe my behaviour is a vestige from the life of piracy back when content was less readily available otherwise (somehow region locked, or simply not available on local channels yet, etc, so I often couldn't get things I cared about more legitimately for many months, if ever, and back in the scheduled TV days things were often in at inconvenient times). I seek out what I want rather than waiting for it to be handed to me by the service(s).

[matkoniecz]

I cancelled Netflix subscription because I was not finding anything worth watching.

I tried downvoting unwanted featured movies, they continued to be featured.

Once my listing was filled solely with already watched or downvoted movies I cancelled account.

I suspect that Netflix had some movies that I would gladly watch, but if they show what I explicitly marked as invented...

[hellbannedguy]

They need to buy better old movies.

Their catalogue of award winning, or good movies is very low.

I think the problem is the studios figured why rent them to Netflix when we can put up our own OnDemand service?

So, Netflix was at a conundrum, "How do we get material so people won't leave, and we can raise our prices?"

Overpaid Netflix MBA, "I got it! Let's throw money at directors, and writers. The directors will make make our movies because we pay well. The writers will churn out cliched filled scripts, and put every plot twist into everything they write. The average viewer isn't here to watch quality, we will give them a huge bat of lousy material. It will be like feeding the hogs with slop?"

Amazon Prime video seems to have a better library for those that appreciate good movies.

I did like The Twillight Zone, and Star Trek, when I had Netflix though.

(Years ago Netflix offered every episode of the Zone, and Trek. I got every silgle episode through the mail, and copied to dvd using---dvd something? They come in handy if xfinity goes out.

Oh yea, Xfinity was charging a family member $260 a month. I painfully got. down to 130 a month. She was loosing $1390 a year for probally a decade--with pretty much the same plan.

Xfinity should be broken up, or better regulated by authorities. I literally gave up trying to rectify the situation talking to three people who could barely speak english. The last Ecuadorean guy's english was so bad, I gave up, and just picked the cheapest plan on Comcast, and prayed the bill would go down.

A Xfinity employee told me the current business plan is just "milk" long term customers with confusing bills, and deals. They don't care about cord cutters. They know they will always have a large percent of people who will just pay because their isn't a real option in their county, and many older people are not computer savvy.

Hell I'm computer savvy, but their application interface is purposely confusing. I could sware they are randomenly switching prices over the phone, and through their application. I hope someone outs them if my hunch is right.

[input_sh]

> They need to buy better old movies.

I believe it's much more in their interest to buy old TV shows. A good movie will keep you occupied for what, two hours? Seinfeld: almost 19 days of watch time. Friends: over 5 days. Community was barely ever popular before Netflix bought it, now there's plenty of people that enjoyed it for 2 days and 7 hours of watch time (its subreddit went from 266k on April 2020 to 482k right now).

I believe it's also in their interest to spread out stories that are realistically one-movie-long into 5-6 slightly drawn out 40-50 min episodes.

I just wish they fucking stick to them instead of cancelling them after like two seasons. Orange Is The New Black is the only original of theirs I know of that goes above two days of airtime.

[hellbannedguy]

I watch good movies many times. I keep them on a loop while studying, or working. In college, I always had an Oliver Stone film on. At the time the duality between good, and evil, was always on my mind.

I must have watched Wall Street, and Platoon, a few hundred times.

I won't even estimate how many times I have watched Hictchcock films.

And the number of times I have watched Giant, or Citizen Cane, is embarrassing.

I have old movies playing all the time. I don't actually watch them, but I find them comforting in a weird way, esoecially black, and white films. I think the old, good movies take a part of my brain away from reality? I listen to them while working,

Yes--how can I find Platoon comforting? At that point in my life, Charlie Sheen's character, and his father's, reminded me there are moral people still left. Maybe only in fantasy though?

I get what you are saying though. I have The Andy Griffith show on all the time.

(fun murky fact, I think true, fact about the Andy Griffith show. They didn't bother to copyright the episodes. For years people could sell copies of the show without copyright concerns. I think it's copy written now though.)

[SiempreViernes]

> I suspect that Netflix had some movies that I would gladly watch

No so sure about that, in my experience they really don't have a deep licence pool any more, at least not for movies.

[Semaphor]

For me, the reason was partially the engine, partially their active work at confusing me.

I would keep seeing stuff I don’t want to watch, and they would keep switching out thumbnails to trick me into thinking it’s something I haven’t encountered. Both of those combined made browsing a chore, and I simply had no interest in using something that’s actively working against me (which is also the reason I went from being an active FB user to only using it for groups and messaging, so it’s not as if "actively working against me" is a Netflix exclusive)

A more minor reason is the lack of information displayed, but I could have handled that.