[roystonvassey]

Interesting insights.

Online Analytics is now really nuanced - you need to know what metrics are important for * your * business, not just use boilerplate kpis.

For instance, an e-commerce website is clearly looking to lead the user to a lot purchase and the more they purchase, it’s good for the business so kpis around sales conversion help and recommenders help your business increase sales.

For Netflix though, the users have already paid for the service after which they land on the website. Most users I imagine then expect to be provided all that Netflix has to offer in an easy way. So if I was a Netflix product owner, I’d be more interested in Kpis around search-ability, having an anti algorithm that “suggests” completely random obscure shows, “switchability” of users - how less of a time do users spend on a movie or show.

I imagine they’re doing this but as a user I don’t see this at least - they show the same old stale recommendations for me, I’m always trying to hack their search to find what I want and they continue to invest in content that’s mostly miss than hit. I wish they at least had a directory for me to browse through (at least I’ll be driving their engagement metrics to help them drive their valuations)

[kofejnik]

They don’t want you to watch obscure shows, they want you to watch the top ones (in your region!) as they are preloaded into your cdn already.

[roystonvassey]

Right - but why would they assume I want to watch the "top" show? I've already paid for it and they benefit by having me browse and allowing myself to find that I like right? And what I like is not necessarily what they think others might me like - what one watches is highly variable (can change day to day, even time of the day) and influenced by so many factors that are personal.

[pnut]

Netflix is now a major player in the entertainment business, and I would guess there is a pay-to-play element behind the scenes as well as ROI on new productions, forcing them to jam these options down our throats.

User viewing preferences seem to be a secondary consideration.

[denton-scratch]

> a pay-to-play element

I wonder about that too. Of course, the Netflix in-house productions will be getting extra promotion; but setting those aside, I fail to understand why Netflix promotes (e.g.) romcoms to me; I don't watch romcoms. I've never given Netflix any signal that I favour romcoms.

I can only suppose that some motivation other than giving subscribers what they want must be at the root of it.