Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by kofejnik 1765 days ago
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.
1 comments

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.
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.

> 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.