[boffinism]

If you spent 20 mins looking, it's not their recommendation system that's failing. It's that you don't like their content (or how their content is portrayed).

The recommendation system is the thing that shows you stuff without you needing to browse for 20 mins.

[karmakaze]

That's not true. Their recommendation system is failing. Often they will have content that's of interest to me, but instead I'm presented with all the popular titles that I've already watched and marked with a rating.

I get the sense that they're A/B testing the wrong metric: time spent in the app. I'll often spend more time looking than a couple episodes of a show.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I haven't been watching anything for a couple of years because I have two children and that limits tv a lot. However, the recommendation system still sucks.

They haven't recommended me lockwood and co on Netflix, we stumbled on it because it was popular (and we binged watched it one night when both were asleep).

So I do think it sucks. Recommendation seems to consider similarity, but not "quality" : they give equal treatment to their products, and the consequence seems to be that they show often garbage mixed in with good stuff...

[guepe]

It's exactly the issue: it recommends based on "same style of what you watched", not on "this is high quality".

I watch high quality shows only - anyway I don't watch much.

And I have the exact same impression, it doesn't suggest me quality shows.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Yes that's the same thing I noticed.

Interestingly, Steam seems to do a much better job at recommending OR my ability to filter out good/bad videogames is much superior. The problem with a movie is that you can't see a part of the plot for some of them or it would spoil it, while for videogames you definitely want to look at the gameplay (at least for me) before buying.

[varispeed]

That's simply not true. There is plenty of content I like, but I am not getting it recommended.

Often I find stuff on Reddit or other forums or through my own research then look for it on Amazon or Netflix and often it is there, but was never recommended to me.

[humanistbot]

Also paradox of choice / overchoice phenomena, where the more options you have, the less you feel satisfied with any of them.

[keymon-o]

I don’t think its applicable here. I personally have many platforms and options where I can find most movies that I want to watch. With this many options I have no trouble finding movie I’ll almost definitely enjoy watching.

This process for finding right movie takes effort and many aspects, while the streaming service only has my watching/browsing history and rating system which I don’t bother participating in.

I think it might get better if they become more intrusive, though.

[newaccount74]

Yeah, the problem isn't new at all.

It was much easier to choose a film to watch in the cinema (about 5 options) than to choose a film from the video store (500 options).

[tnzk]

Considering you wouldn't feel satisfied most with only one option, what will be the optimal number of options?

[humanistbot]

> Considering you wouldn't feel satisfied most with only one option

Not true, the opposite often happens when you don't really have a choice and are mentally exhausted. If you're expecting choice and don't get it, then of course you're not going to be satisfied. But the lack of any choice (other than just leaving) can make certain people in certain states more satisfied than anything else. Legacy broadcast radio worked on this principle for a long time, and still does for people who just keep their car radio on a single station and let the DJ or talk radio producer make all the decisions.

> what will be the optimal number of options?

That varies significantly, both between individuals in terms of the average tolerance, as well as within individuals in terms of their present psychological state.

[that_guy_iain]

Plus if they‘re constantly on there they may have watched all of the content they like on these platforms.

[roboy]

I have considered this, and there’s some truth truth to this, that I have watched all from my favorite categories … but then I do discover whole seasons of things I haven’t watched but liked previous seasons of, and whole series when digging around long enough … it just feels increasingly difficult to efficiently dig.