[firebirdn99]

Kinda sad that Netflix opted for quantity over quality. It shows with all the inane sequels like Murder mystery 2, Extraction 2 and with the idea of just filling an uninteresting script with some stars to make the numbers like Red Notice. And many of the top 50 shows reflect just that. The last Netflix original I watched and liked was The Queen's Gambit.

[hef19898]

You should try "Obliterated", its hilarious, it doesn't take itself aerious, it plays with almost all TV tropes we know (in a good way), references everything from Rambo to Die Hard and has an eye for detail (every scene hints at something or is important in some regard). Also, episodes 2-8, each roughly an hour, cover an in-series time frame of 7 hours, which is a bice touch. Throw in good acting, good dialogs and liekable characters and you uave a great show.

Bonus: No brand name stars in it neither.

[xarope]

Obliterated was universally panned by critics. But so have many shows which were panned in their era, and are now considered classics.

So would you recommend watching it?

[hef19898]

Heck, absolutely! Doubly so if you liked the 80s and 90s action flips and Hangover!

[nomel]

Or, to look at it another way, they're giving their paying customers what they want.

[danielscrubs]

They are not. They removed the five star rating because they thought people lied to themselves, but in reality they just couldn’t handle the data.

What they will give you is what I call the lowest common denominator of shows.

[firebirdn99]

> lowest common denominator of shows this is a good description, they've gone the CBS route with cable TV type programming, and Reality TV. There's been a lot of documentation over this- https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/bela-bajaria-global-tv-netf... https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/16/how-much-more-...

I guess it's sadly what brings most viewers. I think there's some truth in the overall dumbing down of society.

[hobofan]

> but in reality they just couldn’t handle the data

If you mean from a "critique" standpoint then no. If you meant from a "data wrangling standpoint then yes, as binary like/dislike data is just a lot easier to work with for recommendation algorithms.

There are many good reasons to move from a five star rating system to a binary rating system, and yeah, I think many of those fall into the "people lied to themselves" category:

- People tend to note use five or ten star systems on a continuous scale with certain points on the scale being biased

- People tend to go into "movie critic"-mode when they see a 5/10-star scale, as those are usually used on sites like IMDB. That drives them to try and rate the movie "objectively" and in accordance with an intellectual image they want to portray, rather than what they actually like/dislike consuming and spend their time watching

- Netflix also displayed the ratings as 5-star "adjusted ratings for the viewer", which already took your preferences into account. Not a single person I've talked to back then was aware of that, so everyone tried to do the same mental gymnastics they do when trying to project global IMDB ratings to their personal preferences. Moving to a "XX% match for you" together with the like/dislikes is something that people understand a lot better

All-in-all, I don't think the rating system really has been an issue in the recent years. The catalog has been a much bigger issue during that time. I'm pretty sure that Netflix's rating and recommendation system has been good enough that it has served me everything that I'd like to watch on their platform and now I'm out of content.

[danielscrubs]

So to summarize, customers are dumb & recommendation algorithms are hard. Conflating time watched with user enjoyment is much easier.

Sounds pretty similar to all mediocre companies out there.

I loved Netflix stuff when they started out, banger after banger was delivered. Something changed.

[hobofan]

> So to summarize, customers are dumb & recommendation algorithms are hard.

Or to not throw away all the points I argued for: There were a lot of good reasons for moving away from the five star systems, and the main motivation was providing a better less confusing UX

> I loved Netflix stuff when they started out, banger after banger was delivered. Something changed.

The main thing that changed was that media companies woke up to streaming and stopped giving away the rights to properties that many people enjoy (mainly nostalgia shows + blockbusters) for cheap. That forced Netflix much more into media production of their own, which has it's up- and downsides, and gave Netflix the same warts that media companies always had (e.g. having to make hard decisions around canceling shows). It's a very clear case of a first-mover losing its advantage over time.

[watwut]

> Netflix also displayed the ratings as 5-star "adjusted ratings for the viewer", which already took your preferences into account.

It was not adjusted to your preferences. It was adjusted by algorithm to ... something that has nothing to do with my enjoyment.

[nomel]

Netflix, famously, had a public contents to try to improve the recommendation system, with very little success. [1] That system was a demonstrably good system, that maximizes preference, but only if you rate a bunch of content. I'm not aware if it's still in use.

But, I've rated many hundreds of shows/movies, and the rating is very accurate, for me. Very biased and scaled, but completely predictable/reliable.

In my case, the rating can be corrected with Netflix 7 being my 0, and Netflix 10 being my 10, mostly linear. For a Netflix show, 8 is my 0, since those are biased a bit more.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_Prize

[nomel]

0 means it wasn't worth the time. Negative means I disliked it.

[stubish]

Or, to look at it another way, they are giving the profitable customers what they want.

It is clear Netflix don't want me as a paying customer, and that makes sense. At least in the short term.

[nomel]

That's not another way, that's the same way. ;)

Although, technically, the most profitable customer is the one that has low view time, but still subscribes. The most stable customer is probably one with high view time, but they're also probably the least profitable, unless they're naturally helping promote the service.

[watwut]

But they are not giving people what they want. Netflix recommendations are notoriously bad and Netflix is not all that successful lately with its own shows. Even when they have actually good shows you would like, you rarely find them through Netflix recommendations - you need someone to tell you about the show.