Yeah but if you always have to spend a lot of time finding something to watch, then that shows up in their analytics as increased engagement. Allowing you to remove garbage would make you spend less time in their app.
If you're actually watching content (a whole movie, a series, etc), the total actual usage of the service easily eclipses any time spent bouncing around the UI?
Isn't it still at least very unaware of them, to force you through such bad UI, even if your search time is 10min compared to 2h movie? If not stupid, then still unaware of significant problems of their product/platform.
Or maybe they're right and that's why piracy is growing rapidly. I share most of their complaints and it's a big part of why I quit paying for subscriptions.
I mean, I read stories about their excellent software teams who optimise the user experience all the time and their analytics are superb etc. Then when I use Netflix (not a lot) I notice that it keeps recommending me movies and shows I just f’ing watched. I have the same thing with YouTube and Prime. Are these devs just really bad or is there some motive here I don’t understand? I am not going to watch anything again that I watched 10 minutes ago… in all of these platforms now I have to use quite elaborate search to find things I didn’t watch but do find interesting, even though there must be millions of those. In my recommended feeds I get crap I either already saw or I would never watch (I watched romantic comedies literally never, so why do I keep them as recommended?).
This seems to be a reocurring pattern to me. The tech giants hire supposedly the best talend on the market for all their six figures, yet their products and platforms perform subpar for mny users. To me it seems, that all their talent is directed into the wrong channels and therefore cannot bring their skills to bear on something that makes an actually great product for those users.
You can have the best engineers and bright minds, but if your product sucks or your ethics are non-existent, and you don't let those engineers act outside of the limitting borders of the product, then they will not be able to make the product shine. They might be able to make a more dystopian version of your product, within the guidelines and ethical framework.
And lets not forget, that ethics of the engineers also play a big role. A decent developer with good ethics might make something, that the best engineers would never have even considered making or releasing to the public.