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Netflix to Replace Star Ratings With Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down
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That works for me. I normally just give a three star if it was good and a one star if I couldn't finish watching it because it was garbage.
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I always get off the wall recommendations. And pretty much all of them are from the trending or new release area... I'll scroll through 20 movies and not find anything I want to watch.
I agree with the don't show this to me...
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I always get off the wall recommendations. And pretty much all of them are from the trending or new release area... I'll scroll through 20 movies and not find anything I want to watch.
I agree with the don't show this to me...
There you have the reason for this nonsense. This is filter-bubble methodology: deep down the user wants hamburgers, so we give them hamburgers instead of this fine selection of dinners that we have but won’t tell them about. If there is one thing hugely flawed about Netflix, then it is their recommendation and content-discovery system. I constantly get to see the same films over and over again at the top of my recommendations, lots of ‘Netflix Original’ stuff that I do not care about and even dedicated sections that say ‘watch it again’ (including films thatI have just watched). I nowadays find the good stuff exclusively through RottenTomatoes.
Perhaps Netflix should re-introduce the actual labels for the stars and distinguish reviews from recommendations a bit better (rather than using red and yellow stars). They used to label them like this: ‘hated it’, ‘did not like it’, ‘liked it’, ‘really liked it’ and ‘loved it’. At some point they removed the labels, leaving only the stars. ‘Hated it’ and ‘loved it’ are very strong words which I rarely use to describe a film, but some films do deserve them. Why use these labels instead of the ambiguous stars?
They used to have this, but got rid of it. This all started when they started pushing the Netflix Original content so heavily.
That’s because Sense8 is their poster child for Netflix-produced content. They are going to extremes to push their own or Original content, you cannot look anywhere without seeing it.
Netflix or what I call Notflix is on thin ice in my book and when it melts I am dropping them. I rate there mature garbage original shows one star yet they still shove new them down my throat so I welcome the thumbs down rating if it works.
However Notflix removes content all the time to add more hot garbage original content. They already butchered half of the series episodes of Agatha Christie's Poirot they are also getting rid of Bob's Burgers on April 1st despite the positive reviews saying the show is too expensive to renew yet they rather waste money on hot garbage originals like Iron Fist even the NF loving critics hate the new series so much they are complaining that the original garbage is getting old too.
However Notflix removes content all the time to add more hot garbage original content. They already butchered half of the series episodes of Agatha Christie's Poirot they are also getting rid of Bob's Burgers on April 1st despite the positive reviews saying the show is too expensive to renew yet they rather waste money on hot garbage originals like Iron Fist even the NF loving critics hate the new series so much they are complaining that the original garbage is getting old too.
Yes, Amazon, Hulu others do that do. My experience is that it's a marginally accurate. It's not all that sophisticated of a system IMHO. It thinks because you watched on surupy drama you are interested in all. Watch a sci-fi or comic book movie and it hurls 100 more at you. But I, at least, don't pick watch I watch based on broad genre. I prefer to get recs from family, friends, people I work with.
But for that purpose a simple up or down suffices because the algorithm doesn't really understand the nuances of why one said a movie was 3 stars. vs 4. It could have been something as arbitrary as the background soundtrack.
I used ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ratings for my own purposes, so I could go back later and decide which movies I wanted to watch again.
I never rated anything for Netflix's benefit, because their recommendation system has always been nothing short of horrible anyway.
What I'll do instead is not rate anything. Good going, Einsteins! Sheesh!
If you miss rating it should propose you more garbage than if you watched it and gave it 1 or 2 stars.
Also, when you are not sure if something was that bad but just good enough to waste time, you give it 3 stars. As it happens, that's the vast majority of movies there. The problem is that Netflix might take as they call it "like" instead of neutral. With a binary choice, the ability to properly rate such fluff is gone.
That is interesting. I wonder if Netflix would go as far as manipulating the rating data to keep Sense8 almost 5-stars.
Although, that wouldn't explain why other shows are so low. The example I have before was Legend, which was not the best show in the world, and Sean Bean carried the other actors, but even with its low budget, it was well written, great dialog, with a decent and unique plot. It is better than a 3-star imo.
It is a trade secret, so we may never know. However, I have had this suspicion for a while and it would make sense for Netflix to promote this content. This is or will be their bread and butter. I can only say that the red stars very rarely match what I would have given in yellow stars and I have watched a lot.
I don't know this, as I never researched it, but maybe the lower rated shows are not produced by Netflix, but only distributed by Netflix. It would still qualify as a "Netflix Original" if it is only exclusively by Netflix.
Besides documentaries, I didn't know there was any Netflix Original movies. Or, are you saying you see a lot of 2-star movies in general and not necessarily Netflix Originals?
oh, the person you replied to was referring to Netflix's original content.
See:
They don't really need to manipulate the star or thumbs up or down ratings to promote their content, just feature it prominently in nearly every programming grouping. This they do already. This system does not succeed in pushing programming towards me that I will actually want to watch. It seems they've succeeded less in being clever than in being annoying.
This is BS. They're removing nuance. Because why not continue to promote bipolar human behavior? Why give the option of nuance to the portion of the population that can handle it? Why not promote the lowest common denominator thinking? It's all that matters in pathological capitalism.
They've already removed reviews (there is no way to write or even read user reviews on the mobile version; I've no idea about the desktop browser version).
This is all about ensuring that the system isn't disincentivizing subscribers from watching the (mostly undesirable and therefore cheap) content. If all you see available on Netflix are things their old system thinks you won't like, you'll stop watching and maybe stop subscribing.
It also allows them to stop putting effort into managing reviews.
Every service that used to offer unique or complex value eventually degrades to the point where it's a dumb binary of consume the bare minimum features or not, with little options and zero nuance or guidance. Okcupid is another great example: once bought out by match dot com, okcupid's unique features that set it apart from its competitors (such as Match) were removed, piece by piece. It's a hollow shell of what it used to be.
Pathological capitalism. Boiling everything down to near uselessness, racing to the bottom.
They've already removed reviews (there is no way to write or even read user reviews on the mobile version; I've no idea about the desktop browser version).
This is all about ensuring that the system isn't disincentivizing subscribers from watching the (mostly undesirable and therefore cheap) content. If all you see available on Netflix are things their old system thinks you won't like, you'll stop watching and maybe stop subscribing.
It also allows them to stop putting effort into managing reviews.
Every service that used to offer unique or complex value eventually degrades to the point where it's a dumb binary of consume the bare minimum features or not, with little options and zero nuance or guidance. Okcupid is another great example: once bought out by match dot com, okcupid's unique features that set it apart from its competitors (such as Match) were removed, piece by piece. It's a hollow shell of what it used to be.
Pathological capitalism. Boiling everything down to near uselessness, racing to the bottom.
Really??? lol. Well, you learn something new every day. Thanks for this.
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Same. See also: The OA
Both had all the elements of things I like but I could not get past ep 2 of either show. Of course, now that the star-rating meaning has been explained to me, it makes sense that Netflix would think I would want to give both of these 5 stars.
There's a show called "Gary, Tank Commander" that had a 2-star rating for me but oh man it's one of the funniest shows I've watched in a while and I gave it 5 stars. Those types of comedies aren't my *usual* would-watch.
The star system is clearly flawed as their meanings weren't clear to everyone or what it was even based on. So we'll give the thumbs a try.
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both of those shows you mentioned are great to fall asleep to after 5 minutes though
I don't rely on Netflix star ratings at all anyway (using Letterboxd to track everything these days), but what a stupid move to get rid of them for some moron-level binary rating system.
I've always hated the way Netflix deals with ratings. Instead of just showing you the actual average of star ratings (like Amazon), they've insisted on trying to outsmart you and show you some hypothetical star rating they think you would give it. I guess no surprise they're dumbing things down even further.
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To be fair, I'm sure Netflix would like that as much as you would -- the copyright holders and their byzantine content licensing agreements are the culprits here.
I've always hated the way Netflix deals with ratings. Instead of just showing you the actual average of star ratings (like Amazon), they've insisted on trying to outsmart you and show you some hypothetical star rating they think you would give it. I guess no surprise they're dumbing things down even further.
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To be fair, I'm sure Netflix would like that as much as you would -- the copyright holders and their byzantine content licensing agreements are the culprits here.
Why? Star ratings are better. I prefer to know what the average rating for a film is, not if a majority think it's worth watching or not. If I'm looking to watch a movie that I haven't seen I'd rather pick a 5 star than a 3 star. How does just a thumbs up for down help with that?
I read the comments for hardware or technical books. I don't look at the movie ratings.