> So, I totally understand retention: that one makes sense to me, as that's revenue for Netflix; if I'm more likely to renew my account, then Netflix makes more money. But... I honestly don't understand why Netflix is optimizing for hours watched, and in fact I had assumed it would be the opposite
Hours watched differences may predict retention differences farther in the future better than short-term measurements of retention, which may measure reaction to changes more than it measures the steady-state effect of the change.
If you want to act on A/B tests faster than directly measuring long-term retention would allow, having a proxy measure of long-term retention that mitigates the risk of optimizing for transitional rather than steady-state retention has value.
Unstoppable play-while-browsing plus the price hikes has me poised to drop it as soon as I finish two shows I'm near the end of. Probably in the next month. Either problem alone wouldn't get me over the "bother to cancel" speedbump, but I dread opening Netflix unless I'm browsing straight to something I already know is on there, these days. If it were still super cheap, whatever, but I can get a couple cheap services for its price now. Out it goes.
I'll just start picking it up a month a year or so to binge whatever I've missed.
Playing-on-the-menu and autoplay-after-episode would keep me from recommending it to older relatives. The last thing they need is their devices doing shit without their telling them to, especially with audio and video involved for extra confusing-the-hell out of them, doubly so when they're trying to direct it to do something (browsing the media selection). Probably direct them to Hulu, I guess, if they asked.
You can shut off auto-play junk on the menus? Didn't used to be able to. Great news, one of the worst UI features I've ever seen (as in, intended behavior, not a bug).
Hours watched differences may predict retention differences farther in the future better than short-term measurements of retention, which may measure reaction to changes more than it measures the steady-state effect of the change.
If you want to act on A/B tests faster than directly measuring long-term retention would allow, having a proxy measure of long-term retention that mitigates the risk of optimizing for transitional rather than steady-state retention has value.