These posts depress me. They are always showing off some cool algorithm that is oh so clever, and yet Netflix recommendations are just the same films over and over again. Amazon instant somehow nailed it - I keep finding new shows/films that are actually well aligned with my viewing history and rating. Maybe their offerings are more tailored to my tastes?
As a tangent, I've been meaning to start a discussion on how utterly unusable I find the Netflix interface. Maybe it is because I only just signed up and haven't been exposed to its iterations, but I am pretty sure I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to watch a particular episode. Likewise the personalised experience page sometimes disappears. Again, not wanting to compare too much, but for a late start to the game, Amazon I found pretty intuitive.</rant>
After using Netflix for quite some time, I have no evidence to support any hypothesis other than that their overall selection is secretly horrible and that they wish to conceal this however possible.
Evidence includes but is not limited to: Their user interface appears to intentionally border on unusable, a rambling Quora post by a C-level exec about how advanced search (a la Gmail) would ruin the world, and they've shut down their API, making it harder for third-party sites to index their selection, and allow positive UX to be possible thereby.
The core issue for me is that of the dozen or so shows and movies I would be interested in watching, on average 0.5 are available via netflix. So I spend a lot of time searching in futility for that show or movie I half remember wanting to see. During that search netflix is trying to recommend a bunch of other things to me and I find it annoying and distracting.
Also, could somebody somehow post a schedule of show/movie availability? Shows get added or removed on a regular basis and I always find out by accident.
(e.g. "Oxryly1! We do NOT have 'Guardians of the Galaxy' at the moment. We expect to add it in 4 months time. Thank you.")
I have a theory that it is on purpose, they want the home screen to be filled with well-known movies and if you only have a handful of them at any given time it shows the same ones all over the place. Instead of seeing random not so popular movies and thinking of stop using the service because of few "good and popular" movies.
As a tangent, I've been meaning to start a discussion on how utterly unusable I find the Netflix interface. Maybe it is because I only just signed up and haven't been exposed to its iterations, but I am pretty sure I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to watch a particular episode. Likewise the personalised experience page sometimes disappears. Again, not wanting to compare too much, but for a late start to the game, Amazon I found pretty intuitive.</rant>