Netflix Is Ending Reviews July 30th

goombah99 writes: Netflix is sending emails to subscribers announcing the end of user-authored reviews on Netflix. Past reviews are being archived. The stated reason is declining usage. This follows on the previous years' decision to remove range voting for user ratings (0 to 5 stars) and substitute a thumbs up/down approval voting system. One suspects that the former is an unintended consequence of the latter, since the purpose of people who write a review is to try to explain the nuances of their decision. An inexpressive rating system defeats that. It can be argued that approval voting has technical advantages in aggregating ratings for a recommendation engine as it doesn't need to normalize the biases in a rating system between different users and mostly heads off gaming the system with exaggerated degrees of rating. But evidently that was also a necessary component of the review process itself regardless of its utility for recommendation engines. The email that Netflix is sending users is short and to the point: "You contributed a review on Netflix within the last year. We wanted to let you know that this feature will be retired on July 30th due to declining usage. We appreciate you taking time to write a review. All of your reviews will be available at netflix.com/reviews through July 30th."

Comments

dumped them already.

[fish_in_the_c]

This is a company who provided a very useful service one. Had lots of content I was interested in seeing.
Now-day's they self produce stuff I'm mostly not interested in and have removed many things I'd like to watch.
They have basically been ignoring the core of what made them attractive to users like me ( lots of old and some new content cheap). In favor of other business, but I apparently am not a member of the demographic they are marketing too.
So, I dumped them and went on the greener pastures. Lot's of other options out there.

Re:dumped them already.

[ChromeAeonuim]

Yeah, I can never figure out how people fault Netflix for this. They came up with a great new model; it is the old media companies that yanked the content away because they want to have dozens of different streaming services, paid for and with ads once they can sneak them in. They're the ones trying to basically recreate cable, and people blame Netflix for 'removing' that content? As far as I'm concerned, that's all the more reason to support Netflix.

Re:dumped them already.

[Darinbob]

Not a lot of alternatives. Amazon isn't much better, but they do spend a ton of money to be relevant and becoming an exclusive source of some popular shows, but that may not be sustainable. Everything I would be interested in seems to have an additionsl cost. I don't think Amazon would exist if it weren't for the pre-existing "Prime" userbase. Hulu has it's own major issues. Those are essentially the only effective subscription streaming services with a broad based appeal.

The biggest problem with Netflix isn't something they can control - they don't have access to content customers may want. It's like the old cable wars but with streaming services instead (ie, withhold your entire content and demand more money). So no, Netflix is not voluntarily dumping half of the shows just so that it can add it's own programming, instead it is adding it's own programming to make up for losing access to so much content.

The only thing I'm missing out on with Netflix is Doctor Who, and a few movies, and it's not their fault for that. I don't watch enough TV or movies that I can ever run out of stuff on Netflix.

This is all part of their grand master plan.

[cyn1c77]

I believe this is all part of their grand plan to mitigate their large loss of third-party content which started several years ago.

They redesigned their website to be more graphical and less text based several years ago, making it hard to simply sort highly rate titles and scan though them quickly. I thought this was so that the user could not tell how limited their third party movie content was.

Then they introduced their "thumbs up/down" rating system supposedly because their users did not understand how their 5 star rating system was being used differently than the convention that the rest of the world follows. At that time, they also moved the reviews for each show to a separate (last) tab under each show's view.

This latest change completes the transformation. You can now only see what shows Netflix wants you to see unless you do a direct text search. No more sorting and no more reading reviews.

Personally, I am amazed that this is working for them, but I appear to be in the minority. Prior to their website redesign, I was a strong proponent of their service. After the redesign, I was convinced that they would tank and sold my stock in their company. However, their stock price has only gone up from there.

Re:This is all part of their grand master plan.

[markdavis]

>"Personally, I am amazed that this is working for them, but I appear to be in the minority"

+1 to your post and add me to your "minority." I saw all the changes you listed and thought exactly the same things. At least on the DVD site I had some control, on the streaming site, it is a wasteland of annoying scroll bars that tell me almost nothing about what I might want to watch or what is available. No real sorting, no real consideration about my ratings or those of others, no way to really see what is ACTUALLY new. It is beyond frustrating.

I, too, am convinced they are doing all this to:

1) Hide or remove tools from users to keep them "engaged"
2) Make it look like they have more content than they do
3) "Guide" people into accepting what they do have
4) Censor feedback that might lower watching what they do have

quo vadis Netflix?

[kiviQr]

Going from 5 star review system to like/dislike was percieved by users as bad and they stopped using it. Now you remove user engagement (content reviews) and expect what?

Re:2 ratings instead of 5 is a little less arbitra

[markdavis]

>"Now instead of everyone deciding for themselves what two or four stars means, people can just decide whether they liked the movie or not. It's simple. I like that."

I *hate* it. Because there are lots of movies I neither like nor despise... and there are movies I like and movies I really, really like. None of that can be expressed with a "like/hate" or "good/bad" 2-point scale. Plus, somehow, Netflix LEARNED what I liked based on realistic ratings (I rate EVERYTHING I watch). Now how are they going to do that? I will have no scale to know how certain they are I will "like" it or "dislike" it.

How hard is it to rate on a 5 point scale? We do it zillions of times a day at nearly every school in the nation...

5 = A = very best = Absolutely love
4 = B = good = Like it
3 = C = average = OK/Meh/mediocre
2 = D = not good = disliked it more than liked it
1 = F = worst/fail = hated it

Now, if it were a 7, 9, or 13 point scale, I can see why it might be more difficult than it is worth, overall. But really, a 5 point scale is the one that most everyone has used for many years throughout a significant part of their lives. Even if the definition of each rating slid a little here and there, it isn't so varying as to be useless.

Getting rid of reviews is yet another hostile move to the way many of us use Netflix to try and decide what to watch and help others.

Control

[HeckRuler]

"It was cool when you were rating other people's stuff. But now that we're making our own content, we really don't appreciate you saying it's all junk."

On an even more cynical level, they simply want to control what you watch.

Complete loss of core values

[GoRK]

Netflix was popularized on their ability to innovate and deliver a targeted experience. It was so important to them that they used to sponsor a million dollar prize to anyone who could improve upon their ability to match content to users.

Two things happened simultaneously that changed this:

1) They started making their own content; some of which is good but most of which is shit.

and

2) They started losing good content from 3rd parties, leaving them with mostly shit.

A good, balanced ratings system doesn't exactly work in an environment where you have very little of value to offer and you want to prioritize your own garbage besides. Netflix has had to absolutely gut and now flush one of the core innovations that built them into the juggernaut they are today; they are fast becoming just another new media studio. HBO is their competitor now. I yearn for the Netflix catalog of yore.

Problem is I'm not sure who fucked up here.