Netflix Replacing Star Ratings with Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Downs

variety.com

7 points·perseusprime11··7 comments

This saddens me.

>Users would rate documentaries with 5 stars, and silly movies with just 3 stars, but still watch silly movies more often than those high-rated documentaries

That's not incongruous to me. The stars are not about "enjoyment" factor, they are about perceived quality. I may have a go to cheap ice-cream and rate it 3-stars but rate a good affogato 5-stars and only have it once in a while.

They are diluting the meaning of quality and instead are opting for a saccharine "enjoyment" factor.

This binary choice does not sit well with me and I hope they abandon the idea soon.

I'm not sure if its quite the same, but Andrew Ehrenberg found to be called double jeapardy.

it turns out that brands with the highest market share have customers that do things with them the most and is predicted by purchasing matching a Dirichlet distribution.

The 5-star rating system is archaic. It's just natural human psychology to rate things they really like or really hate, thus a ton of 5 or 1 star ratings.

I'd like to see it replaced with the tri-state, 2-star system: 2 - loved it, 1 - meh, 0 - hated it

But there is a continuum even within 'loved it' territory. I 'love' Die hard. But I 'love' There will be Blood more. The latter may be my favourite movie ever. What should Netflix recommend to me first? A loud action movie, or an unsettling character piece with an unlikable protagonist?

Wouldn't that be what a thumbs up/down would be? Thumbs up - loved it, thumbs down - hated it, don't click the thumb - meh.

Don't click the thumb means you haven't supplied a rating yet. NULL in the database.

bingo!

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