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Comment by chromedev | Hacker News Reader

I stopped subscribing to Netflix. Their recommendation engine is honestly terrible. They'd be much better off using curated genres.

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Their recommendation engine is beyond terrible. It sucks so bad that a flat list of all movies in alphabetical order would be much, much better.

I would say that I am able to find something I want to watch on Netflix about one out of every five attempts. The other four end with me giving up in frustration after 20-30 minutes of looking.

I wouldn't pay even a single dime for the service, myself. My partner does, and every now and then I get bored enough to give it another shot. Usually I regret it.

I suspect that they have an overengineering vision. This could originate from a culture very strongly (excessively, in this perspective) centered on engineering.

They have a very positive view of their recommendations, like they have of their customized thumbnails.

Yet I, and all of my friends, find the recommendations nearly useless, and I also find the thumbnails mostly ugly.

Yeah it's really bizarre just how bad the recommendations are, even after all of these years of development and data collection. Offsite lists and personal recs are the only ways I've found new Netflix shows I like.

Your confusion is because that you represent a niche use case, while Netflix optimizes for the masses who use Netflix so they can think less, not more.

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