The home page and the recommendations

After I log into the account, what I want to see is the following.

Where I’ve left off; have I started watching a film and didn’t finish it? Or maybe I’m watching a series and I have N episodes to go? That’s what I’m back for right now.

Not MUDBOUND — I don’t know what that is, I don’t care about it anyway for the time being ; I have an hour and a half to spend here, I don’t want to learn about a new thing, experiment with a new drama, new series, new anything. Give me my quick fix. And when I’m done (particularly if I’ve watch it all the way, something which you can tell, and even more so when I clicked the like button) you could suggest something similar to that instead of MUDBOUND. MUDBOUND should only be suggested to me in the context of very similar flicks watched, or when I search for specific keywords.

Suggestions for flicks similar to those I’ve watched and liked (you do have a like button!); not Netflix Originals, I’ve no interest to see films merely because some company produced them. In general, people follow favourite directors, producers, actors or genres (though it’s true that some companies like A24 managed to create a fan base for their works and some, like Marvel, even have a cult surrounding their products).

Now, it’s true, you do make suggestions based on what I’ve watched in the past (though I have to scroll down the page to find them). But somehow these are a hit and miss. I watched 13th (2016) and you don’t seem to suggest to me LA 92 (2017) based on that. But I’ve watched Rocco (2016) and you keep suggesting a boatload of documentaries about how all sex workers are victims of trafficking, as if you you have an agenda to push there. Those algorithms must be doing a poor job.

Take a look at how Spotify, Youtube and even freaking iTunes is doing this and you can see the level of similarity at work there and how fine-tuned these prove to be for most of the time. Have I listened to Dire-bloody-Straits? There’s no way you can not suggest Chris Rea, and viceversa (Youtube messes this up as well). No, because I’ve watched Peaky Bliders, I’m not in the least interested to watch Hell’s Kitchen. How is that food-oriented show even remotely connected to Peaky Blinders apart from the fact that the apparent star of the show is a dude that happens to be “Britisher”?

fewer titles and whole lot better targeted based on my previous watched films. Remember, I only have a limited amount of time to decide and find a potential title to watch; if the offer is huge, you’re making it difficult for me to sort through those titles that I’m not at all interested in, to find some that I am potentially interested in. And from those I have to pick only one or two short ones to watch. You’re working against me.

But what do I see?

This!

Is the reader bored scrolling for this long? So was I. We are presented with a huge offer of films. I had to hover to see if it’s something I’d watch (The Hitman’s Bodyguard? Friends? Power? Ip Man 3? Good lord! I thought Netflix uses data to sell its offer.)

Don’t push anything that you’re not sure I’d enjoy watching. That auto-play trailer “feature”? Not cool. At all. I don’t want a single piece of software running on my PC to run with sound unless I explicitly wish for it to behave that way. It’s intrusive, it doesn’t give me a chance to adjust my speakers’ level and it grabs my attention in a spammy way instead of convincing me to watch that trailer by other, more orthodox, means.

To add insult to injury, I can’t pause that shit. Some people love trailers, other don’t. I don’t. You might even know this already, you’re using the data I generate to make the platform a success. That annoying trailer that can’t be paused, stopped or completely removed out of my sight is a bad tactic to get me to watch MUDBOUND. The fact that I can silence it is a half-baked solution.