> but in reality they just couldn’t handle the data
If you mean from a "critique" standpoint then no. If you meant from a "data wrangling standpoint then yes, as binary like/dislike data is just a lot easier to work with for recommendation algorithms.
There are many good reasons to move from a five star rating system to a binary rating system, and yeah, I think many of those fall into the "people lied to themselves" category:
- People tend to note use five or ten star systems on a continuous scale with certain points on the scale being biased
- People tend to go into "movie critic"-mode when they see a 5/10-star scale, as those are usually used on sites like IMDB. That drives them to try and rate the movie "objectively" and in accordance with an intellectual image they want to portray, rather than what they actually like/dislike consuming and spend their time watching
- Netflix also displayed the ratings as 5-star "adjusted ratings for the viewer", which already took your preferences into account. Not a single person I've talked to back then was aware of that, so everyone tried to do the same mental gymnastics they do when trying to project global IMDB ratings to their personal preferences. Moving to a "XX% match for you" together with the like/dislikes is something that people understand a lot better
All-in-all, I don't think the rating system really has been an issue in the recent years. The catalog has been a much bigger issue during that time. I'm pretty sure that Netflix's rating and recommendation system has been good enough that it has served me everything that I'd like to watch on their platform and now I'm out of content.
> So to summarize, customers are dumb & recommendation algorithms are hard.
Or to not throw away all the points I argued for: There were a lot of good reasons for moving away from the five star systems, and the main motivation was providing a better less confusing UX
> I loved Netflix stuff when they started out, banger after banger was delivered. Something changed.
The main thing that changed was that media companies woke up to streaming and stopped giving away the rights to properties that many people enjoy (mainly nostalgia shows + blockbusters) for cheap. That forced Netflix much more into media production of their own, which has it's up- and downsides, and gave Netflix the same warts that media companies always had (e.g. having to make hard decisions around canceling shows). It's a very clear case of a first-mover losing its advantage over time.
Netflix, famously, had a public contents to try to improve the recommendation system, with very little success. [1] That system was a demonstrably good system, that maximizes preference, but only if you rate a bunch of content. I'm not aware if it's still in use.
But, I've rated many hundreds of shows/movies, and the rating is very accurate, for me. Very biased and scaled, but completely predictable/reliable.
In my case, the rating can be corrected with Netflix 7 being my 0, and Netflix 10 being my 10, mostly linear. For a Netflix show, 8 is my 0, since those are biased a bit more.
Although, technically, the most profitable customer is the one that has low view time, but still subscribes. The most stable customer is probably one with high view time, but they're also probably the least profitable, unless they're naturally helping promote the service.
But they are not giving people what they want. Netflix recommendations are notoriously bad and Netflix is not all that successful lately with its own shows. Even when they have actually good shows you would like, you rarely find them through Netflix recommendations - you need someone to tell you about the show.
