I am still 'impressed' with recommendation engines and how much time, money etc is spent on them. In all the years using Netflix, prime video, YouTube, apple TV+ etc, I have never had 1 recommendation I like. These companies all know for years, sometimes decades, what I like (horror sci-fi) and, also important, what I dislike/hate/never watch (romantic comedies): the recommendations I get are shows or movies I would not watch if you paid me and are not even remotely connected to what I viewed in the past. The only time it gets it right is recommending something I just saw on that same platform, usually less than 24 hours ago. I could not make a worse recommendation engine if I tried than any of those, but I guess somehow they make money recommending stuff I will never click on? And no, my accounts are not shared with anyone, it's just me watching them. I click like/not like duty fully, and yet...

I subscribe to streaming services but they no longer have my viewing data. Discovery got increasingly awful and I moved my viewing to pirate sites.

The Netflix recommendation engine probably only works for people that watch a lot of Netflix. For me it’s practically useless at guessing why I watch something and can’t differentiate between skips because something is boring or because I’ve watched it earlier on another account.

A much better, easier way to expose new content is the traditional way: send people on talk shows like Colbert and have them talk about the new shows. Netflix should do their own late night show on the service.

The future will be generative, personalized, tailored-to-each-costumer content.

Just wait and see.

paywalled