From what I understand, they never implemented any of the algorithms, because their existing one was good enough, and the premise has changed. It used to be, you'd make suggestions so people could get DVDs sent to them, and you'd know they would enjoy it. Now with streaming, the cost to send something you don't like is cheap. So the recommendation engine just has to come up with something you'd try to watch and perhaps enjoy. If you start watching something, it's not your taste, you switch streams. So there's not a lot to gain from improving recommendations 10% unless they were pretty low quality ratings to begin with.
I think the cost of postage/fulfillment/bandwidth should be a secondary concern to how many users can Netflix attract by providing content they actually enjoy. A bad recommendation for streaming or DVD both waste n minutes of viewing time. A bad DVD recommendation additionally wastes 2-6 days of waiting on USPS.
They already have the recommendation engine built and they need every differentiation they can get to compete with the crowd of streaming providers.
I completely agree. Real hype is generated when Netflix consistently nails recommendation. Content is still king, but curation of that content is the engine that drives the whole thing
I agree about your "real hype" statement. There is always the potential for a provider to build business value by nailing recommendation, especially when it comes to lesser known content. Most viewers have heard of big-budget films they plan to watch, or they'll watch any movie with <insert actor>. However, if someone created a system that did this well enough for users to trust it with unknown content, it would go a long way toward meaningful differentiation.
Right now, I don't know of anyone who has limited spare time who would risk trying something unknown just because it shows up in their Netflix recommendations. If Netflix got those right frequently, people would rely on it more and probably enjoy it more. A 10% increase in accuracy has a decent chance to push beyond the invisible "good enough to trust" threshold and create an experience other streaming services just don't have.
There was a parsimonious model that got to 8% improvement. We know this as it was posted publicly by "Simon Funk" [0] after he decided to give up halfway through the competition.
This simple but more accurate model would have been a useful foundation for Netflix to build its own internal models on, and highlight the flaws in the assumption of the Cinermark algo.
A lot of Netflix's success comes from finding great, unknown movies and allowing you to discover them. They're great for Netflix because they're cheap for them and provide high value.
When Netflix users only decide what movies to watch based only on the titles they recognize from marketing campaigns, their disappointment with Netflix's selection will be higher.
Their optimal strategy is to have a recommendation engine that routes users to good, but unknown movies that they know people end up enjoying if they just take the dive to start watching them.
> So the recommendation engine just has to come up with something you'd try to watch and perhaps enjoy.
Heck, if it did that I'd be happy. I don't even know why I still have my Netflix subscription. The selection is basically as good (bad) as Hulu and Crackle, the price is higher and the recommendations are laughable (right now they're pushing: Velvet, a TV series about a Spanish fashion house; Sense 8, the latest lameness from the Wachowski brothers; Elsa & Fred, aimed at old people, a Robert Pattinson vehicle, Orange is the New Black, The Butler and piles of other stuff I would never watch if you tied me to a chair).
Frankly, I don't believe they have a recommendation engine anymore: I think they just suggest whatever is cheapest for them to play.
I've been getting increasingly frustrated at Netflix, because it keeps recommended things I have already seen, or definitely do not want to see. Having to keep scrolling through unwanted content like that really reinforces just how dumb it is, despite all these claims about their intelligence.
Eventually I did figure out that on the website you can say you aren't interested in particular items, but Android/Roku etc do not have that option. Of course those Netflix employees who work on this stuff deal with the PC/web based interface all the time, but apparently don't realise that not everyone does that.
Android/Roku etc do let you set ratings on items, but to me there is a big difference between "I am not interested in this item" and "I have watched it and give it one star".
I haven't looked into in a while, but from what I remember it lets you say whether you are interested in categories of content and not specific content.
FWIW, I thought The Interview was way better than I expected it to be. It is very, very silly, and it does not take itself seriously, but it wasn't particularly predictable either. Maybe you'd be pleasantly surprised?
Netflix: "I see you liked a couple scifi anime movies. Perhaps you'd like to watch our entire catalog of big breast anime aimed at a completely different audience."
or even just see all of the tags that they tag things with, and allow searching by those.
Of course, I also would love to be able to blacklist films that I know I'm never going to watch (some horror films, some of aforementioned anime :)), and have them hidden from browsing or search results (or even just sequester them at the end of the list, or dim them out?).
"Things I've already seen" is the worst part of it for me, and is making me more and more likely to cancel the service out of (possibly misplaced) anger at feeling like Netflix is just regurgitating the same content at me to hide lack of a fuller back catalog.
On the other hand, rewatching is probably 90% of my usage and that's very helpful. I suspect that's why they leave it there: a lot of the audience uses Netflix like TV and they just want something familiar on in the background.
I am getting really annoyed at this too. It almost seems like an intentional thing to get me to not choose something. The ratings are usually pretty accurate, but then it shows me something with a half a star in "Top picks for me". Also, often if i watch one documentary, next time i log in, 90% documentaries shown. For some reason it is designed to show me the same things as what i just watched.
All those hours and millions of dollars into perfecting their recommendation system, and Popcorn Time still has a better UI for viewing movies than Netflix does. Just show me all the top movies and let me pick one, why partition them into drama/comedy and filter out the one's you don't think I'll like? it makes the experience worse.
Or you know, just let me use scrollbars instead of having to wait for your stupid javascript to SLOOOOOWLY pan the movie list. And then I have to hover and usually click through to get details about a movie.
What's wrong with vertical lists with relevant information next to the picture? Something like every shopping interface ever? Using Netflix is like going to a grocery store, deciding that you want some canned corn, and having to walk up to a conveyer belt and wait while canned beans, turnips, tomatoes, mushrooms, etc... slide by before the corn comes around. And it is like this for every single item.
Agreed on every point, the sideways scroll is a UX disaster, I use a media PC with a cordless keyboard/integrated touchpad and it's horrible, it's not much better with a mouse.
I probably watch netflix once or twice a month, I'd cancel but I'm not the only user.
Seriously, Netflix' UI is a complete trainwreck. The searching is painful too. I still cannot find a way to say "give me all your View Askew movies" or "all your DC Animated movies". The search is woefully primitive and there is functionally no UI for categories... can't I just pick multiple category tags? Or see all the categories you're using under the hood?
I agree there are some problems with the ui, but at the same time the number of devices they design for is quite large (desktop web, mobile phone, set-top boxes, Apple TV, Google TV, Amazon TV, etc). Creating a UI that is consistent between all of them must be a bit daunting.
They've parted ways from your described UI quite a few weeks ago on my PC anyway. Still using a carousel but at least its fully paginated now (click > new page, no slow scroll).
The performance is abysmal though, lots of CSS3 hover transitions that seem to slow things to a crawl on scroll
I think that rather than simply letting users find and watch all their favorite movies in the (finite) library as quickly as possible, the objective is to use content presentation to maximize subscriptions. In that context it becomes worthwhile to present movies that one might be willing to watch, along with just enough 'top' movies to maintain the perception of quality, while optimizing the depth of an exhaustive search to prevent frustration.
Agreed here. I also think that the overall vagueness of the five-star rating system makes it hard for users to express their true opinion. Algorithms are "garbage-in, garbage-out", and I think a five-star rating response represents "garbage-in". Unfortunately it would be risky and expensive for Netflix to change its rating system at this point.
Interesting. What do you think is vague about the five star system? Or is it any rating system that would be "garbage-in"?
Being interested in video games, I've thought a lot about rating systems. Older magazines used to use 10 (or even 100) point scales, and you quickly realize all the rating ends up taking place in the top 30-40 percent of your scale anyway... so why not limit the gradations. For my money, 5 stars makes sense... you've got a middle of the road "average" 3 star movie, and then two stars above and below.
My thoughts are generally in line with yours - big problem from the consumer's perspective is tendency for most titles to end up in the 3.8 to 4.2 range. Not very helpful when I'm browsing titles.
The stars are also just a snapshot of feeling, and don't account for any context like expectations, identity, mood etc. Maybe I'd give Black Swan five stars because it was impressive and won awards, but it doesn't mean I necessarily enjoyed it or would recommend it to others. Perhaps a system based loosely on Net Promoter Score ideas could be more helpful
Absolutely. Another anecdote: I just recently watched Gone Girl about two days after finishing the book. At this point I have no idea if I liked the movie or not - basically my brain was just comparing and contrasting story points and dialog from each. I wasn't really experiencing the movie.
In my case I didn't bother rating it because it A) didn't seem fair, and B) rating stuff with any more precision than "like/didn't like" seems really pointless to me.
"If you use a computerized system based on ratings, you will tend to get very relevant but safe answers"... I call this my "Radiohead metric": for a given music recommendation system, how long do I have to use it before it tries to recommend me Radiohead.
One of the problems I find in music algorithms is they can't know how I've changed - suggesting music based on what I play or input - but that's stuff I liked in mid-2000s when I was in peak music consumption mode. Most suggestions then get picked from the same pool.
I'd love these algorithms to take my age into consideration: "If you liked X when you were 25, you're going to love Y now that you're 35!"
Applying weight to each rating based on its age seems like such an obvious fix that someone must have tried it and realized that it makes things worse.
It also might have to do with the time span of the data set... If they only have snapshot data, it would be hard to do anything with temporal information.
I don't use Pandora very much any more but when I did I'd just create a station based on a single artist and then usually listen to it without further interaction. All my stations would converge on Radiohead within ten - twenty tracks regardless of starting point: Joy Division? You must like Radiohead. Passion Pit? Radiohead. Billy Holiday? Radiohead. It was amusing but also more than a little bit annoying, and part of the reason I moved on from Pandora.
In Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky nailed the reason computers and science and algorithms will never be able to replicate humanity or predict the actions of man, when he wrote:
“What is to be done with the millions of facts that bear witness that men, consciously, that is fully understanding their real interests, have left them in the background and have rushed headlong on another path, to meet peril and danger, compelled to this course by nobody and by nothing, but, as it were, simply disliking the beaten track, and have obstinately, wilfully, struck out another difficult, absurd way, seeking it almost in the darkness. So, I suppose, this obstinacy and perversity were pleasanter to them than any advantage...
The fact is, gentlemen, it seems there must really exist something that is dearer to almost every man than his greatest advantages, or (not to be illogical) there is a most advantageous advantage (the very one omitted of which we spoke just now) which is more important and more advantageous than all other advantages, for the sake of which a man if necessary is ready to act in opposition to all laws; that is, in opposition to reason, honour, peace, prosperity -- in fact, in opposition to all those excellent and useful things if only he can attain that fundamental, most advantageous advantage which is dearer to him than all. "Yes, but it's advantage all the same," you will retort. But excuse me, I'll make the point clear, and it is not a case of playing upon words. What matters is, that this advantage is remarkable from the very fact that it breaks down all our classifications, and continually shatters every system constructed by lovers of mankind for the benefit of mankind. In fact, it upsets everything...
One's own free unfettered choice, one's own caprice, however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up at times to frenzy -- is that very "most advantageous advantage" which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms. And how do these wiseacres know that man wants a normal, a virtuous choice? What has made them conceive that man must want a rationally advantageous choice? What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. And choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice.
Of course, this very stupid thing, this caprice of ours, may be in reality, gentlemen, more advantageous for us than anything else on earth, especially in certain cases… for in any circumstances it preserves for us what is most precious and most important -- that is, our personality, our individuality. Some, you see, maintain that this really is the most precious thing for mankind; choice can, of course, if it chooses, be in agreement with reason… It is profitable and sometimes even praiseworthy. But very often, and even most often, choice is utterly and stubbornly opposed to reason ... and ... and ... do you know that that, too, is profitable, sometimes even praiseworthy?
I believe in it, I answer for it, for the whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key! …And this being so, can one help being tempted to rejoice that it has not yet come off, and that desire still depends on something we don't know?
You will scream at me (that is, if you condescend to do so) that no one is touching my free will, that all they are concerned with is that my will should of itself, of its own free will, coincide with my own normal interests, with the laws of nature and arithmetic. Good heavens, gentlemen, what sort of free will is left when we come to tabulation and arithmetic, when it will all be a case of twice two make four? Twice two makes four without my will. As if free will meant that!”
I think it comes down to authenticity. Humans can predict the actions of humans, so long as humans act by and large as they think they're supposed to act o...
In that case, aren't you, in effect, choosing for me the set of choices available to me for selection, based upon a preconceived notion of "quality"?
The Underground Man goes on to say, “I agree that two times two makes four is an excellent thing; but if we are dispensing praise, then two times two makes five is sometimes a most charming little thing as well.”
Would two times two makes five be included in a set of high-quality choices?
And Rush said, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.".
There is no alternative to curation. If you display all the possible options, there is still the order -- humans, being humans, will not thoroughly read and equally consider even a list of a thousand options, so the order will affect their choice. Choosing to display the results in random order, or in alphabetical order, or in chronological order, is still a decision which affects the choice of the user.
Curation cannot be avoided, as long as we are men.
I am reminded of Stanislaw Lem's Demon of the Second Kind.
Such curation does not exclude alternative choices. The mind works by narrowing the field of possibilities down to a manageable bandwith. We make tools to help us do this. But the choice is always still our own. And we can choose anything we can imagine.
I feel like one thing Netflix doesn't do a good job of noticing is what movies I actually order/watch. That is, the mere fact that I ordered a movie means a lot, whether or not I rate it.
The biggest manifestation of this issue is that I tend to order new movies, but I seem to get a lot of recommendations for older movies. Netflix should see that I've ordered maybe 2 out of 200 movies that are older than the year 2000.
I'm not sure there's a reasonable way past the "Napoleon Dynamite Problem". They mentioned, in the article, other movies where it's difficult to predict if someone would like them or not.
The list was “I Heart Huckabees,” “Lost in Translation,” “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” “Kill Bill: Volume 1” and “Sideways.”
Personally, the common thread I see across those is that the viewer would be more likely to enjoy the movie if they had the right context.
Kill Bill, for example, is far easier to enjoy if you've seen (not necessarily liked...but have seen) cheesy old Kung Fu / Karate movies.
Napoleon Dynamite is easier to appreciate if you were socially awkward yourself in high school. There's also some humor in there that's more relevant if you were a kid in the 80's, as well as some humor that might make more sense if you lived somewhere rural, or even more specifically, rural Idaho/Utah/Wisconsin.
All that to say that Netflix may not have enough data at their disposal to know if you have the right context to enjoy movies that almost require it.
Yea, a user's expectations surely plays a role here. I am unsure how computers would be able to notice someone "gets it" while someone else just stumbled upon the movie.
Netflix, having crushed the video store industry, no longer needs this. What's the alternative? Redbox?
"Even though Netflix has a good deal of demographic information about its users, the company does not currently use it much to generate movie recommendations; merely knowing who people are, paradoxically, isn’t very predictive of their movie tastes."
"Targeted" advertising suffers from that model. Demographics matter only a little. What you've bought (which Amazon knows) matters far more.
A controversial observation might be they maximize profit by having the most people sign up and then stream the least possible, correct? And they have a semi-monopoly, correct, where theres no real competition? I mean, I have and use Prime but I don't seriously watch videos and I'm in it for the shipping...
Anyway there's this assumption that they'd want to present results that encourage you to watch as much as possible, yet they have a financial incentive to present results that are just barely good enough that you won't cancel and/or sign up for a minor competitor.
This is NOT like a public library card catalog where next years funding depends on increasing circulation counts.
In some ways I think my proposed search result criteria are more difficult than presenting result I'd actually want.
Netflix doesn't show user comments in the app version of its (streaming) product.
I'm sure there are reasons for this. Nonetheless, it continues to strike me that, in that context, their own, internal information on product offerings is restricted to a two sentence blurb and an unqualified single five start rating metric.
Clearly there's no accounting for taste. The Netflix has no idea of The context when I sit down to watch a movie. Such as am I watching my geeky Friends or am I watching with my girlfriend.
56 comments
[ 6.8 ms ] story [ 52.3 ms ] threadThey already have the recommendation engine built and they need every differentiation they can get to compete with the crowd of streaming providers.
Right now, I don't know of anyone who has limited spare time who would risk trying something unknown just because it shows up in their Netflix recommendations. If Netflix got those right frequently, people would rely on it more and probably enjoy it more. A 10% increase in accuracy has a decent chance to push beyond the invisible "good enough to trust" threshold and create an experience other streaming services just don't have.
This simple but more accurate model would have been a useful foundation for Netflix to build its own internal models on, and highlight the flaws in the assumption of the Cinermark algo.
[0] http://sifter.org/~simon/journal/20061211.html
When Netflix users only decide what movies to watch based only on the titles they recognize from marketing campaigns, their disappointment with Netflix's selection will be higher.
Their optimal strategy is to have a recommendation engine that routes users to good, but unknown movies that they know people end up enjoying if they just take the dive to start watching them.
Heck, if it did that I'd be happy. I don't even know why I still have my Netflix subscription. The selection is basically as good (bad) as Hulu and Crackle, the price is higher and the recommendations are laughable (right now they're pushing: Velvet, a TV series about a Spanish fashion house; Sense 8, the latest lameness from the Wachowski brothers; Elsa & Fred, aimed at old people, a Robert Pattinson vehicle, Orange is the New Black, The Butler and piles of other stuff I would never watch if you tied me to a chair).
Frankly, I don't believe they have a recommendation engine anymore: I think they just suggest whatever is cheapest for them to play.
Eventually I did figure out that on the website you can say you aren't interested in particular items, but Android/Roku etc do not have that option. Of course those Netflix employees who work on this stuff deal with the PC/web based interface all the time, but apparently don't realise that not everyone does that.
Android/Roku etc do let you set ratings on items, but to me there is a big difference between "I am not interested in this item" and "I have watched it and give it one star".
I didn't know you could do this. Looking forward to telling Netflix that no, I do not want to watch The Interview.
Movies.objects.filter(tags__in=['anime', 'sci-fi', 'robots', 'cyberpunk']).exclude(tags__in=['nuns', 'schoolgirls', 'demons', 'demon-hunting-nun-schoolgirls'])
or even just see all of the tags that they tag things with, and allow searching by those.
Of course, I also would love to be able to blacklist films that I know I'm never going to watch (some horror films, some of aforementioned anime :)), and have them hidden from browsing or search results (or even just sequester them at the end of the list, or dim them out?).
That's exactly how I use it and their "Watch it again" section is very helpful.
What's wrong with vertical lists with relevant information next to the picture? Something like every shopping interface ever? Using Netflix is like going to a grocery store, deciding that you want some canned corn, and having to walk up to a conveyer belt and wait while canned beans, turnips, tomatoes, mushrooms, etc... slide by before the corn comes around. And it is like this for every single item.
I probably watch netflix once or twice a month, I'd cancel but I'm not the only user.
The performance is abysmal though, lots of CSS3 hover transitions that seem to slow things to a crawl on scroll
Just watching a movie at different times of day can significantly alter your opinion of a movie.
Being interested in video games, I've thought a lot about rating systems. Older magazines used to use 10 (or even 100) point scales, and you quickly realize all the rating ends up taking place in the top 30-40 percent of your scale anyway... so why not limit the gradations. For my money, 5 stars makes sense... you've got a middle of the road "average" 3 star movie, and then two stars above and below.
The stars are also just a snapshot of feeling, and don't account for any context like expectations, identity, mood etc. Maybe I'd give Black Swan five stars because it was impressive and won awards, but it doesn't mean I necessarily enjoyed it or would recommend it to others. Perhaps a system based loosely on Net Promoter Score ideas could be more helpful
In my case I didn't bother rating it because it A) didn't seem fair, and B) rating stuff with any more precision than "like/didn't like" seems really pointless to me.
One of the problems I find in music algorithms is they can't know how I've changed - suggesting music based on what I play or input - but that's stuff I liked in mid-2000s when I was in peak music consumption mode. Most suggestions then get picked from the same pool.
I'd love these algorithms to take my age into consideration: "If you liked X when you were 25, you're going to love Y now that you're 35!"
Sometimes the things we miss are the most obvious.
The are 14 year olds who are obsessed with jazz and blues, while some 70 year olds only listen to hardcore punk and deathgrind
I don't use Pandora very much any more but when I did I'd just create a station based on a single artist and then usually listen to it without further interaction. All my stations would converge on Radiohead within ten - twenty tracks regardless of starting point: Joy Division? You must like Radiohead. Passion Pit? Radiohead. Billy Holiday? Radiohead. It was amusing but also more than a little bit annoying, and part of the reason I moved on from Pandora.
“What is to be done with the millions of facts that bear witness that men, consciously, that is fully understanding their real interests, have left them in the background and have rushed headlong on another path, to meet peril and danger, compelled to this course by nobody and by nothing, but, as it were, simply disliking the beaten track, and have obstinately, wilfully, struck out another difficult, absurd way, seeking it almost in the darkness. So, I suppose, this obstinacy and perversity were pleasanter to them than any advantage...
The fact is, gentlemen, it seems there must really exist something that is dearer to almost every man than his greatest advantages, or (not to be illogical) there is a most advantageous advantage (the very one omitted of which we spoke just now) which is more important and more advantageous than all other advantages, for the sake of which a man if necessary is ready to act in opposition to all laws; that is, in opposition to reason, honour, peace, prosperity -- in fact, in opposition to all those excellent and useful things if only he can attain that fundamental, most advantageous advantage which is dearer to him than all. "Yes, but it's advantage all the same," you will retort. But excuse me, I'll make the point clear, and it is not a case of playing upon words. What matters is, that this advantage is remarkable from the very fact that it breaks down all our classifications, and continually shatters every system constructed by lovers of mankind for the benefit of mankind. In fact, it upsets everything...
One's own free unfettered choice, one's own caprice, however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up at times to frenzy -- is that very "most advantageous advantage" which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms. And how do these wiseacres know that man wants a normal, a virtuous choice? What has made them conceive that man must want a rationally advantageous choice? What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. And choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice.
Of course, this very stupid thing, this caprice of ours, may be in reality, gentlemen, more advantageous for us than anything else on earth, especially in certain cases… for in any circumstances it preserves for us what is most precious and most important -- that is, our personality, our individuality. Some, you see, maintain that this really is the most precious thing for mankind; choice can, of course, if it chooses, be in agreement with reason… It is profitable and sometimes even praiseworthy. But very often, and even most often, choice is utterly and stubbornly opposed to reason ... and ... and ... do you know that that, too, is profitable, sometimes even praiseworthy?
I believe in it, I answer for it, for the whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key! …And this being so, can one help being tempted to rejoice that it has not yet come off, and that desire still depends on something we don't know?
You will scream at me (that is, if you condescend to do so) that no one is touching my free will, that all they are concerned with is that my will should of itself, of its own free will, coincide with my own normal interests, with the laws of nature and arithmetic. Good heavens, gentlemen, what sort of free will is left when we come to tabulation and arithmetic, when it will all be a case of twice two make four? Twice two makes four without my will. As if free will meant that!”
I think it comes down to authenticity. Humans can predict the actions of humans, so long as humans act by and large as they think they're supposed to act o...
The Underground Man goes on to say, “I agree that two times two makes four is an excellent thing; but if we are dispensing praise, then two times two makes five is sometimes a most charming little thing as well.”
Would two times two makes five be included in a set of high-quality choices?
There is no alternative to curation. If you display all the possible options, there is still the order -- humans, being humans, will not thoroughly read and equally consider even a list of a thousand options, so the order will affect their choice. Choosing to display the results in random order, or in alphabetical order, or in chronological order, is still a decision which affects the choice of the user.
Curation cannot be avoided, as long as we are men.
I am reminded of Stanislaw Lem's Demon of the Second Kind.
The biggest manifestation of this issue is that I tend to order new movies, but I seem to get a lot of recommendations for older movies. Netflix should see that I've ordered maybe 2 out of 200 movies that are older than the year 2000.
The list was “I Heart Huckabees,” “Lost in Translation,” “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” “Kill Bill: Volume 1” and “Sideways.”
Personally, the common thread I see across those is that the viewer would be more likely to enjoy the movie if they had the right context.
Kill Bill, for example, is far easier to enjoy if you've seen (not necessarily liked...but have seen) cheesy old Kung Fu / Karate movies.
Napoleon Dynamite is easier to appreciate if you were socially awkward yourself in high school. There's also some humor in there that's more relevant if you were a kid in the 80's, as well as some humor that might make more sense if you lived somewhere rural, or even more specifically, rural Idaho/Utah/Wisconsin.
All that to say that Netflix may not have enough data at their disposal to know if you have the right context to enjoy movies that almost require it.
"Even though Netflix has a good deal of demographic information about its users, the company does not currently use it much to generate movie recommendations; merely knowing who people are, paradoxically, isn’t very predictive of their movie tastes."
"Targeted" advertising suffers from that model. Demographics matter only a little. What you've bought (which Amazon knows) matters far more.
Anyway there's this assumption that they'd want to present results that encourage you to watch as much as possible, yet they have a financial incentive to present results that are just barely good enough that you won't cancel and/or sign up for a minor competitor.
This is NOT like a public library card catalog where next years funding depends on increasing circulation counts.
In some ways I think my proposed search result criteria are more difficult than presenting result I'd actually want.
I'm sure there are reasons for this. Nonetheless, it continues to strike me that, in that context, their own, internal information on product offerings is restricted to a two sentence blurb and an unqualified single five start rating metric.