
Netflix and Fill - samber
http://techblog.netflix.com/2016/08/netflix-and-fill.html
======
e28eta
> Because we can predict with high accuracy what our members will watch and
> what time of day they will watch it

Not only can they predict it, but I imagine to a large extent they control
what people watch. Our usage often involves browsing the recommendations on
the home page and picking something.

I wonder when (or if) the availability of content in a cache close to the
viewer will play a role in the home page content? Obviously it already works
in the other direction (cache what we think they'll want to watch), but do
they penalize the ranking of a title (or category) because it hasn't been
cached?

It'd be a useful feature for Netflix because they could cut down their
bandwidth costs. It could even be useful for some users: those who could watch
a movie at full quality from a cache but their ISP can't deliver a full
quality non-cached title.

~~~
dlandis
> Not only can they predict it, but I imagine to a large extent they control
> what people watch.

This is similar to what happened with Google Play Music. They used to have a
really nice feature that enabled you to browse through all genres and continue
to drill down several levels into very specific sub genres. It was a great way
to discover new music.

The problem was people were streaming way too much music that was not
optimally cached and it was causing scalability issues for them. The solution?
Remove the subgenre browse feature and transition to a radio station-based
approach. You now have the choice of a limited set of predefined radio
stations, each with a limited number of tracks, which I assume are all cached
in an optimized way, but you cannot drill down nearly as far into the sub
genres.

If you browse the google forums there have been thousands of comments about
the reduced functionality over the past year or so.

~~~
mattmanser
Just to echo Pxtl, but much more explicitly, I don't think this had _anything_
to do with caches or scalability, it was because they bought Songza.

If you've any evidence, please do share and I'm happy to put my hands up and
admit I'm wrong, but the announcement was that the change was supposed to be
because they now had these amazing hand curated playlists.

~~~
dlandis
> Google looks forward to bringing back those genres/subgenres, and even
> microgenres, once they've had a chance to improve them and make them more
> scalable around the world.

That is a comment from a top contributor in the product forum. Thread is here
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/play/i9meVy...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/play/i9meVyGV2so)

~~~
CamperBob2
Wow, that thread is angrier than the Maps forum. Pretty impressive achievement
on Google's part.

~~~
chipperyman573
What's so bad about the maps forum?

------
niftich
This is one of my favorite blogs, because they go into satisfying detail about
how their stuff works; it's always entertaining to see a big company write
about _how_ they accomplish what is it they do.

I wonder if they use HTTP or Bittorrent to serve out of S3; S3 can serve
Bittorrent, and the protocol solves a lot of their 'fill hierarchy'
optimization on its own reasonably well.

------
kristianc
The title of this post shows such amazing self-confidence from Netflix in its
own culture and tone of voice.

At 90% of companies the size of Netflix (and even some self-important,
bloviated startups) an equivalent title would have been an absolute non-
starter. As a result you get websites that all look the same and sound the
same.

Kudos to Netflix, even in quite a small way, for having the confidence to do
things differently.

~~~
justinlardinois
I think it's more a reflection that the phrase "Netflix and chill" has become
such a cultural touchstone―and a parody of itself―that even Netflix itself is
in on the joke.

Sort of like what this did for "Thanks Obama":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhY9Zxv1-oo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhY9Zxv1-oo)

------
dankohn1
Kudos on the excellent blog title pun [0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_and_chill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_and_chill)

~~~
nomy99
Only on hacker news would you need to attach a reference to something most
people should know..

~~~
EdSharkey
Modern slang has no class. I'm pleased that I didn't know the term until I
clicked the link.

~~~
jeremiep
You do realize your slang was seen the same way by your parents and their
slang was seen the same way by your grandparents right?

Time changes, people don't.

------
justinsaccount
Weird..

    
    
      $ curl https://techblog.netflix.com/2016/08/netflix-and-fill.html -vv
      *   Trying 2607:f8b0:4002:c06::d6...
      * Connected to techblog.netflix.com (2607:f8b0:4002:c06::d6) port 443 (#0)
      * Server aborted the SSL handshake
      * Closing connection 0
      curl: (35) Server aborted the SSL handshake
    

Fails from at least the 3 locations I just tried across the country.. Google
outage?

~~~
Thaxll
Why do you use HTTPS? The link is HTTP, their blog doesn't support HTTPS.

~~~
vonmoltke
Their blog is directing me to an HTTPS link when I go to
"techblog.netflix.com". It does it even when I specify HTTP.

~~~
justinsaccount
Do you have https everywhere installed too?

~~~
vonmoltke
No. Firefox seems to be doing this on its own.

~~~
niftich
If you're running NoScript, check its settings. See:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12256270#12257702](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12256270#12257702)

~~~
vonmoltke
That did it, thanks. I would not have expected NoScript to be doing things
like that.

------
bpicolo
The google docs diagrams are being 403d for me

Edit: Working now :)

~~~
rickcusick
Looks like permissions on the diagrams hasn't been set properly. They need to
make the link viewable by anyone who has it.

------
merpnderp
Weird, I'm getting a Firefox not secure connection error. Port 80 forwards to
443, and then 443 in Firefox throws throws the error. Curl just aborts on 443
also.

------
bluthru
Netflix is cool enough to be in on the joke, but not cool enough to know that
it's lame when a corporate entity has self-realization of the joke.

~~~
adrusi
I think this is a bit different from when you get a mass email from a company
along the lines of "We know you love to netflix and chill, so here's five new
blockbuster hits we've added to our catalog".

This reads like something written by one engineer and reviewed by their boss.
It's not nearly as bad as the regular /r/fellowkids stuff.

~~~
justinlardinois
I think the mass email would be amusing if they only sent it to people who
watch certain types of content at certain times of day.

