
Turning Off Autoplaying Previews - dylan604
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/2102
======
2bitencryption
Didn't ever expect to see this capability.

A bit unrelated, but: anyone remember in the "early" days when Netflix held
competitions to develop the most accurate recommendation and ratings engines?
Giving out million dollar prizes? And held possibly state-of-the-art tech for
this?

And then one day completely gutted the star rating system, replacing it with a
much-despised "thumbs up/down" system, giving up their "so good it's magical"
recommendations for something that feels less accurate than a coin flip...

~~~
Carpetsmoker
I don't really like star systems because I spend way too much time deciding if
something is 3 or 4 stars, or 4 or 5 stars.

I much prefer textual descriptions; for example "Terrible", "Don't like",
"Okay", "Like", "Favourite", which has the same options as a 5-star rating
system, but choosing between 3/4 and 4/5 is much easier IMHO.

I don't really know of any system that uses this, except this one music player
I wrote myself (which has "Crap", "Meh", "Okay", "Super").

~~~
ehsankia
Yep, as much as people hate it, when it comes to recommendation, up/down is
all the data you need. Trying to build a system out of a 5 star system just
adds unnecessary complexity, and the reality was that people used the star
system differently making it even harder. up/down thumb is explicit and
cleaner to work with.

~~~
glitcher
The problem with the up/down system for me is not my own ability to
like/dislike specific titles, but more the fact that Netflix no longer
displays the average of all user votes. Sure different people used the 5 star
system in different ways, and there were some who may have misused it by
giving poor ratings to things they never intended on watching, but it was a
great signal to me for the extremes.

Scenario: I'm considering some odd looking sci-fi movie to watch that I never
heard of before. Ratings between 2-4 stars might not tell me much, but very
reliably titles with only one star were terrible movies. Now Netflix happily
recommends any and all sci-fi titles, saying they are a "98% match" for me!
Sure by category, but when the movie is a low budget dumpster fire I no longer
have that instant signaling that the previous rating system gave me.

~~~
rpdillon
IIRC, Netflix never showed the average, but rather the rating they predicted
you would give it, taking into account your previous viewing and rating.

------
underbluewaters
It's amazing it took this long. I can understand how some people might be okay
with this feature but it causes me actual anxiety to use the Netflix app on my
AppleTV. Before autoplay I could mindlessly browse looking for content. Now I
hurry through to check if there is anything new and get out as fast as
possible. They must know that people use the app less since this change...
right?

~~~
_bxg1
I believe I read somewhere that it did result in an overall increase in
viewership. There's no way they don't have those metrics.

My guess is that for some majority of users who weren't super bothered by it
it genuinely caused them to watch more things. Even though a vocal minority
was _extremely upset_ about it, the numbers still worked out overall. Of
course adding a preference is easy, and people who aren't upset won't bother
to change the default, so this is probably a win/win for them.

~~~
m463
I can't imagine but think "viewership of folks _who left the app open_ "

In other words, could you separate out:

\- folks who naturally came to a stopping point between shows.

\- others who ragequit because of annoying previews?

~~~
tomaskafka
Here's a secret: many people shout about rage quitting. No one actually does.

~~~
m463
statistics bear it out: they just come to a natural stopping point between
shows. :)

------
dmannorreys
Finally. I've been so frustrated about the autoplaying previews, especially
since I've experienced that after a few seconds, the menu will fade out and
Netflix will play the video as if you had clicked "Play". But I haven't
clicked "Play", I only happened to rise up from my couch, hear the preview
starting, do whatever for 30 seconds and then come back having to stop or
restart the episode.

Absolutely terrible. I'm really happy Netflix has given us a way out.

~~~
adrianmonk
Another bad thing about the fading menu is that it seems to get treated the
same as if you affirmatively decided to watch it.

It shows up in "continue watching" and I believe probably stuff like "because
you watched A..." (...here are B, C, D, and E).

Which is just silly because even if they want to steer me into watching it
because I'm too lazy to tell them to stop, that doesn't mean it makes
meaningful data for recommendations. They can tell whether I pushed a button
or not, but which seems like a pretty meaningful signal to ignore.

------
aidos
I was excited then for a second but I don’t think this means what I think it
does. Does this mean it’s possible to disable the auto play on trailers for
something unrelated when you finish a series?

I literally finished Bojack Horseman after years of watching 30 minutes ago.
End it’s left hanging there in a poignant moment but I have to jump up to stop
the trailer for god knows what, and the a minute later I have to do it again
after the credits have finished. Years of investment in a show, but I’m not
allowed 10 seconds to stop and digest it. (PS amazing series)

~~~
js2
I actually hate that "feature" even more than autoplay. It's completely
disrespectful to both the viewer and to the content that you're watching.

This option is to turn off autoplay when browsing. It would be great if it
also disabled the auto play on trailers at the end of a show.

~~~
bbbbbr
That bugged me enough the first time it happened that I immediately stopped
what I was doing and worked on disabling it.

If you use greasemonkey/tampermonkey then the script below will disable the
post-episode playback (along with a couple other UI changes)

[https://github.com/bbbbbr/netflix-disable-auto-play-and-
more](https://github.com/bbbbbr/netflix-disable-auto-play-and-more)

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
I was hoping to find your comment in this thread, thank you so much for this.
It makes me mad someone else is controlling these very basic things, treating
their userbase like mindless monkeys. All these things could be hidden
somewhere in the UI, and everybody would be happy.

------
herodotus
Interesting. I phoned and complained about this as soon as Netflix started
doing it - I think it was about two years ago! What really got me (and I
pointed this out to the cutomer service rep) was that the first preview that
showed included several swear words. I thought that that argument alone would
be enough, let alone how annoying it is to have a stupid light and sound show
while I am browsing.

So all I can say is "about time"!

~~~
dylan604
> was that the first preview that showed included several swear words

From feedback like this, they might have just made a policy to not allow
cursing in the preview whether that was by choosing different scenes or
bleeping them.

~~~
aidenn0
They actually for a while have disabled previews for content not labeled
"family friendly" if you setup a parental-controls PIN.

------
coreyp_1
The Autoplay is REALLY, REALLY, A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G!!!

Actually, I hate most of the current design (UI/UX). It's really streamlined
when all you want to do is push "play", but everything else is, quite frankly,
laborious.

~~~
rconti
I know this is going to make me sound old, but so much UI/UX is getting worse.
I can't even tell which tile is highlighted on my appleTV because it's only
about 5% larger than the adjacent ones. The only way you can tell is by the
change as you cursor around, you can't tell at a glance (and this is on a 75"
TV).

~~~
ianai
At this point I think they’re just changing stuff to change stuff. Like some
new hire(s) somewhere(s) are looking to make a name for him/herself by
changing stuff.

~~~
runawaybottle
Or the cult of A/B testing has been fully implemented.

------
dman
This was the primary reason I cancelled my account. Secondary reason was the
poor search / filtering options - they have continually gimped these features
in favor of their own recommendation engine and homepage. Their recommendation
engine has a recency bias and a popularity bias. As someone who liked to watch
obscure world cinema Netflix makes it way too hard to find such things and to
be honest their catalog doesnt even have a lot of such content anymore. I
suspect one of the reasons they dont have any grids/lists and filtering in
their UI is that it will reveal just how small their catalog is in most genres
now.

~~~
CamperBob2
_As someone who liked to watch obscure world cinema Netflix makes it way too
hard to find such things and to be honest their catalog doesnt even have a lot
of such content anymore._

These two complaints are actually two manifestations of the same complaint.
With a shrinking catalog, it is _vital_ that the UI be nerfed in order to keep
it from being too obvious just how little content there is.

~~~
dman
If netflix replaced their UI with a single excel spreadsheet containing data
about their content, I would consider it an improvement.

------
Nican
This might be related to a popular reddit thread that got 28.5k upvotes on
reddit the other day:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/exkrij/you_know...](https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/exkrij/you_know_what_ruins_the_mood_after_a_really/)

~~~
ehsankia
I love how the news of it being changed is also on top of HN, /r/television
and /r/movies right now (and probably more subreddits too).

Goes to show how hated autoplay was.

------
_bxg1
I'd just stopped using Netflix unless I knew exactly what I wanted to watch.
When I had to use it, I'd bounce around between tiles constantly to prevent
the clips from playing, knowing full well that they must record every
interaction you have with the app. For once I was glad they did.

------
adrianmonk
I think I've noticed another change in the few days too. This one related to
closing credits.

Maybe a month back, they started cutting off playback as soon as closing
credits started to roll. I can understand the motivation because sometimes
credits are boring.

But other times, they are part of the enjoyment of watching the show. For
example, every episode of "Grace and Frankie" ends with a different song,
carefully chosen to fit in thematically with that episode. People have written
articles about these song choices, made Spotify playlists, etc. Yet Netflix
cut them off. (And that's a Netflix original show.)

Anyway, in the last few days, it seems like they've stopped doing this. They
now have a button in the UI that will stop playing the credits, but the button
looks different, and it doesn't cut the credits off by default.

------
fmajid
I'd settle for a "I don't ever want to see this movie, do not show it to me
again" button. But of course, if we used it to winnow away the chaff, it would
show in stark detail how sparse their catalog really is.

~~~
therealdrag0
I transferred my to-watch list from IMDB to reelgood.com (wrote a script to do
it), which shows what is available on what service I subscribe to. This has
cut out the time I spend browsing the catalog.

------
ben174
I was actually watching TV last night and found myself hesitant to switch from
Hulu to Netflix because deep in my head I was saying "oh that's the one with
the noisy menus".

~~~
hinkley
And don’t forget the volume check.

BUM BUUUMMMMM!

Goddamnit, I just woke up every mammal in the house.

Netflix; your jingle/call sign thing doesn’t need to be the loudest thing on
on my TV. Get some group therapy, find your self esteem and chill the fuck
out.

------
jstsch
Oh, wow. It's always impressive to see how a slow wave of rising internet buzz
suddenly peaks and affects change in an impenetrable multinational
organization. Hurray! :)

------
msandford
I was excited about this for a minute, but then I realized I canceled Netflix
months ago. This was one of the reasons. Sticky things being sticky, I'm not
going to magically start paying again now that they finally undid something
dumb. I'm a lost customer for a long time.

------
truculent
When you put down the wanton AB testing for a minute and actually listen to
your users, you can make your product better. Glad to see this.

------
paxys
Now PLEASE give an option to turn off autoplaying the next episode like 3
seconds into the end credits.

~~~
Smaug123
That is an option demonstrated on that very Netflix help page, if I understand
your request correctly.

~~~
myhf
There is an option for "off" or "on (when the credits start)" but not "when
the music finishes" or "when the video finishes".

~~~
paxys
Yeah, this. I don't mind autoplay, but end credits (and the accompanying
music) are an integral part of a show for me. The Witcher, which is Netflix's
own show, had amazing original songs in end credits which were all skipped by
default.

------
ProfessorLayton
This is fantastic news! More times than I can count I have decided that it
wasn't worth the effort to peruse through the app before my ears get assaulted
if I forgot to mute my TV beforehand. It is anxiety-inducing and unpleasant to
have to keep the selection moving just so audio doesn't blast from my TV when
I just want to browse.

Perhaps we can thank the fact that streaming services now have competition,
and the quality of their UX matters quite a bit.

------
minikites
I was satisfied personally when they added a mute button for previews, but I'm
glad an even "stronger" option now exists.

------
minimaxir
Official announcement:
[https://twitter.com/netflix/status/1225506511184703493](https://twitter.com/netflix/status/1225506511184703493)

> Some people find this feature helpful. Others not so much.

> We’ve heard the feedback loud and clear — members can now control whether or
> not they see autoplay previews on Netflix.

------
4ec0755f5522
I hated this SO MUCH when they rolled it out but now I love it, because I can
get a quick sense of the look of the actual movie instead of trying to judge
it based on the cover or thumbnail. I think it's actually a good use of video
in a video app and makes sense and a fix of sorts to the discovery problem.

But happy it's optional for those who never warmed up to it.

------
me_me_me
Now they need to fix their recommendations.

If I watched 2 episodes and marked show thumbs down I DO NOT WANT TO SEE IT
AGAIN!

Instead my continue to watch is a list of shows i didn't like!

How hard is to figure it out, or at least give me an option to black mark a
show. Anything really. They spend millions on show and then package then is
such user unfriendly manner .

------
fishywang
So there's still no option to turn off the thing that after the last episode
of a show (or even a movie), it auto plays a trailer from some random show,
and if you managed to cancel that trailer and start to watch the credit, it
will come back again later?

------
syshum
FINALLY

I honestly stopped watching most netflix due to this feature.

I would go there to watch something specific but I would not browse around
because of that annoying auto-play crap

~~~
syshum
BOOOOOO it seems the setting has no impact on the Roku App

I am still getting AutoPlay on Roku

~~~
unwiredben
have you tried switching profiles then switching back? I think some settings
get cached on device until you do a profile change.

~~~
syshum
Yes, and rebooting, and logging out and back on, and several other things

I have 2 Roku;s. 1 is working (no autoplay) and 1 is not (still autoplay)..

the one with the AutoPlay still enabled is my primary one, and the newest one,
the other is a older Roku Streaming stick.

------
srathi
Thank you so much! I actually stopped my membership due to this issue as I was
tired of making UBlock Origin filters on my laptops.

------
Ayraa
Finally! Whenever Netflix features a scary show or movie on their homepage and
their preview auto-plays, it always make me jump.

------
rafaelvasco
Finally. Every time a preview plays i cringe. Most of the problem is that it
just starts abruptly at max volume. The logic is failed. The procedure should
be, if the item is hovered, wait 2 seconds. Then fade in preview video and
audio for 2 seconds. Don't know if the behavior is the same for all platforms
though.

------
phreack
DAE know if this would prevent previews for other shows from playing during
the credits of a filn or series finale? It might seem petty but not being able
to watch the credits and reflect in peace (without a frantic run to disable
the auto-trailers) was my tipping point and I promised not to go back until it
was possible disable it.

~~~
goodusername
Have only just turned it off so don't know yet, but my bet is on no. I'm right
there with you on reflecting in peace though. Sometimes you want to just take
a breath and think about what you saw. That same "feature" was one of the
things that drove me away from flow TV, as they increasingly pushed the next
program more and more aggressively, until it would actually start the
trailer/speaker BEFORE the current program was finished. Drives me insane. Who
watches a 2.5 hours movie, and as soon as the credits start rolling, goes
"alright next movie, play play play!"

------
mrbonner
Great! The best feature of years of Machine Learning practices. The machine
finally learns what I want.

------
ChuckMcM
Wow THANK YOU! I agree I didn't expect to see this happen. Now if we could get
Roku to turn off the 'auto add a channel if you hit the play/pause button by
accident' I would swear less at my streaming setup :-)

------
yeahboats
I have come to despise this "feature" but without it I would have never
watched Kung Fury. I am glad I can now turn it off but wonder what I may miss
going forward.

------
ijidak
Praise the day!!! The tyranny of auto-preview has ended!

On a serious note, I get why they added it.

For some, it saves a few button presses.

But boy was that an annoying feature.

Literally made browsing Netflix stressful.

------
skywhopper
Good lord, it's beyond time for this. This "feature" made looking for
something to watch on Netflix completely impossible for me.

------
ansonhoyt
Finally! This is so much more family friendly. Also more polite, as previews
would often rudely interrupt someone in the room mid-sentence.

------
tedunangst
Why oh why is this not a per device setting? Is it really inconceivable I
might like or dislike the feature in different environments?

------
mirroregami
______FINALLY __ __ __

------
jonplackett
Thanks Netflix!

Next feature request:

AUTO-SKIP-ALL-INTROS-AND-RECAPS-WHILE-BINGING

~~~
skynetv2
I like to watch intros and recaps sometimes. I like the current design where I
can choose to skip if I want to.

~~~
hinkley
The recaps often contain spoilers. When you’re binging, the story line is too
recent and it’s a lot easier to read into the scene selection.

If they do a clip of someone we thought died six episodes ago, guess what,
they aren’t dead.

~~~
jonplackett
Exactly - I also hate the 'next week' bit they do at the end of some shows.
They ruin all the surprises!

~~~
hinkley
And then there are the synopses...

------
joegahona
I'd love to know what metrics they were optimizing for when they introduced
this feature.

~~~
minimaxir
Definitely viewthrough rate (i.e. % of people who subsequently view the video
after hovering over a video thumb and the autoplay triggers vs. normal
viewthrough rate after hovering over a thumb).

Of course, a weakness of this testing is failing to account for _negative_
metric impact outside of the one you are optimizing.

------
lbj
Imagine growing your platform to a size, where its frontpage news when you add
a setting :)

------
tacticaldev
Awesome! auto-playing previews has always caused issues on my Roku devices

~~~
syshum
Have you changed it on your Profile, I did but the RoKu app still autoplays

update: looks like 1 of my 2 Devices is working correctly (not AutoPlay), so
here hoping the other starts soon

------
g051051
I'd love to see the tracking for the rate that people turn it off.

------
sitkack
I considered interviewing at Netflix so I could complain in person.

------
imgabe
oh my god, finally! I can't understand why they ever even had this in the
first place. Is there anyone who doesn't despise it?

------
_sbrk
Thank the Almighty Bob. About time they did this.

------
mudlus
I miss getting DVDs/whatever in the mail.

------
sunkenvicar
Finally. Thank you!

I consider the previews spoilers. And autoplay destroys pacing because it
skips the preroll/credits.

------
mr337
Good riddance!!!!

------
all_blue_chucks
Bless you, OP.

------
jlv2
> Changes to these settings are specific to a profile and will take _affect_
> across all devices.

> Note: There may be a delay before the setting takes _affect_.

> Note: There may be a delay before the setting takes _affect_.

"Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you
think it means."

------
shadow-banned
Some awful growth marketer who took a Reforge class is crying today.

------
pgrote
Excellent.

Now, I'd like to see them do this:

1) Quit emailing me/sending notifications to keep watching shows I start and
don't like.

2) Bring back a purposeful, decent recommendation system.

3) Allow filters so only movies/shows in your language or dubbed in your
language are shown. (...or just some kind of filter.)

Thanks.

~~~
mr_custard
The in-app notifications are nnoying for sure, but I've never received emails
from them.

Email prefs are here:
[https://www.netflix.com/EmailPreferences](https://www.netflix.com/EmailPreferences)

Marketing prefs are here:
[https://www.netflix.com/MarketingCommunications](https://www.netflix.com/MarketingCommunications)

~~~
pgrote
Thank you.

I should have clarified my response. When I contacted netflix they told me you
cannot unsubscribe to one part of the notifications ... it is all or nothing.
So, if you turn it off you aren't alerted when new shows are added, etc.

This is what it looks like with an episode list at the bottom.

[https://i.imgur.com/gpcrgeI.png](https://i.imgur.com/gpcrgeI.png)

