
Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down - gerosan
http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/netflix-thumbs-vs-stars-1202010492/
======
pizzetta
As I posted in the dupe:

This saddens me.

>Users would rate documentaries with 5 stars, and silly movies with just 3
stars, but still watch silly movies more often than those high-rated
documentaries

That's not incongruous to me. The stars are not about "enjoyment" factor, they
are about perceived quality. I may have a go to cheap ice-cream and rate it
3-stars but rate a good affogato 5-stars and only have it once in a while.

They are diluting the meaning of quality and instead are opting for a
saccharine "enjoyment" factor. This binary choice does not sit well with me
and I hope they abandon the idea soon.

~~~
ProAm
> They are diluting the meaning of quality and instead are opting for a
> saccharine "enjoyment" factor.

They are just trying to increase number of views for a poor quality library.
This will mask how bad most of the content is and increase their numbers.

~~~
M_Grey
Or edge cases like me will get that little boost to just give up on Netflix. I
already use them less than other streaming services, and I could always just
turn it on and off again.

~~~
karlshea
Honestly one of the only reasons I keep it is because I have so many movies
that I've rated and didn't want that time investment to go to waste. I guess
now that isn't going to be a factor.

~~~
bad_user
Why on earth would you use Netflix as a rating service? First of all their
library lacks a lot of great movies, or info about the movies they have.
Netflix isn't IMDB.

~~~
__david__
If you include the DVD service they have practically everything. I've been
rating movies I've watched in Netflix since 2005-ish. IMDB makes sense, but I
chose Netflix and now I'm stuck with them. Data silos suck.

~~~
ghaff
>If you include the DVD service they have practically everything.

Though quite a bit less than they used to. My observation is that more and
more back catalog type of items are no longer available.

~~~
M_Grey
They're definitely not replenishing stocks of some DVD's, which I suppose
makes sense given the trend. I would assume if they get a certain number of
requests they probably do though?

Or is that my wishful thinking?

~~~
ghaff
Maybe? The thing is that the incentives don't really align to make this a real
priority of theirs and they've been pretty clear that shipping physical DVDs
is not their long-term business model. So long as a lot of people don't start
canceling their DVD service because of unavailable disks, they don't have real
reason to replenish.

Of course, given that they pretty much put every other rental place out of
business, your only choice in a lot of cases is just to buy a disk if you want
to watch something that isn't available streaming.

------
yladiz
I feel like star ratings, if just given in general, are pretty useless for
anything that has multiple qualities. For example, maybe I like the
cinematography of a movie but I think the acting is shit, or maybe I think the
taste of the beer is nice but it's too acidic or sour and wouldn't work with
specific foods because it's overpowering.

Airbnb does this pretty much spot on, in that they ask for 1-5 stars for five
categories, rather than just "did you enjoy this Airbnb?" I also think that
Untappd does this wrong, because in general beers can't be described in just a
1-5 star rating without deeper explanation.

I think that moving from a pure star rating to a thumbs up and down rating is
better overall, if only because it makes me, as a watcher, not have to think
as much and therefore give a rating where I might not have before. If I want
to go more in depth, I can explain more too.

~~~
curun1r
> I feel like star ratings, if just given in general, are pretty useless for
> anything that has multiple qualities.

This is only true when those star ratings are taken out of context. Individual
reviewers can have completely coherent star ratings that are very useful for
making determinations.

The golden age of Netflix discoverability, for me, was back when they added
social networking features. I connected my account with many friends and
family and was really able to get a sense for everyone's taste in movies. When
it came time to discover new movies/tv to watch, I'd open up the ratings
history for someone who's tastes I felt aligned with the mood that I was in.
Some of my friends would only rate high quality content with 5 stars, others
would typically rate mass market, mindless entertainment with 5 stars and
others tended to include a lot more 5-star reviews within a certain genre.
Over time, I got a feel for that and could use it to my advantage.

But when you remove that individual context and only aggregate 5 star reviews
across a massive population who all view the 5-star scale in their own way,
you get that uselessness that you talked about. Some people may reserve 5-star
ratings for truly extraordinary content, but Netflix doesn't weight those
ratings any more highly than the 5-star ratings of someone who rates nearly
everything as 5 stars. This makes the ratings that Netflix displays
meaningless. But that's only because Netflix's current methodology makes them
meaningless, not because they're inherently meaningless.

~~~
bcbrown
> Netflix doesn't weight those ratings any more highly than the 5-star ratings
> of someone who rates nearly everything as 5 stars.

Is that fact or speculation? It's a common recommendation technique to find
the mean rating for a person, and use that to normalize. Normalized score =
(actual_score - mean_score + 2.5) for a 5-point scale, for example.

I have no insight into whether or not Netflix does something similar, but I'd
be surprised if they don't.

~~~
kartickv
Doesn't normalisation assume that a person who rates everything five-star has
low standards? It may just be that that person rates something only if they're
really (un)happy.

Imagine two people watched 100 movies, and assessed them the same way, say
that 20 are five-star, 20 are four-star, 20 are three-star, and so on. The
first person rates all 100 movies, but the second one has a habit of writing a
review only if he considers a movie excellent. Then your algorithm will
wrongly discount the second person's ratings.

Is this true in the real world? Have you found different people to have
different habits, like rating everything vs rating only good movies vs rating
only bad movies?

------
wvh
Is this just part of the trend to dumb everything down to a polarising
dichotomy? Because the trend to stop people from having a more complex and
rational opinion than just picking sides doesn't seem to exactly improve
discourse or debate, or inform and educate...

Wouldn't it be more beneficial to have fewer people give a more detailed
review to describe what they like and dislike about something? What use is
"good" or "meh" compared to for example "I rate this product low because the
shoes are very narrow for my normal feet" so you can actual relate it to what
you actually are looking for? One person's "meh" could be another's "good"...

From the article:

"This makes sense – giving a five-star rating takes some thought, especially
for something like a movie or TV show.

A binary “yes or no” option is much easier for viewers to commit to, [...]

~~~
croon
I think one problem is that people have vastly different opinions on what 3
stars mean. For some it's quite bad, for some it's in the middle.

A binary option actually has three options. Did it prompt me to rate it as
bad, or did it prompt me to rate it as good, or was it bland enough where I
don't want to sway the rating of it at all?

If I rate a movie on IMDB as 5-6, and maybe even 7, the possibility of me
recommending it to someone "depends". In that case I might as well not rate it
at all.

Ratings are inherently tricky, because we all like different things. I don't
think you lose anything by going to a like/dislike system. Recommendations
should be based on aggregate maps and matching you with similar viewers that
have a certain overlap in ratings. That's made easier with binary choices.

IMDB ratings are only partially informative to me anyways.

~~~
nbadg
From my perspective, that shouldn't be a problem. Ultimately (as a user) the
point of the rating is for me to get stuff that I like -- so it's all relative
to me, regardless of individual rating differences.

Now, I realize that's almost certainly not the level of individualization
offered by their ranking algorithm (I'm convinced there's _way_ more of a
"groupthink" dynamic), but that's partly my point: if your ratings and
recommendation system isn't capable of supporting individual differences, then
your algorithm is broken.

If you have a complex problem (personalized recommendations absolutely are
complicated) then you shouldn't fix a broken algorithm (Netflix
recommendations are, at least for me, a bit meh) by simplifying the inputs
(switching from stars to up/down). You should fix the broken algorithm, by
creating a better algorithm.

I realize it isn't that simple, particularly for a publicly-traded company
whose stock price would absolutely be influenced by a decision to scrap part
of their core technology, but from my perspective as a user, this is going to
hurt my experience with the product.

------
ykler
From the linked Variety article, "However, over time, Netflix realized that
explicit star ratings were less relevant than other signals. Users would rate
documentaries with 5 stars, and silly movies with just 3 stars, but still
watch silly movies more often than those high-rated documentaries."

But the signal isn't just for Netflix; it is also for users, who might
sometimes be in the mood for something silly and sometimes in the mood for
something good. Also, people might rather get more suggestions of good movies
even if they are more likely to watch bad ones. (Of course, people might also
just overrate documentaries.)

~~~
bryanlarsen
But I want Netflix to surface good documentaries as well as good silly movies.
I'm more likely to watch a silly movie, so with this change my queue is more
likely to be filled with silly movies, making me more likely to unsubscribe
because it appears that Netflix only has silly movies. I watch more silly
movies than good documentaries, but I pay for Netflix mostly for the good
documentaries. I can get mindless pablum elsewhere easily.

~~~
Ntrails
I'd be pretty happy if netflix managed to actually suggest things there's a
vague chance I'll be interested in rather than whatever they recently
released/bought and desperately want viewers for..

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kartickv
If you have many reviewers, you don't need to get more information than thumbs
up or down from each person. How much people thumbed it up is a good
indicator.

Star-rating can be too much detail, anyway: if you're comparing two shows, and
one has a higher fraction of five-star ratings, but the other has a higher
fraction of ratings that are four or above, which is better? Star ratings can
be too much detail and cause confusion.

If you want more detail from each person, you can ask specific questions with
a yes/no answer, like, "Were parts of it boring?" or "Was it violent?" That's
probably better than star ratings.

~~~
philh
I do find IMDB's ratings breakdown fascinating to explore, though.

For example, you can look at the _50 Shades_ films or _A Dog 's Purpose_ or
(especially) _Gunday_ and have a pretty good idea that lots people are giving
them bad ratings without having seen the films. (Their weighted average
ratings are supposed to combat that, but they don't seem to be doing a very
good job.)

~~~
sterex
Actually, Netflix is poised in a better position to filter between people who
just rated the item vs people rating it AFTER viewing it (for a minimum
duration). The latter class of people will have have more weight attached to
their voting.

~~~
philh
That's true, but it doesn't sound as fun to poke around in.

(Obviously, "collect a dataset that philh finds interesting" should not be a
business goal of Netflix. I'm not suggesting this is a reason to keep the star
ratings. It's just a thing that I like about having ratings more detailed than
yes-no.)

------
derrekl
I've been in favor of up/down for years over x out of 5 or x out of 10. The
core reasoning is: it captures your overall emotional response to something
very succinctly. Sure you might hate X more than Y or like A more than you
like B, but you'll return, revisit, recommend all the things you like and not
do so for the things you don't like. When you can rate out of 5 or 10 you get
thrown into a sort of tizzy trying to rationalize a system of what is 1 star,
2 stars, etc. Do you subtract a star because you think something is overpriced
even though you like it? Do you subtract a star because it's hard to get it
(say slow delivery) even though you like it? Basically you want to start to
categorize every facet of a product/service which becomes complicated quickly.
Thumbs up/down avoids all that and I think over many hundreds or thousands of
reviews the ratio of up to down will provide a good probability indicator of
liking something or not.

~~~
echelon
This benefits those that want to data mine such data, not those that want to
meticulously catalog their interests. This is one of my biggest gripes with
music services such as Google Play. Thumbs up/down ratings are great for
Google, but suck for me, the listener, as I wish to construct a detailed, per-
song breakdown of my musical tastes.

~~~
derrekl
I don't believe up/down should replace written reviews, but neither does an x
out of 5 or 10 system. Written reviews are the place for that in depth
analysis. That said I'm not familiar with Google Play and don't know if they
have written reviews or not.

------
minimaxir
It's about damn time.

5-star rating systems are _broken_. A 1/2/3-star rating is effectively a
dislike, and a 4/5-rating is effectively a like. In the big data sense, a
deviation from a 1-star for dislike and 5-star for like is statistically
meaningless. (and this is _universal_ ; star ratings on Amazon Products and
Yelp Locations have the _exact same distribution_ ).

The interesting part of this is what Netflix gains from the change, since
their recommendation algorithms will become less granular. Maybe they came to
the same conclusion?

~~~
dexterdog
The problem is that is your opinion of a 5-star system. Everybody approaches
them differently. Some people give everything they like 5 stars, everything
they kind of like 4 stars and just don't vote on everything else. Some people
just do 5 for like and 1 for dislike. The 10-point system on IMDB is even
worse.

~~~
meesterdude
but that's _the_ problem with 5-star systems - everyone uses them differently.
Like/dislike leaves little room for ambiguity.

~~~
dexterdog
That's what I meant.

------
jerf
I think a lot of people are reacting here as if Netflix is moving from the
only signal they have being the star and review system to the only signal they
have being the up/down system, and thus confused as to why Netflix would throw
away the vast majority of their rating ability.

But that's not even close to true. In addition to it technically being
up/down/no rating, we've got how long people watch the show for, how the shows
they watch form a pattern, how all the patterns of what people watch show
global preference patterns, whether they rewatch a show, _when_ they watch
what sort of shows, what _individual scenes_ are rewatched vs. skipped...
Netflix is swimming in a sea of preference data, not sitting here trying to
figure out "Gosh, um, if the user likes this movie 3 vs. 4 stars, uh... what
does that mean?"

It makes perfect sense to me to optimize this one-data-stream-among- _many_ to
increase user participation and get more bits of information from more people
engaging with the simpler system, rather than trying to squeeze bits out of
the few people willing to use the star system and the even fewer willing to
write useful reviews.

It isn't really even as shocking as it may seem at first. The star system has
6 states, "no rating", 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 stars. That's 2.6 bits, with some
simplifying assumptions [1]. The thumb system has up, down, and no rating;
that's 1.6 bits [1]. To make up for the bits, you need only see ~40% increase
in participation over the current star system... think that's going to happen?

[1]: The simplifying assumption is that all outcomes are equally likely, but
that's not true. I don't have the numbers to run a more complete information
theory analysis, but it's not hard to imagine the "no star rating" case is so
common that it produces such a small fractional bit that a higher-
participation-rate yea/nay/no rating (if you puth this UI in their face, "no
rating" becomes much more meaningful, too) straight-up produces more bits of
information on average, and is thus simply an improvement even _before_
considering the superior UI experience. I rather suspect this is the case,
some very sensible assumptions would suggest this, but I lack the ability to
prove this; the "assume all outcomes are equally likely" is at least a
concrete case I can discuss.

~~~
bo1024
Yes, but the ratings aren't just for Netflix to use, they're also interesting
information for users.

This move seems very inward-focused: Netflix is thinking about the information
it wants to get from users, but I wonder if they surveyed people about how
much they want to see percentage-likes instead of stars.

~~~
throwaway91111
I'm not looking forward to a world where I have to like "boyhood" and "pirates
of the Caribbean" the same amount. What a joke.

Of course, Netflix solves this by removing the quality content....

------
AlexandrB
> The streaming service said it had been testing thumbs up and down ratings
> “with hundreds of thousands of members” in 2016 – and it led to 200% more
> ratings being given.

I don't understand why engagement is the right metric here. If someone isn't
sure how they feel about a movie, why is it a benefit to have them spew their
half-formed thoughts into a like/dislike rating?

~~~
pasiaj
Some reaction from

many has more value than

thougthgful one from few

~~~
Sean1708
Did ... did you just answer with a Haiku?

------
wj
I'm still disappointed they removed their friends feature. I valued my
friends' ratings more than the ratings of the Netflix user base as a whole. I
have noticed that Netflix tends to be more accurate with the "users like you"
star rating than the whole user base ratings.

I no longer see a sum of my ratings but I believe it is well over 2,500. I
know others that have rated a lot more (when there was the friends feature you
could see your friends' number of ratings). Because of my number of ratings I
felt that Netflix did a pretty good job with recommending me content. I will
be sad to see this go as I definitely refer to star ratings when adding
content to my queue.

Others have mentioned that the two factors of quality and enjoyment make the
star rating more valuable and I agree. The only time I remember it breaking
down for me was the film Rachel Getting Married (though I am sure there were
others). I couldn't stand Anne Hathaway's character to the point that I gave
it one star but at the same time I recognized that she gave a really strong
performance in what was probably a good film.

Are they converting ratings to thumbs up/down? What does a three-star rating
convert to? Those are typically movies that I enjoyed but wouldn't rewatch or
recommend to others.

~~~
fmihaila
> Are they converting ratings to thumbs up/down? What does a three-star rating
> convert to?

It would convert to no rating.

------
Tepix
Bummer. I understand why they do it but I think it's too coarse. I'd much
rather know how many people thought a movie was fantastic and not just decent.

~~~
Spooks
It would be neat if they gave each user a set number super thumbs (obviously
with a better name). You can use them so many times per month or year. I think
month would be ideal, but if they went with the year route, make it possible
to remove your super thumb like to use it on another movie.

~~~
jfaat
Likes?

~~~
imron
Super Thumbs!

------
frik
What's next. Just a thumb up like on Facebook?

Rating is a hard problem. No system works universally well. IMDb (Amazon
property) for example uses 10 stars, Amazon uses five stars. Facebook use
thumb up ("likes"). Games ratings are often in percent 1-100% (summarized by
metacritics.com and others). School systems around the world use A, B, etc or
numbers like 1-5 or 1-6 for grades.

~~~
lorenzhs
You're lumping together different kinds of rating systems. Netflix just wants
to recommend you stuff _you_ might like, which is a very different problem
from scoring things on an absolute scale (grades, IMDb, game critics).
Facebook likes have a social interaction component that's not there in
Netflix, so it isn't comparable either.

------
sergiotapia
Amy Schumer's comedy special bombed so hard they're changing their ranking
system? Total failure.

~~~
minimaxir
This system would arguably be more unfavorable to Netflix/Amy Schumer.

~~~
orthecreedence
Right. The original thumbs down means being put to death.

------
mr_tristan
At no point do I recall Netflix promoting this rating system as anything but
way to get better matches. The fact that so many comments are about losing a
system for criticism, just confirms that it was the wrong metaphor to use in
the first place.

Perhaps they could bring back a "critical review" mechanism, but I'd guess it
wouldn't affect your matches at all. And probably be mostly unusable on a TV
anyway.

~~~
throwaway91111
The issue is that their digital library is vanishingly small. I swear half the
tv shows on there are Netflix original content from the last five years.

------
widdma
A problem I'd like to see a good solution to is selection bias. Unless there
is some kind of reward, only people that really care are likely rate something

I think Netflix's move might help this. It certainly lowers the cost rating.

~~~
ghaff
There's another type of selection bias as well. I'm not going to watch a movie
unless I think I'm going to like it (based on reviews, comments, description,
etc.) As a result, with the exception of a few real disappointments, I'm
generally at least sorta OK with most of the movies I watch.

Even most of my disappointments tend to be in the vein of "It was OK I guess
but I don't see why people think this is so great."

------
flaviojuvenal
But the UX of the current rating system sucks. Rating stars are very small and
you have to hover them to know you can rate. Only if you watch a movie to the
very end you will see a clearer rating functionality, but even then you have
few seconds to use.

I bet many new users don't even know they can rate. I wonder if people aren't
rating much because the UX sucks, not because it's a 5-star system.

~~~
Ambroos
What bothers me is that once you rated something you can't unrate it, or see
what the public rating is.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I believe what they display is just a guess at how much you will like it
(based on people with similar viewing/rating histories), not a public rating
as such, so once you've actually rated it, there's very little reason to show
the other figure.

~~~
Ambroos
Wait, really? Damn, that explains why I love literally every 5-star-rated
thing they serve me!

------
Viper007Bond
YouTube got rid of star ratings back in 2009 for similar reasons:
[https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/youtube-comes-
to-a-5-star-...](https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/youtube-comes-to-a-5-star-
realization-its-ratings-are-useless/)

------
kefka
And not only that, but also removing their existing collections of videos and
replacing it with their "Made by Netflix" shows that mostly amount to
shovelware.

I'm about ready to drop them, just like they've dropped MASH, soon to be
X-Files, and many many movies.

~~~
talmand
Sigh.

Why do so many not seem to understand that, in most cases, Netflix is likely
not "dropping" anything? Netflix does not own the rights to the content and
the owners can decide on the terms of the agreement on how long the content
will be on Netflix.

People threatening to leave, or actually leaving, lowers Netflix's leverage to
try to get and keep the content in their system.

This is why Netflix is creating their own content and bringing in content
that's not normally within your area. So they can keep it up longer and have
more control over their own destiny.

~~~
kefka
I really don't care how they run their business. Not my problem. What _is_ my
problem is:

I started watching X-Files for the first time (yeah, never go around to it for
the initial airing). Started watching in late February. And starting March
1st, is a warning on the upper left of my monitor saying "Show will be removed
April 1".

From my viewpoint, I'm paying the same, and getting less. Not only less, but
specifically something I'm trying to watch.

And yes, I tried watching that psychic alien abducted Netflix show. The sex
scene at ep1 annoyed me, and had no interest still in ep3. Boring is putting
it mildly.

~~~
imron
> "Show will be removed April 1".

Don't worry, the show goes downhill after the first couple of seasons, so it's
probably for the best.

~~~
TallGuyShort
I watched until the T-1000 showed up. Can't see him as an organic lifeform.
But in all seriousness it's a huge UI improvement that they give you a few
weeks heads up now. I've narrowly missed the ending to some damn good shows
and all I needed was a few days to get to a spot with some closure. I get that
the rights aren't entirely in their control, so at least it's something.

------
danlindley
I can't imagine any film that conveys a message, cinematography, style, and
meaning that could be encapsulated with a simple thumbs up or thumbs down.

What a disappointing simplification.

~~~
dazc
I have found with the current 5 star rating system that anything with less
than 4 stars isn't worth watching.

And anything with 5 stars has a 50/50 chance of being worth watching.

So, for me, any simplification is welcome.

------
erikb
I can only wonder why. 5 stars is the normal rating system for movies, and
there's a huge difference between each star, at least for me.

I basically rate like this: unbearable-cannot-finish (1), bad (2), okay-for-
background-noise (3), what-I-expect (4), awesome (5).

Of course, some movies are somewhat between 3 and 4 or somewhat between 4 or
5. But if you just give me thumbs up or down there are like 80% of movies I
cannot rate at all, because they are neither.

------
peterjlee
I've always liked Rotten Tomatoes ratings more than IMDB star ratings. Rotten
Tomatoes rating is basically, what percentage of critics gave a thumbs up.

------
adrianlmm
Terrible idea, thumbs up or down rating only promote political reviews, a
movie that makes critics of feminism? thumbs down despite the acting or
contents inmediatly, a movie showing the good parts of religion? thumbs down
by viceral atheists, some one just needs to look at youtube and see how this
doesn't work,

------
sgloutnikov
I think it's a great move. Maybe on a similar note, one of the reasons I
really like and find more use out of Foursquare is the way their rating system
works compared to the five-star Yelp rating system. For example, in Yelp I
found that all "good" restaurants are in the above 4-star rating, and that's
all the information I can get out of that rating. With Foursquare, they have
turned the upvote/downvote/neutral rating into a number between 1-10 that
tells me more. Above average is 7+, something unique about the place 8+, truly
exceptional 9+.

It just seems to me it's a simpler way to rate something by a user, and at the
same time classify it more adequately.

------
rebootthesystem
What Netflix needs to do is improve their content, not screw around with
ratings. The quality of the content has definitely deteriorated over the last
few years. It is almost impossible to find good material to watch. I have
found myself wanting to watch a good movie only to give up after searching for
half an hour.

Amazingly enough non-premium TV channels have better movies than Netflix, so
we record them and skip the commercials.

Frankly, the only reason we keep Netflix is because there are a couple of kids
TV series our kids like. We are using them to improve their Spanish language
skills. If it weren't for that we would have cancelled a long time ago.

------
ggregoire
I wish we could have the IMDB/RT ratings directly in Netflix and a page with
all the movies sorted by those ratings.

There are articles on Internet like "top 100 Netflix movies of the month" but
it's almost always for the US Netflix.

~~~
eric_the_read
Unfortunately, A Better Queue is dead, but you can use NEnhancer
([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nenhancer/ijanohec...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nenhancer/ijanohecbcpdgnpiabdfehfjgcapepbm?hl=en))
in Chrome to add Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB ratings to Netflix.

------
fmihaila
The way I understand their explanation is that users tend to view the act of
rating as a stronger endorsement than it actually is. In other words, users
think their ratings are more predictive of what they would enjoy in the future
than the implicit signals that can be derived from actual behaviour. Netflix
concluded that it's better to boost the weak(er) signal by encouraging users
to rate more. They will continue to use it on top of the stronger implicit
signals to provide personalized ratings, which they will display as a
percentage match as long as it's greater than 50%.

So their recommendations may actually improve.

------
DaveWalk
Question to the Machine Learning folk: are five-star ratings "better" than
thumbs up/down, or is it just a matter of algorithm design?

I know ratings/prediction has long been studied by the MovieLens.org
scientists.

~~~
refrigerator
I think the fact that Netflix saw a 200% increase in "thumbs" ratings vs
"stars" in the A/B test makes it much better from a machine learning
perspective, even if it might at first seem like the data is of "lower
quality". One of the biggest problems for recommender systems is that the data
is extremely sparse - most users will have only rated a tiny proportion of
films, and most films will only have been rated by a tiny proportion of users.

This is just my opinion now, but having studied recommender systems in a
decent amount of depth, I don't think the design of the algorithm will need to
change. The current techniques that provide the best results use matrix
factorisation to simultaneously learn characteristics of films and how much
each user likes each characteristic. My intuition would be that the algorithm
can learn a lot more about a user from 3 up/down-ratings than from 1 star-
rating, and the only reason Netflix are doing this is so that they can provide
better recommendations so it's almost certainly the case.

TL;DR: All else being equal, 5-star ratings carry more signal for any machine
learning algorithm, but the fact that thumbs up/down will result in 200% more
data is a lot more significant than the delta in the signal.

------
shdon
I get why they do this and it'll probably work out fine, but for me
personally, it's going to mean I will rate a lot fewer movies/shows. In the
past, I've rated pretty much every single thing I've ever watched on Netflix.
On YouTube, I hit the thumbs-up or thumbs-down buttons on a very small
fraction of the videos that I watch. That's just because there is no middle
ground (and no 2 or 4 star ratings either). There's plenty of stuff that I
enjoyed, but didn't love, plenty of stuff that I disliked, but didn't really
hate.

------
openasocket
I don't have particularly strong opinions about this change, I don't actually
rate many things that I watch (I think the recommendation system can go mostly
by what I watch).

I think the fundamental problem with different rating systems is that they are
all one-dimensional. Maybe a two-category system, like 1-5 stars for
"enjoyment" and another 1-5 stars for "quality". Or a 1-5 rating paired with a
label, like "campy" or "serious", to prevent apples-and-oranges comparisons.

------
Pxtl
In most cases I would agree with the simple up/down rating, because we're
seeing the lunacy of "less than 5* is failure" in various platforms. But in
the case of Netflix where it's primarily being used to manage my own personal
preferences on content, some nuance of "more like this" and "well I kinda
enjoyed it but it was badly flawed" and "meh" and "never ever show this to me
again" is useful.

------
muninn_
I wish there was a "meh" option. Sometimes things are ok, but not good or bad.
This will leave me not rating a bunch of things unless they're good or bad.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Special categories would also be nice. "Would probably be funny if I was
high". "Don't watch when high - will freak you the hell out".

------
eiopa
I understand people who want more expressiveness in their reviewing, but the
reality is that the 5-star system just leaves too much ambiguity.

It's like how in Uber/Lyft, most people just default to 1/5 star ratings. In
that case, the average rating a driver has to maintain gets skewed to a a
pretty high number, like 4.5, and people who think "oh, this was a pretty good
ride! 4 stars!" end up unintentionally boning the driver.

------
andy_ppp
You could come up with an algorithm that instead of showing an average of 5
stars, biases the weighting towards people who rate things in a similar way to
you. We all have an internal set of assumptions about what a 5 star rating
system means to us; this is a case where the filter bubble leads to better
understanding. People would then see the ratings they expected rather than a
mix of different methodologies averaged?

------
drivingmenuts
I don't rate things on Netflix (and rarely on any other service). If I made it
thru the movie, I probably enjoyed it; if not, I didn't.

What I would _like_ to see is a collection of all available movies by genre,
and I'll pick what I want to watch. That's it - I don't need or want
recommendations. In fact, if it's recommended, my first thought is "who's
getting paid for that?"

------
ultrasandwich
I've found some solace using Mubi, which has a pretty devoted film fan base
that really puts thought into written reviews + star ratings. I almost always
read a handful of these before following-through with a viewing. They also
have a nice 1-in-1-out movie per day system which lets them theme films by
event (Cannes, director birthdays, etc). Not for everyone, but it's out there.

~~~
dasil003
Glad to see MUBI mentioned here. I spent 9 years of my life building it as co-
founder and tech lead.

My biased view is that if you are sick of bland streaming selections then you
should really support MUBI. The more subscribers we can get the more we are
able to fund great unique content. Our approach is fundamentally different
from the data-driven, mass-appeal approach that tends to sand all the corners
off of Netflix/Amazon content. Currently most MUBI content is licensed with a
few exclusive releases sprinkled in, and the US selection is not as good as
the UK, but as the subscriber base grows it will get better and better.
Netflix et al are a volume game and the unit economics don't work out for them
to purchase great indie films. If you care about great film as opposed to
episodic content, MUBI is the streaming service that is pushing the envelope
there.

~~~
ultrasandwich
Wow, how random that you are on here too, haha. Thanks for building a great
product. It addressed pretty much every gripe I had with the bigger streaming
services.

------
Houshalter
Normalize star ratings. If something has an average rating of 4 stars, but
four stars is in the lowest 10 percent, it should be given 1 star. This solves
the classic issue with star ratings where anything under 5 stars is below
average.

Personally I use star ratings badly myself. I only ever rate titles 5 stars.
But that's because I mostly only watch stuff I am fairly sure I am going to
like.

------
yitchelle
I have always wanted to get ratings from a selected group of viewers who has
similar tastes as me. For example, I like SciFi movies that involves planetary
travel, ie Star Trek or similar style movies. If I can get ratings from folks
with similar interests as well, then the rating system would make sense for
me. Otherwise, it is still a hit and miss for me.

~~~
apetresc
That's exactly how their recommendation system works. If it just surfaced the
highest-rated movies globally, everyone's recs would be identical.
Collaborative filtering implicitly weighs the opinions of those similar to you
more highly.

------
cpeterso
I already push my Netflix ratings higher or lower than I really feel just to
more heavily influence Netflix's suggestions. Otherwise, Netflix thinks I
would give a 3.5 stars to pretty much all movies, which is not helpful to me.

That said, a simple thumbs up/down doesn't allow me to tell Netflix which
movies were not bad and which to never show me again.

------
garrickvanburen
I've been a Netflix subscriber for a decade.

To me, 3-stars means: this movie has all the characteristics of something
you'd enjoy - but we don't think you will.

Unfortunately, it's been more and more challenging for me to find 4- & 5- star
stuff in their streaming interface.

Perhaps the thumbs-up will help expose those things, or at least help me hide
the thumbs-down things.

------
lukeschlather
Netflix's star rating system is really poorly designed. Of course people
clicked on a thumbs up/thumbs down widget more. I used Netflix for months
before I even noticed the star rating was interactive.

I wish they would invest in a quality star rating system like Amazon's, rather
than dumbing down the UI.

------
sugarygrind
My Previous ratings already in Netflix, was the reason for being there. This
dumbed down version of up/down voting is ridiculous. Most companies become
sophisticated. Netflix is going backwards in time.

All in all this is a RIDICULOUS move. I wish I could download all my previous
ratings before they remove them!

------
coding123
I'm going to guess they looked at things and found that 80% of the ratings
were either 5 stars or 1 star. (edit - not that this is a good thing.. I'm
guessing they could have carved out the 2-4 star ratings and did its own data
analysis that probably provided much more nuanced information)

------
bjarneh
What I really want to avoid is the _mediocre_ content i.e. 2.0 - 3.5 stars,
very good and very bad can both be entertaining..

Now that mediocre content will be scattered across the two categories I really
care about; I guess IMDB/Rotten tomatoes will steer clear of this ridiculous
binary rating systems.

~~~
tgb
Isn't Rotten Tomatoes exactly a (aggregated) binary rating system?

~~~
laurent123456
Yes it is, and it sometime gives some strange ratings like "Ash vs Evil:
season 2" having a 100% rating[0]. Though it's probably a good show, it's not
absolute perfection like the rating would imply.

0:
[https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/ash_vs_evil_dead/s02](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/ash_vs_evil_dead/s02)

------
relaytheurgency
There's always a better option if you like metrics: instantwatcher.com sorts
Netflix/Amazon content with a variety of external metrics like IMDB score etc.
It's pretty great if you are just browsing (rather than seeking
recommendations).

------
chrisper
After almost 5 years I finally cancelled my Netflix subscription. I just
realized I was watching more movies / shows on Amazon, Youtube, or any of the
other paid ones more than Netflix. I used to enjoy it a lot more back then.

~~~
Markoff
i would recommend FMovies.se or 123movies.gs

------
yashksagar
Why not keep the rating system, and have an additional thumbs up/down rating?
That way you get to vote on the 'objective' quality and the 'subjective'
enjoyment factor of the content.

------
vthallam
This is what even Google does now for the movies and tv shows on the search.
If you are logged in while searching for a movie or TV show, it gives thumbs
up or down and shows the approval rating in total.

------
neuronexmachina
Uh oh, now they're going to need to re-film the Black Mirror "Nosedive"
episode (s3e1) using thumbs-up/down instead of 5-star ratings...

------
j_s
The best way to rate a movie for me would be: when will I watch it again?

They kind of already know this though. (How many times have I watched a
particular movie on Netflix?)

~~~
new_hackers
not for me. I rarely watch movies twice, even those I really enjoy. A better
metric for me would be "am I glad I watched this movie"

~~~
j_s
Therefore, any movie you've watched more than once becomes pure gold for
Netflix! Spread that across several million subscribers and get enough data to
be useful.

------
nrki
Should be "five star-rating"..."five-star rating" indicates they are replacing
ratings of five stars :)

------
PhasmaFelis
I don't have Netflix, so I 'm not clear if the rating shown to users is
changing. Or does it not show a rating, just use it to decide what movies to
surface for you?

In any case, simplifying the ratings users can bestow makes a lot of sense,
unfortunately. We like to imagine people carefully considering the merits and
flaws like a professional reviewer, but the fact is that the _vast_ majority
of users only ever use two ratings anyway: if they like it, 5 stars; if they
didn't, 1 star. There's maybe a third option where if they're ambivalent they
just don't rate it.

So star ratings aren't actually very useful for evaluating products. This xkcd
[https://xkcd.com/1098/](https://xkcd.com/1098/) made me realize that an
Amazon product which has a 20% chance of exploding when you open the box, and
otherwise works normally but unexceptionally, is gonna average out to a four-
star rating for a product you really shouldn't buy. I always look at the one-
star reviews before buying stuff now, no matter how few of them there are;
knowing a thing's failure modes is much more useful than a bunch of praise.

~~~
new_hackers
the histogram of the star ratings are much more valuable. I tend to avoid
bathtub curves.

------
kochandy
Whenever I would browse the Netflix reviews it appeared most people voted
either 5 stars or 1 star anyway.

------
Fej
Interesting. YouTube made the same switch some years ago, I wonder how it's
worked out for them.

------
nailer
YouTube used to have a star based ratings system too. I wonder if they drew
the same conclusions.

------
wiseleo
Great. I can't stand 5-star systems. Anything other than 5 stars is negative
signal.

------
ed_balls
Netflix recommendations are quite bad.

You've seen this standup? How about watching it again a day later.

------
oculusthrift
this makes sense to me considering most people only leave bother to use the
extreme star amounts anyway. anyway, you're kind of a sap if you take netflix
ratings seriously and don't use something like rotten tomatoes

------
jschwartzi
What they should be asking is "would you watch another movie like this?"

------
sodapopcan
Well, if no one else is gonna link it I may as well:
[https://xkcd.com/1098/](https://xkcd.com/1098/)

I'm all for this!

------
mrmondo
Life is not black and white, how you feel about something isn't terrible or
brilliant every time. This is idiotic.

------
instaheat
What does this say about their algorithm? Forget UX/UI.

I feel as though this devalues their recommendations to you.

------
Markoff
so how exactly i distinguish between liking something a little and loving
something?

this seem like pretty retarded decision

at least we have TMDb where we can rate and discuss movies, unlike IMDb or
Netflix

~~~
always_good
I think you should distribute your TMDB shilling across a few more accounts,
mate. I actually recognized your username from one of your shills I found so
bad that I linked it to a buddy of mine.

Just some of your recent posts on HN:

    
    
        > why would i participate on dumb backup of database, 
        > done without my consent (OP stole 14 years of my posts),
        > when I can go to proper movie database with discussions, 
        > imported ratings and watchlist from IMDb, called TMDb (themoviedb.org)
    

Shill Tip: don't link to your shill target when it's googleable like "TMDb"
is. It makes it look like you are just dropping a name everyone should know.

Love the fake outrage about having your comments "stolen", as if anybody
really cares.

    
    
        > he doesn't and he illegally copied 14 years of my posts which 
        > i don't like especially since I moved to TMDb which is proper
        > movie database where you can also import your IMDb ratings 
        > and watchlist and each movie there has own discussions
    

Another:

    
    
        > i would recommend checking TMDb which launched discussions 
        > for each listed title just yesterday, so don't expect there 
        > will be much content, but at least each movie or TV show had
        > its own page and own forum, much more neat than reddit
    

Consider leveling the load across more accounts though, and mix in some
different strategies.

ctrl-f for "TMDb" on each page of your comment history and you'll see the
problem.

~~~
Markoff
it's related to discussion for people who prefer normal star ratings instead
of retarded thumbs up, so not sure what's your problem, also not sure what's
your definition of shill, but I doubt it's someone who doesn't even bother to
provide link for his potential victims and who is just regular user of some
website where he was forced to move from IMDb

not sure where you got some fake outrage from my post, when some thief is
stealing 14 years worth of my content from IMDb

judging by your language you are most likely shill from some competitors
failed forums which are already forgotten as IMDb alternatives

everyone feel free to go through my history to see if I am some account made
to spam with TMDb as this expert imply

~~~
dang
> judging by your language you are most likely shill

Please keep this sort of tit-for-tat off HN.

I don't think you're a spammer and it's ok to occasionally promote your own
stuff on HN in relevant contexts, but if you do it too much then other readers
here will start to strenuously object.

~~~
Markoff
except it's not even my stuff, I am just annoyed IMDb user who moved to TMDb
and just wanna let know other people about alternative so we can all continue
discussing movies, after all it's in my best interest to attract as many users
as possible so I can have more people to discuss with even when I have zero
monetary benefit from it and I am in no way affiliated with TMDb other than
any other user, heck I don't even help editing movies there, no Mod,
nothing...

~~~
dang
That's totally fine! But if users have noticed it enough to get annoyed it
might mean you were mentioning it excessively. In that case the solution is
simply to do so a bit less, and make sure the context is a good and relevant
one when you do.

