So there's more than one reason recommendations are no longer just about what you might like best.
IMO Netflix breached my trust when their recommendation engine stopped trying to accurately predict what I'd like, and instead also considered their agenda.
I really miss the Netflix of about 7-8 years ago, when the company was cool and honest, and we could show our queues to our friends.
Retail stores have done this for years. Why wouldn't an online store do the same thing?
(And it would likely be a net economic benefit to society if people bought less junk food, and could get in and out of a grocery store quicker.)
To extend your analogy the grocery store would need to be telling you "Hey shopper, based on your personalized history of buying milk we think you'd like to buy cereal." But instead of giving you all of the cereal in the same aisle the store brand cereal is up front and costs the same as the brand names, and all the cereal the store doesn't get a cut on is in the farthest corner.
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/07/23/334076398/episo...
If someone else were to start a DVD-by-mail business like the original Netflix, I'd sign up.
Every time I bring my Linux box back from sleeping, the DVD has to get remounted (or something like that), and VLC has amnesia about where I had stopped it.
So I end up having to write down where I stopped, and re-navigate the just-put-a-DVD-into-the-drive menus, every time I come back to the movie.
I would have expected this to be a solved problem, but perhaps my Google Fu is just weak.
Netflix still has a DVD-by-mail service: https://dvd.netflix.com/
"Sign Up" only shows three tiers, with a max of 2 discs at a time.
IIRC, there used to be up to 5 discs out at a time available, so I was surprised to see only 3 such plans now.
Perhaps new members have fewer choices? I'm not sure.