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It's a UX failure. There's no point in recommending something that I've seen and there is almost no way I can know that I don't want to watch something without seeing at least a little bit of it. For all intents and purposes, the "Continue Watching" list is a recommendation of things to watch. If I thumbs down or ask Netflix to stop recommending it, I shouldn't see it prominently displayed anywhere when I open the app.

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When I consider these UX fails I often attribute them to the faith in AB testing. It may not be, but it's common for people to complain about X in the Netflix UI and then have either employees or apologists come in and talk about how there have been 100k variants vetted through A/B testing and say the way it works now is the way most people like it. However, this approach tends to fall flat on cross-cutting and more creatively challenging UX concerns. Sometimes you need a Cambrian explosion.

I have a ton of half watched shows that I keep queued for when I'm in the mood, which is usually in the winter. So it works fine for me. It's a reminder of "oh yeah I was watching that before vacation".

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