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Comment by ilikepi | Hacker News Reader

> My other bugbear are the auto playing videos on Netflix and the use of massive spoilers in episode thumbnails.

You can actually turn off "Autoplay previews" now. You have to log into your account from a web browser, and then look at the Playback settings for the profile you want to change.

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What you can’t turn off is the bit where they drop you into another trailer when you’ve just finished watching a series after months of investment. A little time to digest would be real nice.

Your "time to digest" is Netflix's "fleeting window of opportunity to keep you engaged" or whatever businessy term describes that.

They aren't Facebook. They just need to keep me subscribed, not engaged.

I bet someone has an engagement OKR anyway, though.

Hours of video watched per month is metric Netflix tries to optimize, because it predicts churn. If a customer is spending decreasing hours on Netflix and watching Disney instead, they are more likely to cancel.

Goodhart's law applies. If a customer is watching more Netflix because they are binging some fantastic new context, that’s great for Netflix. If the customer watching more because the app keeps auto playing something they didn’t ask for and gradually pisses them off, not so good. Netflix might have better ways of measuring customer satisfaction that can tell if these behaviors make the customer more satisfied overall.

Every single video app I have on my AppleTV: Netflix, Amazon, Criterion, even Apple’s own TV app, shrinks whatever you are watching down to a thumbnail just before the movie or show ends.

I fucking hate it. Yes, I’m one of those weirdos who sits through to the end when the copyright rolls past and gets pissed off when the lights come on at a theater during the credits.

It is incredibly disrespectful to the film.

This is one of those “good taste” things that I feel like Steve Jobs wouldn’t have tolerated.

It’s especially annoying on some older films with short end credits because it happens before the movie is even over.

You should consider moving to Japan then. Theater stays dark until the last line of credits passes. Actually this is nice thing. You can still listen to the music, pay silent respects to the horde of people involved or just contemplate the movie.

many many people in LA stay for the credits too. naturally.

I get the sentiment for live performance, but in your own home, I can not relate to this. Vast majority of people in credits are doing a job and getting paid for it, just like any other profession or trade.

We don't pay "respect" to delivery drivers, or to designers and engineers who brings us our gadgets and services in same way. Why should I spend my time and attention on credit rolls? It's not like anyone noticing it.

You don't tip? Tips are showing your respect for deliveries. Also, most gadgets I've seen have a screen that can be viewed with credits in them, as well as most software. Video games have credits too. Books have credits too, right there on the cover and is probably what grabs your attention more than the title.

Yes, when was the last time you actually saw the credits on those devices? Like who is the lead designer of your phone? Who is the lead programmer of the last game you played?

There are credits in the About menu of about 50% of the programs I use each day.

There are even credits in the loading screen of Adobe Photoshop.

That is not my point. Things being there doesn't make them important

No, I hardly ever tip my delivery drivers. Tip is not expected for normal service here, unlike USA. If someone goes above and beyond, you can tip but there is no obligation. We have minimum wage system and most in my area are paid above that.

Most popular gadgets with screens, smartphones, doesn’t have credits, not the most popular apps on App Store apart from couple of words “From Facebook”, “By Google” etc. It’s not considered “incredibly disrespectful” to not read credits in apps or acknowledgments in books that have it listed. It’s a personal preference to read or skip them. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.

Perhaps I should have said it's disrespectful of me, the audience member. It should be my decision whether to watch to the end or not.

I really enjoy movie watching. I use the credits to contemplate what I just watched. Sometimes to see who played specific roles, or what music was in the film, or the locations. So yes, I do watch the credits.

I know most people don't. But that decision should be mine or yours.

> It is incredibly disrespectful to the film.

I found this attitude a bit confusing. The film makers are not there, who are you showing respect to? Also, do you read each crew members name? If not, what's the point of sitting through it?

To me, it's like speaking loudly in a library, or people horse-playing in a museum. Perhaps it's more accurate to say it's disrespectful of the audience.

I want to be in control of whether or not to watch to the very end. It should be my choice.

Of the services you listed, I only have Netflix. I hated that too, fortunately you can disable it [0]. Perhaps your other services have a similar setting.

[0] - https://help.netflix.com/en/node/2102

That setting doesn't disable the shrinking of a movie down to a thumbnail at the end. It only disables the auto-starting of the next episode of a TV show.

Huh, fixed it for me on my Chromecast. IIRC it would shrink down to show what was autoplaying next, so when I disabled that it stopped shrinking.

Thanks for the info. It's possible I'm mistaken or that it behaves differently for movies vs TV shows. I'll pay attention tonight and update back here. If it is behaving differently between platforms, that seems like a bug I should report to Netflix.

Confirmed I have the auto play settings off but at the end of a movie just as the credits roll the Apple TV Netflix app shrinks the movie to a thumbnail. :-(

Neither of those settings help on web. You can stop the previews when you’re browsing around. And you can stop the auto play of the next episode. I have both of those turned off. The annoying one I get hit with (on web) is that when you get to the end of a whole series (or movie, I guess) they roll more or less straight into another trailer.

Bojack Horseman; I laughed, I cried, I lived...I jumped up out of my seat after six seasons to turn off some offensive trailer when it was finally over.

Thanks for staying for the credits! I make credits for a living, so I’m biased, but you’re right that they serve a real artistic purpose, as a gentle transition from the dream world back to the real one. No one likes to be shaken awake and bombarded with a new dream — especially when they haven’t yet made sense of the last one.

> They serve a real artistic purpose, as a gentle transition from the dream world back to the real one. No one likes to be shaken awake and bombarded with a new dream — especially when they haven’t yet made sense of the last one.

This really hits it for me. It's not even the credits that I need, per se, as long as the movie stop playing when it's done, whether with a credits sequence or a simple fade to black.

I waited for Stranger Things to come out on BluRay (currently waiting for the third season), and I'm 100% convinced I had a better experience than someone watching on Netflix, because the episodes actually ended after the credits. For a show few people will get to see this way, the writers really knew how to conclude each episode in just the right spot, so you had a nice place to take a breather and contemplate.

This reminds me of AMC's Lost finale, where after the end of the show, AMC added a simple shot of a desert island with some lapping waves, just to give viewers thirty seconds to digest everything that had happened.

Of course, this confused the shit out of many viewers, who thought it was part of the show and tried to find meaning in it...

Yep, this is what I hate. Finishing a TV show, taking it all in, only to find myself scrambling for the remote to press Watch Credits so it doesn’t move on to some random trailer.

The Kodi Netflix add-on might not have the best interface, but at least it doesn’t do stuff like this!

Note that this anti anti feature was introduced quietly so not everyone may have noticed it yet.

What you still can’t turn off AFAIK is the video starting to play in the background if you go to the “more info” menu. At least on the Android TV app.

I have it turned off in my profile, which works nearly everywhere, but doesn't have any effect on the Apple TV netflix app.

oh cool

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