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Comment by inshadows | Hacker News Reader

I read just the abstract and I hate it. Nowadays you cannot really use search functionality on sites to find what you actually want anymore.

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Lots of bad recommendation systems out there, to be sure, but Netflix's strikes me as one of the better (best?) implementations. If I search for a particular title, it's usually at the top (or close to, with fuzzier search terms), whereas when they don't have what I'm looking for (happens a lot, their library is pretty small where I live) their recommendations are at least pretty similar to what I'm looking for. Compared to comparable solutions with dumb search, it's a much better experience.

But I agree insofar as botched recommenders that you can't circumvent easily are the absolute worst UX.

I heavily agree. On both Netflix and Hulu, I frequently find exactly what I’m looking for. Even better, Hulu will sometimes tell me that they don’t have the item I’m looking for. It’s insane to me that they include items they don’t have in their DB just to enhance the search experience.

Explicitly giving the user feedback about items currently missing from their catalog is ingenious. Whenever I search for something that's not on a given streaming platform, the slew of data-driven recommendations of other things that are similar yet still absolutely not what I was looking for amplifies my disappointment. Just give it to me straight, CraveFlixPlus Prime Video Max!

> Hulu will sometimes tell me that they don’t have the item I’m looking for

Netflix does this too (or did? it's been awhile). It's one of those tiny little details that really makes a difference.

Not in my experience (on mobile app). It just alludes to that fact by suggesting shows that are very close to the thing you were searching for, but the thing that you did actually search for is conspicuously missing from the results list.

Exactly. Its like they're saying: We don't have what you want, but here's something that's close enough. Be happy.

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