What Netflix's patents reveal about the future of watching movies

I am still 'impressed' with recommendation engines and how much time, money etc is spent on them. In all the years using Netflix, prime video, YouTube, apple TV+ etc, I have never had 1 recommendation I like. These companies all know for years, sometimes decades, what I like (horror sci-fi) and, also important, what I dislike/hate/never watch (romantic comedies): the recommendations I get are shows or movies I would not watch if you paid me and are not even remotely connected to what I viewed in the past. The only time it gets it right is recommending something I just saw on that same platform, usually less than 24 hours ago. I could not make a worse recommendation engine if I tried than any of those, but I guess somehow they make money recommending stuff I will never click on? And no, my accounts are not shared with anyone, it's just me watching them. I click like/not like duty fully, and yet...

The Netflix recommendation engine probably only works for people that watch a lot of Netflix. For me it’s practically useless at guessing why I watch something and can’t differentiate between skips because something is boring or because I’ve watched it earlier on another account.

A much better, easier way to expose new content is the traditional way: send people on talk shows like Colbert and have them talk about the new shows. Netflix should do their own late night show on the service.

I subscribe to streaming services but they no longer have my viewing data. Discovery got increasingly awful and I moved my viewing to pirate sites.

The future will be generative, personalized, tailored-to-each-costumer content.

Just wait and see.

paywalled