Netflix's tail massage | Hacker News Reader

Netflix's tail massage

roughtype.com

51 pointswestwardho16 comments

There's another reason to do this, beyond Wolverine DVDs costing more than My Little Pony DVDs: inventory utilization. The demand curve for a new release goes something like this: BIG FREAKING SPIKE, two weeks pass, long-tail until the sequel is released. To accommodate peak demand, Netflix would have to do what Blockbuster does: order a metric truckload of Wolverine, then either let it suck up shelf space or dispose of it somehow after the spike was over. Alternatively, they could just not accommodate peak demand, and have users perpetually ticked off that they can "never watch anything I want to watch".

I use one of the Japanese analogs to Netflix and this is the #1 complaint everyone has with the service. You're lucky to be able to watch a new release within a month of them getting it, which sort of defeats the purpose now doesn't it. (Note that they offer plenty of UI features Netflix doesn't which tend to exacerbate this, such as "Sort by Popularity", "Sort by Release Date", and "Most Popular Recently Released Movies". They also have "Sort by Availability", which is essentially "Show me popular new releases from 2 months ago where you now practically can't give away the DVDs.")

> To accommodate peak demand, Netflix would have to do what Blockbuster does: order a metric truckload of Wolverine, then either let it suck up shelf space or dispose of it somehow after the spike was over

Or just burn more copies. The cost of a disc is probably less than the postage. But they'd have to get a license for that, which leads back to same reason: studios charge more for popular movies. Renting good movies on Netflix is hard for the same reason it's hard on iTunes, which has no inventory problem.

Netflix doesn't even need to burn discs, they already have the video streaming infrastructure in place.

The studios don't want people to watch their movies. They want people to pay for the discs.

> I use one of the Japanese analogs to Netflix

Out of interest, what do you use? Tsutaya? I'd be interested to know of any Netflix-like services here in Japan.

I use dmm.com/rental (DMM.com オンライン月額DVDレンタル)

I can't remember why I picked it over Tsutaya. However, they work fine (and have been good to me over the years with my infrequent CS needs), so I've got no real reason to switch. (I must be one of their favorite customers considering how often I go three months without renting anything. Speaking of which...)

Interesting, thank you.

which sort of defeats the purpose: Only if your purpose in subscribing to them is to be able to watch the newest movies, rather than the best movies or the ones you'd enjoy most.

And? Of course popular movies are in high demand, so the rental queue is longer. They avoid showing you movies that would cause a long wait.

The movies on Netflix's list are probably better than the new releases. In fact, the real manipulation is the idea of new releases, that half the demand should be for this season's movies. The actual best movies of all time are probably not on this week's best sellers list. It's a Hollywood marketing artifact: because buzz causes a superlinear advertising conversion rate, it works best to promote movies in short bursts. New releases also skew revenue from rental stores towards Hollywood (since rental stores have to buy enough for peak demand) so you can't blame Hollywood for doing it.

After hacking on the netflix contest it was fun to sign up for netflix and give the recommendation system a try. After putting in several hundred movies I now typically only choose recommendations that it thinks I would rate a 4 or 5. Most are good and rank about what they think I will. This includes plenty of older movies including some silent films which I absolutely loved after seeing them where before I would have never even considered watching them. On the flip side the brand new movie of the month that I _must see_ and added to the top of my que I end up ranking much lower on average. So I would very much agree, on a given week I don't want to watch the new dvd/movie that just came out as it probably isn't that good compared to the top 500 of the last 100 years which I have only started going through.

I now typically only choose recommendations that it thinks I would rate a 4 or 5.: Probably a very sensible policy, and I bet a lot of other people do the same. Unfortunately, this seems likely to cause some skew in the recommendations since the recommendations engine (and the people working to improve it) will seldom find out about any severe underpredictions it makes.

The longer a movie's been out, the more likely it is that you've already seen it. The global production rate of quality movies is much less than 3 per week. Once you've exhausted* the catalogue then you're either stuck waiting for new releases or you resign to watching movies you're not that interested in. It's laudable that Netflix is trying to hip people to obscure movies that they'll hopefully like (and make money at it, because obscure movies are cheap) but more often than not the movie just sucks. There's a lot of crap out there. Wasting 2 hours on a shit movie burns bad enough that I don't gamble my time on it anymore.

(* I know this sounds ridiculous but some people just don't enjoy movies made before they were born. Most movies are not timeless, and the timeless ones you're likely to have already seen.)

The global production rate of quality movies is much less than 3 per week

Erm maybe. But people don't just watch new releases. I watch about 1-2 Netflix DVDs a week, and my queue keeps getting longer - not because I am watching Citizen Kane, but through normal tangents ("gee, this Edward Norton movie was fabulous, wonder what else he has done"). But I also watch documentaries and some TV series on netflix too, so maybe I am not typical. I also don't go out to the cinema, so I don't rule out new releases because I have already seen them.

I think the great thing about Netflix is that it really encourages you to branch out because it doesn't feel like any particular DVD "costs" you anything.

New releases create common topics to talk about in social situations. There's something to be said for the value of shared experiences, and that's probably a large part of why I watch movies or TV at all.

That makes 100,000 companies manipulating you to be more conformist and 1 company manipulating you to be less conformist.

People really like to attack Chris Anderson and his lightweight business-IT theories. I don't really understand why.

My best guess is that he's a pretty good self-promoter, and as with Apple, people who can't promote themselves can get into the spotlight by attacking someone who is already there.

I think it's that his "lightweight business-IT theories" aren't recognized as such.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com