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A comment on Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Commercials a Year. Parent comment

Re:Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Comm... by niftich on Friday December 22, 2017 @05:03PM (#15991278)
The 'random' button would interfere with their aggregate viewership tracking and recommendation algorithms. When the viewer appears to select a particular show to watch, you can have reasonable faith in the viewership numbers.

If the platform were to offer a random choice, the fact that the resulting view was not organic would need to be tracked separately. Conversely, you'd want a better way of figuring out whether the viewer was satisfied with the content after all. These problems require nontrivial effort.

Right now, things are much easier. The viewer always makes a choice, ostensibly a conscious choice, and all views factor into aggregate numbers that correlate with show popularity.

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Re:Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Comm... by scott_karana on Friday December 22, 2017 @05:05PM (#15991288)
I'm sure they have Referrer metrics, and could add a "from Random" flag.

The UI could even continue doing separate random programs, but allow the watcher to say "Keep Watching this", locking in their choice and making it a "discovered" show.

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Re:Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Comm... by 8ytecoder on Friday December 22, 2017 @05:17PM (#15991376)
They should seriously consider "channels" whereby something random is always playing by genre.
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Re:Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Comm... by flavor8 on Friday December 22, 2017 @05:37PM (#15991501)
Not even random. They could generate channels based on their observations of what you "switch channel" from.
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Re:Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Comm... by glenstein on Friday December 22, 2017 @09:29PM (#15992576)
>If the platform were to offer a random choice, the fact that the resulting view was not organic would need to be tracked separately

So just track it separately and don't interpret it the same way as deliberately chosen shows. I don't see the problem.

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