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A comment on An ex-YouTube whistleblower on their recommendation engine. Parent comment

Re:An ex-YouTube whistleblower on their recommendation engine by eeeeeeeeeeeee on Sunday February 10, 2019 @03:10PM (#19129705)
Not so sure. Netflix wants you to think at the end of the month that you got a good value for your subscription cost. So people often mentally calculate how much of their free time is consumed watching Netflix. A lot of people probably compare the Netflix cost and hours consumed to what those dollars would get on iTunes or at the movie theater. It’s why Netflix often goes for 10 hour programs instead of 1-2 hour movies.

It’s why HBO is not even a serious competitor to Netflix, even though they tend to focus more on quality instead of quantity.

It’s all about taking your time. Netflix even says their main competitor is something like Fortnite, which again, consumes a lot of your time.

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Re:An ex-YouTube whistleblower on their recommendation engine by freewilly1040 on Sunday February 10, 2019 @03:34PM (#19129840)
Time spent matters for Netflix, sure, but the decision at the end of the month is still also a function of whether the user thought it was time well spent. If I spent all day on Netflix but thought the content was trash I would unsubscribe. YouTube algo doesn’t care if the time on site makes you crazy, and the lack of a conscious decision to sign up for the service tips the scales much, much more for addiction peddling.
[ Parent | on HN ]