News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Netflix never used its $1M algorithm (2012). Parent comment

Re:Netflix never used its $1M algorithm (2012) by mumblemumble on Thursday January 11, 2024 @12:25AM (#38948099)
I rent individual movies for $3-4 apiece, and that turns out to be a big win over Netflix because I typically only watch 1-2 movies per month, and the rental service has a bigger library.

But I think that I'm a very unusual consumer in that respect. If I liked to watch TV series more then I'd be bingeing those, and that's where I think Netflix really attracts consumers, not movies. I don't think there's an economical way to do a la carte viewing of TV series on a regular basis.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Netflix never used its $1M algorithm (2012) by ghaff on Thursday January 11, 2024 @07:30AM (#38951343)
Someone I know who was a fairly early-on high level technical person at Netflix (and later AWS) once told me that people came to Netflix initially for the movies and stayed for the TV shows.

And, yes, on an hourly basis they're probably comparable but renting a film now and then feels reasonable to me whereas paying per TV episode feels expensive.

[ Parent | on HN ]