Your Netflix is Special
When you go to netflix.com or pull up the netflix app on your phone, you're not looking
at the same Netflix as everyone else.
You're looking at a special version of Netflix, just for you.
Almost everyone watching this will already know that Netflix customizes what shows and
movies it displays based on your viewing habits.
Netflix has said that they know if they don't get most people watching something within
90 seconds, they'll loose interest and move on to something else.
So when you look at this page you're looking at a complex system of multiple AI's working
together to help you find something you want to watch as quickly as possible.If you're
like me you might have noticed recently that there are multiple versions of the artwork
for a lot of show and movies.
I found this interesting, but didn't think much of it, thinking that possibly they just
rotated through various images to make the library of available shows and movies looking
fresh and interesting.
The Netflix streaming homepage used to look something like this.
Artwork for videos was adapted from or very similar too the poster or dvd cover artwork.
But what's designed to grab your attention on a large poster or dvd case, isn't usually
the best for a small thumbnail on a website, Netflix realized this has been making custom
artwork for shows and movies for a couple years now.
But it's not enough to just customize things for the site.
In December 2017 Netflix released an article detailing the way they use machine learning
to personalize the images displayed for each user.
The idea is simple, show users the image that will show them what aspect of a piece of media
they'll be most interested in.
Here's one of the examples they use, do you watch a lot of Uma Thurman movies?
Then you'll probably get this artwork for Pulp Fiction.
Never watch anything with Uma in it, but have watch everything with John Travolta that netflix
has to offer?
You'll probably get this version of the artwork.
It can also be customized based on genre.
Prefer romance movies?
You'll probably get this artwork for Goodwill Hunting.
More into comedies than romance?
You'll probably get this artwork instead.
There are a lot of different versions of each image, and you might see certain ones depending
on what country you're from, if you're using netflix on your phone, computer or TV,
generally the type of design ascetics that you like, and many other factors.
In practice its not as simple as just showing the image that's most likely to get you
to click.
There are a lot of things that complicate the selection process.
To predict what you'll prefer Netflix is tracking everything you do one the site, what
you click on, what you watch, how long you watch it, and the key thing they're looking
for is called a "quality engagement".
Netflix wants to you to find something you actually want to watch, so if you click on
something, and then stop watching it, that defeats the purpose.
Because of this, they try to avoid clickbait images that misrepresent the piece of media.
Netflix also has to take into consideration the look of the page as a whole.
A certain image might stand out just because it's different from the rest of the artwork
on the page.
For example, images with a large emotional face generally get the most clicks, but if
all the artwork is of a large emotional face an image might stand out and get a click just
because it's unique.
You can learn a lot about what netflix thinks you like by looking at your home page.
Glancing over mine and my wife's it's clear we like to watch a lot of crime dramas,
documentaries and historical fiction.
Look at on of my brother's home page and you'll see a lot of action adventure, animation,
and fantasy content.Each of these have a unique look and feel and it's not just the images
that netflix is customizing.
Each row is selected and arranged algorithms, and the contents of each row are chosen to
help you find content that you're interested in watching.
Even the number or rows shown is personalized based on your viewing habits.
Netflix is trying to balance showing you new things, and changing the layout so that it's
fresh, with staying consistent enough that you can find something you saw before.
Change a show's artwork, and you might re-consider watching it, change it too often and you might
have trouble finding it the next time you're looking for it.
They're trying to show people videos like the stuff they already watch, but they also
know that everyone wants to branch out and try something new at some point.
There are thousands of variables, and infinite combinations, but the result is a unique page
for each user.
An interesting rule of thumb is that the stuff found in the top left corner of the page is
what Neflix thinks you're most likely to watch, and the stuff found in the bottom right
corner, is what netflix thinks you're least likely to watch.
And this personalization is everywhere.
Search results are personalized.
Think what shows up in your trending now row is the same as everyone else?
Nope, those are trending items chosen just for you.
These three screenshots were taken from different profiles on the same day at the same time.
They even show you the "continue watching" row based on whether or not they think you're
in the middle of binging something, or if you're in the mood for something new.
I wanted to conduct an experiment to see how easily you could influence this system.
I started up a fresh profile, and decided to only click on artwork that didn't have
people or faces.
This proved to be difficult as almost all the artwork initially contained a person.
But if I kept choosing only images without people, would that change?
This kind of personalization in services is an interesting phenomenon.
It's easy to imagine a future where almost every element of a service is personalized
for you, right down to the interface design, or the copy used to describe something.
And this might be great thing.
For the most part we all love it when something we use fits how we use it.
But it's also easy to imagine a future where this could go wrong.
If Netflix bases their personalization on certain assumptions, like "if you spend
more time watching netflix, you're less likely to cancel your subscription."
There could be some unintended results.
What if the personalization get so good that you start watching too much netflix, and in
an effort to be more productive you cancel your subscription to remove the temptation?
You can see things like this happening already with Facebook.
Facebook has gotten very good at showing you things, and giving you the notifications that
keep you coming back to Facebook.
But the more time people spend on Facebook, the more many people realize they don't
want to be spending a lot of time on Facebook.
And often it's easier to just leave altogether than it is to try to cut back.
Hopefully companies and personalization AI's will realize this, and they'll start to
customize things so that you watch enough, but not too much.
Even if they're motivated purely by profit, hopefully Netflix will realize that the best
netflix user isn't one who watch Netflix for 6 hours a day, but one that has a healthy
active lifestyle.
Because not watching netflix so much could ad years to your lifespan effectively allowing
you to subscribe to netflix for longer.
Back to my experiment, you can see that after just a few days Netflix began showing me many
more images without people or faces.
The algorithm responded quickly to my fake preferences, even going against what works
for the majority.
It's good for us to be aware of how things are being personalized and customized for
us.
It's fairly innocent when it's just Netflix helping you find a show you'll like.
But what happens when our news is personalized for what we like, or our search results.
I can already imagine a Black Mirror episode where Wikipedia is personalized to contain
the facts that you find interesting.
Don't get me wrong, I love what Netflix is doing.
It's why there app feel light years ahead of most of the other stream video apps out
there.
But we can't be naive to what's going on behind the scenes and how it might effects
us.
I'd like to thank my patreon supporters for helping make this channel possible.
I've recently started up a patreon exclusive podcast where I talk about upcoming videos,
review movies and TV I've been watching and answer questions.
Head over to patreon.com/thomasflight to hear it for yourself, or to explore the other patreon
rewards I have available.
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