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Netflix ditches star ratings

Subscribers will now rate shows with a simple Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down.

Netflix has decided to dispense with its star ratings system in favour of a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down system.

“A thumbs-up tells Netflix that you like something and want to see similar suggestions. A thumbs-down lets us know you aren’t interested in watching that title and we should stop suggesting it to you. You can still search for it, but we’ve heard what you were trying to tell us — you aren’t a fan — and it will no longer show up on your homepage,” it said in a statement.

“In either case, using thumbs helps us learn even more about your unique tastes so we can do a better job suggesting stories we think you’ll love.

“The star rating you see next to each title is being replaced with a personalised % Match score. This score is a prediction of what Netflix thinks you may enjoy watching, based on your own unique tastes. The % Match is based solely on our algorithms analysing your individual viewing habits and behaviour — it is not a measure of overall popularity across the service.”

13 Responses

  1. I rated the movie Piranha DD a thumbs up, but I don’t appear to have many suggestions for similar movies….not sure why

  2. That’s crap. How can you “learn even more about unique tastes” by changing from a 5 option answer to just 2? There is immense value in seeing a suggestion that is 5 stars versus 3 stars, just the same as rating something as 1 star vs. 2.

    I love sci-fi movies, but Jupiter Ascending and Skyline were terrible. If I gave them a thumbs down, I don’t want to risk see less sci-fi.

  3. Netflix can be a bit too clever sometimes, their system of providing viewing suggestions is okay up to a point but the process of actually finding alternative shows can become confusing. The ratings stars is also a distraction but I’m not sure the thumbs up or down idea is going to prove to be any better as most viewers are reasonably intuitive about what they watch. Better idea would be to have a full list of movies and shows separated by their release date and year of production which doesn’t require wearing out the TV remote. A brief review of the show could be made available by the click of the remote.

  4. I think I understand why they’ve simplified it but I don’t like binary choices for rating something that obviously has shades of grey. Especially now that we know that there are 50 shades.

  5. If you read some of the reviews that come with the star ratings, you would understand! Some shows get 2 stars because “I couldn’t understand what they were saying”…….. OI.

  6. I guess we’ll have to wait and see but I feel the thumbs method is too Black and White.
    Ratings for me fall into Bad, OK, Good and Great. The thumb can’t reflect levels of like or dislike.
    Hey.. the music on that video gets a Thumbs Down!!

  7. It’s to get people to rate things. A simple thumbs up or thumbs down is much more likely to be used than a star system. More ratings mean better matches for other things you may like.

  8. Brilliant, so annoying when you have to scroll through so many useless suggestions. Wish they’d come up with a way to stop it suggesting shows you’ve already seen and also a way to personalise the order of the categories eg to put My List on top instead of having to try to find it.

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