Lying to Netflix about Loving It

Posted under A Geek Dad's Life, Blog Posts, Software Design

I lied to Netflix today.  I have been lying to Netflix for some time now.  The first time I did it, I felt dirty and wrong as if I was betraying my core principles.  While it has gotten easier for me to lie to Netflix, I still feel much more conflict in my soul than the issue deserves.

My infraction: I rated Star Wars Episode I: Clone Wars as "Loved It."

I assure you that I did not love that movie. I found much of that movie unbearable, peppered with collisions between "fantastical visual effects" and "hollow, wooden performances," all girded by weak dialogue.  Being a child of the 70s’-80′s, a part of my childhood died the day that I saw that movie.  Even so, I told Netflix that "I Loved It."

I lied because I love the Science Fiction genre.  Serenity is a surprising and wonderfully-built movie based on a brilliant FireFly, and the new Battlestar Galactica was a brilliant and epic work.  I suppose that being a SciFi fan is a bit like being a stock car racing fan; it’s as much about the crashes as it is about going fast.  Well, Star Wars Episode I was a car crash.  Even so, I told Netflix that "I Loved It."

Why lie?  I feared that, if I told Netflix the truth, they would think that I dislike all science fiction.  I feared that, if I dis’d on such an iconic movie (or a member of such an iconic franchise), I would somehow be banished to the kiddie pool with My Little Pony and Dora.

This illustrates one of the problems with the ‘black box’ systems, systems inside which you have no visibility; I don’t understand how the Netflix Ratings system works so, in the absence of an official explanation from the creators of the system, I will just make something up and call it the truth.  It’s what we humans do.

I ‘know’ that the Netflix rating system (called “Cinematch”) is a complex system involving millions of data points, each one describing the intersection between "the taxonomy of a movie" and the human feeling of "connection to that movie."  Both dimensions of that single data point are hopelessly wishy-washy and difficult to quantify.  I know that the success of the Netflix rating system is predicated upon massive collaborative filter, correlating the individual ratings with elements of taxonomy, weighted by category preferences, and sugared with demographics and profile matching to other people who have similar preferences.  The system is likely so complex that even the makers of the system do not understand why the resulting correlations exist; they just do.  Is this an example of a system whose resulting complexity exceeds the creators understanding?  If Netflix recommends a movie called "42" to me, I’m crawling in a hole and waiting for the apocalypse.

How personal and contextual are Netflix ratings? How many levels of discrimination are in the Netflix rating system?  If I rate "Star Wars Episode I" as a "Didn’t Like It" movie, will that poison the entire Sci Fi pool for me? I’m too chicken to try.  I fear messing with such a powerful and mysterious system.  I fear that the system will not forgive me and that it might cache my mistake forever, even if I change the rating back to "Loved It."  There’s a cautionary phrase in my business;  If it ain’t totally broken, don’t fix it worse.  I am heeding that advice.

Sometimes I wish that I could substitute my own questions about some of the movies on Netflix.  When I am conflicted about a movie that should have been better than it was, I’d like to answer one of these questions instead:

• "How much did you want to like this movie, or the idea of it?"
• "How disappointed were you by this movie?"

The Netflix ratings model is simple, and it seems to work… mostly.  (Except when it considers "CHiP’s" a cop drama.)  I’ll just continue to lie to it occasionally, I’ll continue to feed it $15/month, and it will continue pooping out relevant and entertaining DVDs for us to watch.

For all of the underlying complexity, the Netflix Cinematch rating system really is remarkably accurate and easy to use.  Instructions: Rate each movie by clicking 1-5.  *Duh*  I like simple, and the whole Netflix experience is simple.  You add movies to your list.  You get a red envelope in the mail, you send a red envelope back. Rinse and repeat. 

If you’re not a Netflix member, you really should Try it for FREE!. In the interest of full disclosure, using these links to create your new Netflix account will also send a little ‘commission love’ back to yours truly.