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Netflix Drops 'Surprise Me' Shuffle-Play Button (marketwatch.com) 48

Posted by BeauHD from the I'm-feeling-lucky dept.
Netflix has removed its "Surprise Me" button, a feature introduced in 2021 to alleviate the modern burden of choosing something to watch from thousands of titles. MarketWatch reports: The company discontinued the feature last month because of relatively low use, according to a spokeswoman. Netflix found that users tend to come to the service with a specific show, movie or genre in mind, undermining the appeal of a function such as "Surprise Me," the spokeswoman said. "We will continue to explore other ways to give members more options and ways to explore and discover content they want to watch," she said in a statement.
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Netflix Drops 'Surprise Me' Shuffle-Play Button More

Netflix Drops 'Surprise Me' Shuffle-Play Button

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  • Don't remember seeing a Surprise Me button ??????
    • I recall seeing the choice but never thought to try it. Why would anyone want to be surprised by random Netflix crap?
      • Snobbery aside, the feature made no sense. Streaming video simply isn't a medium where you want a "shuffle" feature. People want to watch content that suits their mood, situation and time available. If you have a couple hours free and nothing better to do, you probably want a movie. If you need some background noise while doing something else, you probably want episodes of something that doesn't require much attention.

        If you use the feature and end up with a movie, that's a commitment of at best 15+ minut
        • Channel surfing did used to be a thing though.
        • ...well I hope they weren't dumb enough to just randomly play season 3, episode 6 of some show I've never seen before.

          That's not a problem as long as the episodes are all self-contained. Most sitcoms and a fair number of dramas are like that instead of telling a story that can take a whole season to complete. Lots of cop shows are really just "crime of the week" and can be watched in any order, as an example.

      • While working I like having some background noise. Shuffle is perfect for this but Netflix wants people engaged with content.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      My recollection is that it was "in the way". I only noticed it because I had to choose something else to get to my home page, which already hides what I usually want ("continue watching ...") below a promotion for something else.

      Netflix is a good example of a bunch of dark patterns.

      • Here's the usability nightmare that Netflix has become.

        Log in during the week and you have "trending" (i.e. shows Netflix wants you to watch) then right below it you have your "continue watching" list.

        Log in Friday night and you have "trending" followed by "New" followed by several genres that aren't really genres but generic labels like "Funny" or "Frightening" or "Dark" or "Scary", and you'll scroll for page after page after page to find that "continue watching" list.

        Saturday is even worse.

        Sunday "continu

        • Speaking of false genres, is it even possible to go into Netflix and find real categories anymore? Like, "Horror" or "Comedy" or "Drama" or something that's semi-well-defined through generations of use in all forms of media since forever?

          I just pressed the "Categories" button in the app and "Horror", "Comedy", and "Drama" are all available options.

          And while it's possible that some machine learning algorithm is doing something weird specifically to your homepage, I can't recall "Continue Watching" being anything but the second thing listed (I do agree it should always be first, though).

          • Somehow I have yet to stumble across the "categories" button. As for "Continue Watching?" It's never first in line. At best it's second, you scroll down, Netflix gives a beat of about two seconds, then auto-pops you back to Trending and you get to start over hunting for it. Maybe it's the AppleTV app specifically? Dunno.

        • The worst thing about Netflix is they're using shitty retail techniques to try to trick you into watching things you weren't planning to watch. Not only do they constantly shuffle your fucking watch list now, but they also frequently change the cover images so that you now have to actually pay attention to what you're looking at every single time.

          • Noticed that little switcheroo too. Some shows we watch have something like twelve different thumbnail pics they rotate through. It's very annoying. Somewhere along the way we let the marketers take over UI design for damned near everything, and it's starting to wear a bit thin for those of us that have to deal with this same shit all day long in our own jobs as coders. Marketing and sales should not be involved in interface improvements aside from as advisors. If they get final say? You end up with unusabl

    • I would have used the button more to discover shows but the problem was that it would, inevitably, select several shows that I didn't want to watch and then all of those shows would show up in my history and inform future recommendations.

    • Don't remember seeing a Surprise Me button ??????

      If it ever appeared for you or me it was a surprise.

  • I just want a big alphabetical list (Score:3)

    by clambake ( 37702 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @06:51AM (#63294829) Homepage

    of everything in just one huge table full of links, so I can go one by one, skipping each.

  • They won't steer you toward high cost media. It will be toward something they don't have to pay much for or something they get all the money for.

  • The "surprise me" button was supposed to solve the problem of choice paralysis and users spending more time choosing what to watch than actually watching things, but this was the wrong solution from the start.

    What we really need is:
    1. A way to permanently hide selected titles from our account with a click of a button from the interface. Currently, this is only possible by self imposing parental controls but it requires logging in to your account in a browser and adding titles manually. Even then, some title

    • The parental filter is worse than you think. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rykin ( 836525 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @08:56AM (#63295055)
      As a parent, there are some shows I want to block because I find them insipid, but my children are attracted to the bright characters and will ask for the show if they see it in the selection. The problem with the Netflix filter is that it only blocks one specific show and not any keywords. Sometimes we'll block a show, then a new season of that show is released, but Netflix adds a subtitle to the original name, so it's treated as a new show and it bypasses the previous filter. There are a lot of shows with about 5+ seasons or holiday themes that are all listed as a new shows, so every time a new one is released, I have to go back into the settings and block something else. Currently, the kids don't watch any TV without me present, so I can filter the content as needed, but it's annoying to still see content that I'm actively trying to block.

      • Yep. I've got the same problem with the self-imposed parental controls. What's even worse, is that even though you can block titles, they will still show up on certain home screen rows because of Netfix promoting tactics. Rows like "Trending" or "Most watched" or "Freshly released" seem to still show everything, regardless of your blacklist. Only when you try to play it, it says "The owner of this account restricted this title. Go away." but a flash tile is enough to annoy you or gain your children's intere

    • I think you've hit the nail on the head - an efficient algorithm would tailor my viewing suggestions based on content I've already watched (which music streaming platforms seem to do really well). Netflix however seem to fling any old rubbish at me - why would I, a middle-aged man, want to watch crappy teen dramas or badly dubbed Asian fitness contests? It also drives me mad that they don't display an IMDB rating for anything! How many times have you seen an interesting trailer and find out it's a 5.2 on IM

  • Netflix follows the modern UI paradigm where they try to "engage" the user, and measures "engagement" in how long time the user spends using their interface. The button was a stupid attempt to fix the problems the UI give.

    Personally I hate the "infinite" left-right scrolling categories. I want to select a category, and then EVERYTHING should be that category with scroll down until I can clearly see that that category is now fully exhausted. It should be possible to SEARCH within the selected category.

    When I

  • All I want from Netflix is for them to add the speed controls on all of their platforms. It's only available on their Web version, and with the extremely slow pace of most modern shows, it's much nicer to watch them sped up so they waste a little bit less time of your day. I can't fathom why after all these years this feature is still only limited to Web; YouTube has it available everywhere, by contrast.

  • Every time I tried the "surprise me" it just showed me shows I already saw on my normal netflix feed, which I didn't want to watch. It was a stupid feature. Good riddance.

  • Imagine being so short of energy that you cannot even summon the strength to choose something to watch. Implying that you won't watch it anyway, it will simply be background noise as you scroll on your phone - directors must love that!

  • They dropped it some months ago already.

    It was a useful feature because it was a lot less effort to check previews than sifting through mounds and mounds of the same old shit again and again and starting back at square one after each rejection. Found a few decent ones that way that I was not able to find through the usual manure-diving.

  • Like everyone else, I canceled my subscription over all that noise regarding the password sharing stuff that will be extremely annoying for everyone. I don't need that in my life, and frankly, I need to get up from the recliner and walk more.

  • Not the button, that sucked; but the headline should read: "To No One's Surprise, Netflix Drops 'Surprise Me' Shuffle-Play Button."
  • So does that headline tell you that Netflix has deprecated "Surprise Me" or just released it? Yes, it's clear in the article, but headline reads both ways. "Drops" being redefined to mean "releases" is one of my peeves. Language should strive for clarity, and we seem to going backwards. Now get off my lawn.

  • "We will continue to explore other ways to give members more options..."

    Here's my suggestions:
    1) Finally provide some content for consumers that have a higher IQ than your average trailer park resident.

    2) Finally get a clue that horror/zombie//vampire/"reality" ghosthunting is not and never was Sci-Fi, and to stop categorizing it as such.

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