We may rate something else lower, but spend hours binging on the show. We might rate something highly, but not watch the video all the way through. It turns out that a self-reported star rating system is an imperfect guide to how we actually watch videos. With streaming, Netflix has detailed data on exactly how each of us watches video. Rate enough movies, and Netflix could recommend a movie that we had never heard of - but that we had a good chance of loving.Īs Vanderbilt recounts, Netflix’s move from a DVD-by-mail company to mostly a streaming video company has changed how the service now recommends movies. The more movies we rated, the better the Netflix recommendation engine would get. We would rate each movie and tv show that we rented from Netflix on a scale (in stars) of one-to-five. If you were like me, (and like Tom Vanderbilt), at one time in your life you were an obsessive DVD movie rater. Liking, as Vanderbilt points out, is learning - and what we learn to like depends on the context in which we make our choices.įrom of the most interesting chapters in You May Also Like concerns the Netflix rating system.
In You May Also Like, Vanderbilt illuminates our own tastes by traversing the boundaries between cognitive science and culture. Vanderbilt is the author of one of my favorite books of popular nonfiction - his 2009 Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us). You May Also Like: Taste in an Age of Endless Choice by Tom Vanderbilt.Ĭan our preferences be decoded? Given enough data, can what we will choose be predicted? How much are tastes even our own, rather than the product of marketing, manipulation, and persuasion?
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