What stuck me most about the article “How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood” were how many comments lamented the fact that despite the prevalence of ultra-specific altgenres, many users are only given the same suggested movies over and over. Because the function of these altgenres is to intimately personalize the film selections for a highly specific viewer, viewers are only given a select amount of options by the algorithm created by Netflix, limiting the immediate scope of their film watching. One user commented, “[This] explains why Netflix has steadily made its search function harder and harder to use. It really does not want to empower end-users, it wants to effectively program content for you… Some must be more profitable than others; hence those are the ones you are spammed with… The missing element is how profitable each and every stream might be.” While I am not sure about the factual accuracy of this comment, it does remind me of a similar site that attempts to create personalized content to enhance revenue: Facebook.
The similarities of Netflix and Facebook lie in the “design of the software system that supports them. How that software functions is the result of decisions made by programmers and leaders within the company behind the website” (Grosser). Netflix is designed to suggest films that you would want to watch based on your previous watch history. This leads to personalized streams and, most likely, increased at revenue for Netflix. Facebook is structured in a similar personalized way, but while many “personalities” can use one Netflix account, Facebook’s interface forces the user to realistically portray themselves online the same way they would as if they are in real life. It requires the use of a real name, location information, schools and jobs held, and what the music and movies one likes. According to Grosser:
This ideological position of singular identity permeates the technological design of Facebook, and is partially enforced by the culture of transparency the site promotes. The more one’s personal details are shared with the world, the harder it is to retrieve or change them without others noticing—and thus being drawn to the contradictions such changes might create. This is further enforced by the larger software ecosystem Facebook exists within, such as search engines, that index, store, and retain those personal details in perpetuity (Blanchette et al., 2002).
The personal details Facebook collects leads to a data-mining trove, and allows Facebook to use this information to target the user with personalized ads, much in the same way Netflix uses previously watched films to recommend movies a viewer will most likely watch. Both of these website’s software are what allow them to be so successful in marketing to specific interests, but also limit the variety of “interests” displayed, thereby regurgitating the same limited types of objects—-be it movies, or ads.