Netflix Drops Stars for Like Rating System
Choosing between two options is much easier than choosing between five. This is why Netflix is about to ditch the five-star rating system that has been used since the beginning.
You can no longer think that the movie is just “normal” and give it three stars before you forget whether you watched it in the first place. Instead, you must love or dislike the movie. Why change? According to Todd Yellin, Netflix’s vice president of product innovation, talking to Variety is just the way to the future. Yellin puts it this way:
Five Stars now seems like a very yesterday, [this old system] is really projecting what you think you want to tell the world. But we want to move on to a system where members are really clear about what this is for them, and continue to make the Netflix experience better and better.
That’s all to say, Netflix believes we rate films based on what we think the world wants us to like. So we give Oscar-nominated foreign documentaries five stars, even if we fall asleep halfway through, because that’s what the critics tell us to do. Likewise, people tend to rate films they shouldn’t like, like some random Adam Sandler movie, three stars or less, even if they watch it a few times.
The rating system will be introduced along with a new percentage match feature that shows how well a movie matches your previous ratings. This means that a close match will show something in the 90 percent range, and what you probably don’t like will range in the 50 or 60 percent range.
Perhaps we cannot be trusted with five options. Or maybe we’re so scared of being judged for our opinions, submitting fake opinions to Netflix rating robots, because we just need someone’s approval. Whatever the reason, there will be “Like” and “Dislike” ratings on Netflix in the coming months.
Netflix Changes Ratings To Likes And Dislikes | Diversity