Comment by lucasoshiro
7 months ago
This is something I always wonder... Something that I really miss from TV on internet content (YouTube, movie streamings and so on) is turn it on and watching what's being transmitted without thinking about what I wanna see.
Three reasons:
1. Picking something to watch takes time. Sometimes I only want to see something in the 15 minutes that I'm dining alone. My meal gets cold before I start the video
2. Choosing something to watch is stressful. If I'm tired and I don't know what I want to see makes me more tired and frustrated. These are the times that I don't want the freedom to watch I want because they are the times that I don't want to think about what I want
3. The random factor of watching something that I would never watch by myself it's something that makes me go outside my bubble. I can't say how many good movies (or songs, etc) I found by that randomness
I'm not against the freedom of streaming services but there are moments that I just don't want that freedom. So, thank you!
How strange, I’m the complete opposite. I’d never go back to letting corporates dictate how I engage with content; I even avoid recommender algorithms for the same reason. Being able to choose is so valuable to me.
I think there's merit in both. One thing that is lost from choosing what you want to watch is that you don't get surprised anymore unless you want to be surprised, whereas with traditional TV you'd encounter things you didn't expect, or come across a movie you never heard of before. I think there's space for both.
Or to make another analogy, if you go out and sit at a bench, who knows what will pass by?
I’m both, at times I don’t want to choose, at times I want full control. I didn’t have TV for years (was pushing a decade), but ~2months ago I got myself an analog antenna that has local channels and it’s been a blast: I caught some olympic games, watched Euro cup, couple of movies (I caught “Decision to leave” from my watchlist——tremendous movie), I saw some Anthony Bourdain shows and now I know who the guy is and i enjoyed the show, saw a documentary on war in my country, watched some live streams of city council meetings… Also, I wanted to say this somewhere in this thread I’m not trying to sell tv to you, you caught a stray bullet, but also I’m sharing that I watched it with a different curiosity after so long of not having it, and did have a great time just with those 17 channels of uncurated content, which was the main motivation——to have uncurated content
Exactly. I go out of my way to try to make sure that the content is consume is "pulled" and not "pushed" as much as possible. I'm happy to take genuine recommendations from actual people, but I don't care what companies want me to see or listen to, and I resent it when they limit my options to try to force my hand.
> Being able to choose is so valuable to me.
I agree, but sometimes I just don't want to choose because I don't have enough time or I'm to tired to do it
>I’d never go back to letting corporates dictate how I engage with content
You do realize that the search function is literally that?
The entire way those platforms work is literally that. Ironically TV didn't dictate how to engage with content because there was not much. Compared to comment sections algorithmically boosting trolls to make you compulsively comment
WHY is there not an "I'm feeling lucky" button for streaming services. Akin to "give me anything," though, I suspect the answer is the more time spent scrolling, the less data has to be streamed over the wire, so it's cheaper.
Netflix had a shuffle button. It wasn’t popular so they dropped it. It didn’t feel the same as this at all.
More likely it is the inverse: Selecting a random video at scale is the costly problem.
You can certainly fake it as a workaround. For example, you'll notice that "I'm feeling lucky" on Google simply follows the first search result. Streaming services could take what is already computed as the first result on the "Home" page and use that, for example.
But at that point why not just click on the first video? Unlike Google, which doesn't give you much until you enter a search query, all of the streaming services I know of have already given you your "lucky" matches by the time a "I'm feeling lucky button" could be presented. Two buttons side-by-side that do the exact same thing doesn't offer much.
> More likely it is the inverse: Selecting a random video at scale is the costly problem.
if that feature existed it would never be a random video from all the available videos. It'd be a random-seeming video from a carefully curated selection of videos that youtube wants to push at certain users, and in some cases were paid to promote. Users wouldn't know and wouldn't care anyway because they pushed a button and got content without thinking.
Users probably don’t want a random video, they want a video which is from the smaller subset of videos they were already likely to enjoy.
The reason that might be preferable to just clicking the first result is that the second actually involves a choice since you’ve seen the second item.
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That all makes sense and I never really considered the selection of the video being the costly problem at scale. Thanks!
The only response I have is that purposefully-clicking the 'random' button has a psychological effect over clicking the first video returned which (gut check) makes me think it will be more easily tolerated if it ends up being "off-beat" since I didn't explicitly click the first selection (thus choosing it).
> the more time spent scrolling, the less data has to be streamed over the wire, so it's cheaper.
Google doesn't make money by avoiding sending streaming data; they make money by showing ads, which (mostly) aren't shown while you're scrolling.
The solution to a lot of those is to just have a goto show that you watch. Before netflix removed The Office, that is what I always did when wanting something to watch while eating a snack on the couch or to have noise on in the background. I'd just fire up netflix and resume whatever episode it was last one.
We ditched cable forever ago, but I do find that I miss just watching 15 minutes of some random show like I used to. I usually forget about it until I'm at someone's house or a doctors office and catch a snippet of some random car show or cooking show.
> The solution to a lot of those is to just have a goto show that you watch.
Cool! I have a list of movies to watch that I write from several recommendations sources, so I can try focus in watching instead of choosing. I can't say the same about music, I'm stuck for years hearing almost the same bands, which is kinda sad...
> I usually forget about it until I'm at someone's house or a doctors office and catch a snippet of some random car show or cooking show.
Another good point, watching something that I don't need to pay too much attention because I don't care about the subject, but can entertain me while I do other things... Here in Brazil that kind of shows that "we watch, we like but we don't know why" is a recurring joke, and we have three main ones: one about farming (Globo Rural), one about fishing (Pesca Alternativa) and one about trucks (Siga Bem Caminhoneiro)
> I can't say the same about music, I'm stuck for years hearing almost the same bands, which is kinda sad...
I like SiriusXM for this. I'm often finding new channels to listen to, and once I pick a channel I don't have to pick out songs.
Apple Music has some features that can work similarly, such as radio stations (though a lot of theirs are really more like podcasts) or they have lots of playlists of recommended hits from different genres and you can shuffle them.
>Here in Brazil that kind of shows that "we watch, we like but we don't know why" is a recurring joke, and we have three main ones: one about farming (Globo Rural), one about fishing (Pesca Alternativa) and one about trucks (Siga Bem Caminhoneiro)
Are those public access type shows that are meant to be somewhat educational?
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What I am really missing is a "Play random episode" or "Randomize episodes" button on TV shows. I want to just flip on Seinfeld or Family Guy and watch random episodes, not in order. Such a missed opportunity for Netflix, etc.
Jellyfin has this. Very nice feature for comedy shows.
Part of that is because of the trend from the past few years (ever since Lost I believe but there's probably previous like soap operas) that TV shows are continuous. But even the 90's TV shows would have some continuity, referencing previous events. That said, I've been rewatching Star Trek DS9 (and may do so with Stargate as well) and the main overarching plot beats often happen at the start and end of a season, the episodes in between can often be randomised.
I hadn't watched actual television for years. Then, in a visit to my parents house, I randomly got to watch a band in a talkshow that later became a band that I love.
> Sometimes I only want to see something in the 15 minutes that I'm dining alone.
I think the YouTube recommendation algorithm you get from opening the app or viewing the front page is good for this. They have a lot of random content and when the algorithm gets to know you, it will suggest things of interest that can be consumed this way.
I have so many subscriptions on youtube that the home recommendation is actually a quicker way to find something interesting if I have limited time, since the subscriptions are full of shorts and 'reruns' now where creators try to monetize old videos in new ways.
The only issue is that my youtube is the one on the main tv, so sometimes the suggestions get messed up when my kids watch. Youtube probably has a really confusing set of conflicting beliefs about who I am.
My kids mostly watch on tablets which are their own. On the TV, they have separate profiles on all the streaming apps. We don't do YouTube much on TV but when we do, I've always been sure to give them a different device that is not logged into my account.
If I lend them a device to watch YouTube I usually do it in the browser in incognito.
YT is the best choice for something random for a small amount of time, but is absolutely maimed at the free-tier by 2 leading ads requiring 1+ user interactions to skip.
I can't easily press 'skip' with a plate of pasta in one hand and a fork in another, and I don't want to watch two 2:30 leading ads, so I guess I'll just go somewhere else.
My youtube recommendations on my laptop are just short videos(all are below 3 mins with a few exceptions ;-;) I get so much better recommendations by using youtube tv but it sucks that they don't let us switch preferences. But well results in me spending less time on youtube so a win heh
I miss channel surfing (a little). But from when the cable box was a dumb pipe and the picture would switch near instantaneously. The 3 seconds between channels in the last couple of decades was super obnoxious to me.
Yeah, digital TV feels like a step back in that regard, but on the other hand it makes you reconsider switching / browsing channels. And of course the advantage is higher image quality and more channels.
Why can't you pick randomly from your home page and let auto play do its thing?
This works pretty well for YT when it knows your preferences, but for streaming TV services like Netflix I find it's a box of chocolates full of shit. It's just going to be whatever is being "promoted" at the time and has the most widespread appeal, not something interesting.
I wish my YouTube recommendations were anywhere good enough to do this.
Agreed, my recommendations are extremely narrow. Usually videos from the same three content creators, and ones that I've already seen or in there chronological queue that I already plan to watch.
The recommendation algorithms suggests things that are related to what I watched before. And I still need to choose one of the options that it recommends.
They recently introduced an anonymous mode
Yeah, for me loading the homepage and clicking the top-left video is almost an automatic reflex at this point.
Why are you stressed about what to select, when it is guaranteed that any selection you make will be better than something a network would select for you to watch? Just pick anything.
Cause the energy spent paying attention to the show is non-zero, and ideally I get _some_ enrichment out of what I watch.
Get Plex. There's a ton of free live streaming channels for a ton of tastes and genres. Some of them I think to myself "This should have been a steaming channel years ago".
Why do you need Plex for that?
Sitcoms solve this. Just watch your favourite one again.
For Seinfeld fans, there's one site streaming it 24/7: WatchSeinfeld.net.