Netflix Could Be Dropping Its 5-Star Rating System

Ever come across a movie you’ve enjoyed immensely on Netflix that for some reason got a 1-star rating? Is that a fair rating? We suppose all reviews are subjective, especially when it comes to “arts” like movies and music, but according to a report from Business Insider, Netflix could be considering dropping the 5-star rating system.

Speaking to Business Insider in an interview, Netflix’s CPO Neil Hunt suggested that the problem with such a system is that people tend to rate movies based on its quality, versus the amount of enjoyment that they’ve gotten from it. For example Adam Sandler’s Netflix movie “The Ridiculous Six” is clocking many hours, but yet it has been rated very poorly.

Admittedly (having seen it myself) it’s not exactly the “best” movie, but it is funny and enjoyable. According to Hunt, when you rate an enjoyable movie as being a poor quality movie, it makes the system think that you hated the movie which in turn kind of messes up the data and algorithms in terms of recommending shows that it thinks you might like.

That being said, there are no immediate plans to scrap the current rating system. However Hunt did state that they are exploring alternatives, like maybe a simple “like/dislike” combination, or maybe a “percent match”, but what do you guys think? Should the 5-star system be ditched?

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