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Netflix is notoriously cagey with how much information it releases about the watching habits of its users.

Some measurement metrics can be used to figure out what the most popular show on the streaming service is for a given month, but the company keeps other details under lock and key.

What I would really, really love to have a look at is how much time the roughly 193 million users spend not watching anything, but rather aimlessly scrolling away, adding things to the watch list that they’ll never actually tick off.

We all do it, so no judgement, but Netflix is now testing out a ‘Shuffle’ button that could help with making the tricky decisions.

Here’s The Verge:

The company tells us it’s actually been running this test since July.

The company is already testing a few potential ways the feature might look, including the “Play Something” variant…

But it sounds like it’s not just an experiment: “The hope is to absolutely productize something,” a spokesperson told Variety. The company tells us it’s only available so far on “TV devices.”

…“We run these tests in different countries and for different periods of time – and only make them broadly available if people find them useful,” a Netflix rep tells us.

This was shared on Twitter two days ago:

Interesting new feature @netflix … but what kind of insane person just says, “yolo, let’s spin the Netflix wheel of fortune” pic.twitter.com/6WDJrmd7pG

— Turner Levison (@TurnerLevison) August 18, 2020

You really are throwing caution to the wind if you hand the decision over to Netflix, which at one point, was considering a goat noise where the now-famous ‘ta dum’ intro noise is.

Also, please don’t use ‘yolo’, Turner.

In addition, Julia Alexander took this image of her home screen with the option in place:

Julia does point out that what Netflix selects isn’t completely at random, which is comforting:

When Julia gave the “Play Something” button a spin, it fired up an episode of Netflix’s Umbrella Academy with the explanation “because you watched Spider-Man.”

(Both are about comic book superheroes and — depending on which Spider-Man we’re talking about, Julia? — fairly well received, so I guess that makes perfect sense.)

I wonder if Netflix factors in whether or not you completed watching a show or movie before making a recommendation based on that?

One hopes so, because you shouldn’t be punished going forward for a lapse of judgement that you quickly rectified.

You watch five minutes of Love Is Blind, for example…

[source:verge]