You’re giving it way too much of a positive spend. None of the companies are using analytics to increase the desirability for the majority of users.
They are doing it to increase “engagement” and so more people will stay on their site longer.
Why else wouldn’t Netflix show the “continue watching” row first instead of forcing you to scroll past algorithmic generated crap?
It is the same reason that Google went from describing success as people getting off their site faster and going to one of the “ten blue links” to the shit show it is today.
> What's the difference between that which optimized for what you call "engagement" and what the average user wants?
People want joy, education, entertainment, etc. from watching a video.
But there may be other ways of appealing to people (addiction, insecurity, base stimulation) which boost engagement but which do not give users what they want.
Obviously on even slightly longer time scales, users will gravitate toward services that do not trade their health for engagement, but equally obvious is that many of today's apps are not optimizing for long time scales.
(Not OP) I can think of many ways where optimizing for greater watch time is unaligned and often opposite to making me happy and giving me what I want.
In the case of Netflix, what I want might be to watch one show at a time for one or two hours every night. It may even for some people be about watching The Office or Friends, a show they know well and just watch for comfort.
What Netflix wants is for me to start a completely new show (and probably one they produced themselves) every single time I open Netflix, and also to binge watch for six hours every night because I have “so many shows to keep up with.” This may not make me happy. But they suppose maybe it’ll make me more likely to keep my subscription.
The average user wants to watch what they want right now. Netflix wants to surface shows that will keep you subscribed after you watch what you want to watch .
On the flip side, the only reason I don't finish a movie or TV show is because I run out of time. Either it's time for bed, time to go, or I fell asleep. In all 3 cases I'm still interested in the movie; it's why I put it on in the first place!
They are doing it to increase “engagement” and so more people will stay on their site longer.
Why else wouldn’t Netflix show the “continue watching” row first instead of forcing you to scroll past algorithmic generated crap?
It is the same reason that Google went from describing success as people getting off their site faster and going to one of the “ten blue links” to the shit show it is today.