Netflix knows everything about us. And we can't find anything to watch.
Netflix is one of the platforms with the most behavioral data, and we still spend twenty minutes scrolling without deciding anything.
Netflix knows every second we watched. Where we paused, where we quit, what we rewatched, at what time, on which screen, what we abandoned halfway. It’s one of the platforms with the most detailed picture of its customers’ behavior that exists. And its recommendation engine is one of the most studied in the industry.
So why do we still open it, spend twenty minutes scrolling, and leave without watching anything?
I asked that question to 159 people, in conversations over WhatsApp. The answers were remarkably similar, and they all point to the same place.
People leave Netflix to decide what to watch on Netflix
This was the strongest pattern, and the most revealing. Plenty of people described the same ritual: open Netflix, don’t decide, go somewhere else, and sometimes come back.
“First I go into the platform, check the suggestions and new releases, but I end up deciding with ChatGPT or some Google search result.”
“I go looking for online reviews, like IMDb. Something Netflix doesn’t offer.”
“I don’t watch a single film without knowing the critics’ score first.”
Think about what this means. One of the platforms with the most data about what we like can’t get us to hit play without us going to find the opinion of a critic, a friend, or a stranger on TikTok. The data doesn’t close the decision. A conversation with another person closes it.
The data knows what we watched. It doesn’t know who’s on the couch.
One answer explained, on its own, one of the biggest limitations of behavioral data:
“I use Netflix with my boyfriend, so the algorithm gets muddled and gives me the wrong recommendations, more aimed at him than at me.”
The history belongs to a profile. But a profile isn’t a person, it’s sometimes two, three, a whole family on a couch. The data records the clicks, it doesn’t know who’s holding the remote tonight. And no one is going to tell the algorithm “tonight it’s just me” or “tonight it’s the couple.” That would only surface if someone asked. And that’s what happened, I used ReveLumi to ask, and people answered.
“Depends on my mood”
That phrase, or a version of it, came up several times:
“Depends on the day. Some days I pick anything, some days I browse more.”
“Depends a lot on my mood.”
What we want to watch on an exhausted Tuesday after work has nothing to do with what we want on a relaxed Friday. Same person, same history, same data. What changed was the person’s state that night. And a state of mind isn’t in the click history. No amount of behavioral data captures “how you’re feeling today,” because that isn’t a past behavior, it’s a present context. Only a question reaches it.
The cost of not knowing why
The most interesting part is that the failure isn’t only about experience. It becomes a business problem, in the words of the people themselves:
“It was supposed to be a moment to relax and I can’t relax. A lot of the time I end up going to other streamings.”
“I’ve given up on watching before, but the most common thing is to go find something on another streaming service.”
When the recommendation doesn’t understand the person, they don’t keep looking forever. They leave. They go to the competitor or give up on the night. All the data in the world doesn’t prevent this, because what’s missing isn’t more data about their past. It’s understanding what they want now, and why.
What this has to do with your product
Netflix is the extreme case, and that’s why it teaches. If one of the companies with the most behavioral data on the planet still loses the person at the moment of deciding, what makes you think your dashboard answers every question about your product?
Data is a snapshot of what happened. It’s good at that, and we need it. But it doesn’t tell us why it happened, nor what the person felt, nor what they want now. That piece, the most important one for deciding, lives in a single place, in the conversation.
Data tells us what happened. Customers tell us why. Netflix has data to spare, and we still leave to ask a friend what to watch. Maybe it’s time to ask your customers what your data doesn’t tell you.
Want to feel it firsthand? Try being interviewed by ReveLumi about how you choose what to watch on Netflix.
Book a demo session with the founders
If you’d like to learn more about ReveLumi, book a demo session with Anderson and me. We’ll show you what ReveLumi does today, what we’re planning for it in the future, and answer any questions you have.