Who is watching this?!

I just assumed the Netflix top 10 were movies/shows they were trying to push, not based on actual veiwership.

That's a bingo. Any "trending" algorithm is designed to get you to click on it. It's not a source of accurate information.
It's the same with search results. You're searching for X? Here's something X-adjacent we've been paid to show you that you might click on while looking for X. We're going to call it "what others buy" and hope you do, too.
- It really bothers me because I want to buy actual good quality stuff but I have no idea how to find it because I don't trust any reviews or anything on search engines at all really.
- Nothing is real.
- You just say Bingo.
I don't get why the streaming services would care what media people watch. Are they pushing stuff that is cheaper to license?
- They want to get recommendations just good enough to keep you hooked. If they show you just the objectively best, you would instantly know after seeing the best ones, that the rest of the catalogue is worse and worse.
  This is how Netflix was in the beginning. I actually unsubscribed for a while for yhis reason. Now I'm as hooked as ever, there might still be a few good ones out there - I just need to keep scrolling for a few hours. /s
- Stuff that is actually there, the vast emptiness of the Netflix catalog is the real horror.
I believe that they have said the top 10 is based on views, but haven't given the windoww for that count or whether the thimbs up/down ratings factor into it. That seems plausible as it is promoted as a popularity indicator and tends to have recent additons and already popular stuff listed.
Now the trending category is most likely the stuff they are trying to promote.
I'd agree with you, but I've seen Morbius up there.
This is what The Algorithms have been doing from the start.
It is only just now coming to light just how manipulative YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram are configured.
It isn’t about increasing Ad views or Viewer engagement; it is all about controlling viewer opinions and belief systems.

Browsing YouTube while logged out is 1,000 times worse.

the absolute blessing of never seeing Mr. Beast's face whenever I am signed in.
- And the sheer amount of weird pseudo-reality-show-shovelware! Good grief, people! If you want made up content that's supposed to look like the real thing, watch porn!
- I didn't even know who he was until recently. I don't even understand why he's popular.
- I don't watch him or any top YouTubers, but many other clickbait thumbnails are far worse and more annoying with their shocked "YouTube face"...
I like how they actually removed suggestions on the home page on the first time you visit logged out. I never click on anything on the home page suggestions and most of the stuff there is garbage, so it's actually refreshing just to see a blank home page.
- This is how I use. At least any rabbit hole is started by me.
It's still garbage, but you're 100% correct about it being 1000x worse logged out, at least it's like that for me.
I started getting a shitload of recommended videos based off an app I played for 5 minutes and deleted.
I never looked it up on youtube or google, and I didn't even search for it in the play store, I just saw it listed as similar to a different game that I did look up.
And after a week of constantly telling them to stop recommending me these videos because I don't like them, I'm still seeing them.
Again, played the app for a few minutes and deleted, have now spent more time telling youtube to stop showing it to me than I spent playing.
This is where I feel like an absolute alien
They don't show any recommendations when you're logged out
- Could you send a screenshot of what you see? I'm curious to see if it's different
- Google does a fair amount of data gathering even if you don't log in. I think it does it through cookies, fingerprinting or browser inspection
  If I use a session long enough it will start to change to my actual taste
- If your tastes are anything except the average population's, you will have little to no interest in the homepage suggestions.

Remember when Netflix had a million dollar competition to improve their recommendation system by something like 10%? Remember when they had user ratings and reviews? Remember when they threw it all in the fucking trash?

The original recommendation engine was amazing. Showed me stuff I loved that I would have never found myself. My favorite example is the French claymation acid trip called "A Town Named Panic"
Now all I get recommended are shows that are cancelled and that I've already watched.
- The goal isn't to give you stuff you want to watch, the goal is to do just enough that is just good enough to keep the highest amount of users subscribed. We like to think those are the same thing and they are usually aligned, but don't have to be. It's better for Netflix if you find those slower and just keep coming back to look around, kind of like some frustrating streaming gatcha game.
- That was a great film, very charming and bizarre
- Think Panique au village was Belgian. Great watch yes.
Pepperidge farm remembers
That was such a glorious time. I recall they even held a competition at one point to develop a recommendation algorithm that could predict whether or not someone would enjoy Napoleon Dynamite

Nothing makes me feel more disconnected from humanity than the YouTube trending tab

I feel that way when I see YouTube shorts. Some of them are big titted girls doing shit which I can understand why those get clicked on but a lot of it I can't even figure out what is supposed to be happening.
- can’t even figure out what is supposed to happening
  big titted girls
  Well there’s your answer
- Hm, the Shorts algorithm should be generally based on your normal recommendations until you start watching them.
  You know, potentially controversial opinion, but I kinda like shorts, since by now the algo has figured out that I like longer documentary-style videos on normal videos, but still get vtuber clips and cute animal videos as shorts.

PSA: The top 10 lists are 100% bought and paid for, or pushed by the streaming service in question.

You know I've worked on these sorts of bullshit features (under protest) as a developer (special sorting algorithms that bump up the score of monetized entries over organic (aka real) ones) and somehow I never stopped to think that everyone was likely doing the same.
Naivety, I guess
- Something like this?
  
  SELECT * FROM content ORDER BY (views + bribe) DESC;
'Top 10 highest Netflix bribes'.
The new payola... payolix?
oh my how scandalous

As if it's not just their selected movies they wanna promote.

That's also how I feel whenever I access youtube from a different browser and just get the default listing.

Even when I go to YouTube on my account I have that feeling sometimes. ¯(ツ)/¯

I'm so disconnected I don't even have Netflix or any other streaming service

What's television? Is it that thing boomers use?
- TV and streaming sucks. Movies suck. I've seen so many of them in the past that there's really nothing new out there that's any good any more because it's all just rehashing and reimagining the past. Same with gaming. Same with books. And music. We're so buried under a ton of entertainment that we can just stop making new entertainment and watch everything done in the past and still have enough to last us our entire lifetime. So what's the point? If we're going to have streaming, give us everything old -- EVERYTHING -- for a very low cost or free with limited ads and stop making new shit for your platform, all on one service.
- It is a very big monitor
  At least, that is how I use it.

Godzilla Minus One was #1 yesterday. I'm glad to finally see some good taste on there.

Oh shit, I know what I'm doing after work today!
- It's good. Don't expect Shin Godzilla good, but it's definitely good. I actually cared about the people in this one.
- Don't bother. They don't have the black and white version.

Godzilla minus one is currently dominating that and I absolutely agree with that choice!

I never trusted that list from the getgo. Why wouldn't they use it to promote certain content? It would be wasted opportunity if they didn't.

Because they already have paying users.
They want engagement, which for Netflix means looking at what seems popular and promoting those.
But most likely not.

Godzilla Minus One instantly hitting 1 restores my faith in humanity... a little.

Pretty damn good. However, going into it blind meant I was surprised by the subtitles. I didn't really want to read subtitles at the time.
- Buddy, it's a Japanese movie made in Japan, by Japanese people, wtf did you expect?

During the pandemic I just sort of forgot about movies and most TV. I hadn't even heard of 90% of the stuff nominated last awards season.

For the most part it doesn't come up, but every so often I end up in a conversation where I feel like an alien.

That's pretty much the rest of the planet whenever US people talk about "world famous" people

My mom was describing some show to me saying I should watch it and I was just thinking "that sounds awful"

I know, same. Then a year later I watch it after the hype has died down, and I'm like "mum, you gotta watch this!"

It keeps trying to get me to watch the new Zack Snyder Star Wars rip-off.

I watched the first one. I'd take a prostate exam by Edward Scissorhands before I waste another two hours of my life on the sequel.

Rebel Moon. Oh yeah, they're so bad. And apparently a third one is on the way, and the extended cuts for all of them.
- "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
  "LOL just grab all that shit off the cutting room floor. Four hours sounds about right for a movie!" -- Zack Snyder
- 2 hours of grain harvest

I don't know if these are based on what everyone on the service is watching, or if it's just because they still use Nielson families as their sole metric. How can the top 10 most popular things be shit I have never even heard of? If they're that popular, I'm pretty sure I'd hear about it somewhere.

There is both no reason to believe its truly accurate and also its true that the content they advertise the most will be watched the most. I wouldn’t take it serious.

The comments here are enlightening. In a dismaying sort of way.

It seems nothing drives a wedge between all people in a community than algorithms like the Netflix Top Ten. Everybody eyeing everyone else with suspicion, when actually no one is actually watching that crap.

It would be pretty stupid if our our movie preferences were basis for hostility.
Yeah sometimes when I am bored out of my mind I used to troll Star Wars subreddits or Harry Potter but like never 100% serious. It was always only about this perverse enjoyment of riling people up and nothing more. I wouldn’t do it on Lemmy but like Reddit i don’t care, it can die.
Come to think about it this is the only way I use Reddit for since some time hm… not that I encourage it but maybe. In my eyes you are still an angel if you troll on Reddit but are cultured pro social on Lemmy.
- You ever watch a quick MauLer video on Star Wars and how great they are?

This is true for most popular things for me. I'm always wondering how this is so popular.

You can find good stuff aound 5+ sometimes.

The Outfit is good. Atlas is shit.

I liked Atlas...
- Behold, I am both of you: I liked it and I thought it was kinda shit 😎
- Opinions are not facts. Feel free to love to your heart's content!
  Personally, I liked the premise, but it just failed to deliver on it. I could go deeper into why but I'm sure some YouTuber is already working on my future opinion.
- Yep. If you like that genre, it was a good pass time.

I wanna take a minute to plug criterion channel. Objectively the value is worse than Netflix. But they have an amazing collection of films nonetheless. I put their 24/7 channel on and just watch whatever is on. Never in a million years thought I would be into classic French cinema.

On a side rant fuck the French and their films! They drop you right into a situation with no clear good or bad guys. The films have meandering plots that go nowhere because why would they!?!? At the end there's no resolution, just an empty chasam in your soul you've somehow overlooked your entire existence. And the worst part is they just put "fin" up on the screen and that's that. Fuckin foreign nonsense

There's all sorts of treasures, may be worth a peek.

The villain in French films is the villain in every film: the French!
Man I miss when they were part of Hulu

Yup... I don't get.

https://www.netflix.com/tudum/top10/united-states
As of today:
Atlas
Colors of Evil: Red
Shrek
Madame Web
A Simple Favor
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Godzilla Minus One
Mother of the Bride
Thelma the Unicorn
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2
- Interestingly enough, I can access this link, but their startpage has no way to get there as far as I can tell. I can relate to the screencapped statement though. The TV shows list is even worse. But maybe Netflix just doesn't have a whole lot of great stuff, dunno.
It’s a top ten list on Netflix.
Movies or TV Shows.
- Thanks, but that was not what I was asking. lmao

When it doesn’t occur to you that the list is made up entirely by Netflix to get that engagement, really making it the “Top Ten Things Netflix Wants You To Watch Right Now, Please” list.