Netflix originals receiving bad user reviews when it cut feature

Netflix’s controversial series “13 Reasons
Why.”
Netflix

• Netflix ended its user reviews feature earlier this
  summer, citing “declining using over time.” 
• But according to data compiled by
  Cordcutting.com, Netflix originals had also seen a steady
  year-over-year decline in user-rating scores, well before the
  company decided to bring its user reviews to an
  end. 

Netflix announced in July that it would phase out its user
reviews feature by mid August, and the company’s stated
reasoning, as
reported by CNET, was that the feature had seen “declining
usage over time.”  

But there could be another reason as well: Users were giving
Netflix original shows and films increasingly bad reviews.

According to data compiled by Cordcutting.com (before
Netflix wiped out its user reviews data in August), Netflix
original series and films had also seen a steady year-over-year
decline in user-rating scores, well before the company decided to
bring its user reviews to an end. 

While the number of new Netflix originals increased exponentially
over time, the average user ratings of Netflix originals dropped
a full point, or 24 percent, on its five-star scale between 2012
and 2018, the site found.

(Note: The data on originals goes back to 2011 because
several series now branded as “originals” were produced earlier
than its splashy “House of Cards” original programming debut in
2013, such as “Borgia” in 2011 and “Lilyhammer” in
2012.)

Cordcutting.com; Netflix

The data supports a conjecture that Variety reported in July
regarding “negative” user reviews, when describing the following
“likely” reasoning for Netflix’s decision to end the feature:

“[User reviews] probably have not, on balance, driven
people to watch more content on the service. Negative reviews, it
would seem, aren’t good for business — especially as Netflix
increases its spending on original programming.”

Netflix has said it will have
more than 1,000 original series and films on its platform by
the end of 2018, a year that has seen the company spend an
estimated $8 billion on content altogether. 

The company’s 
decision to end its user
reviews feature came over a year after it swapped its five-star
recommendation system with a “thumbs
up, thumbs down” algorithm, which led to a drastic increase
in user participation. That feature differs from its now-defunct,
desktop-only platform for user text reviews, which the above data
tracked and which stayed with a five-star rating system until
Netflix ended the feature in August.