Netflixis officially doing away with user reviews. The world’slargest streaming servicehas notified its users via email that they will no longer be able to read and write reviews of TV shows and movies on the Netflix website. User reviews were only available through a computer, meaning that they couldn’t be accessed or composed via the app on a smartphone, tablet or other device. As such, Netflix says they’ve seen a decline in users taking part in reviews and they’ve decided to just do away with it entirely.
Starting on July 30, Netflix users will no longer be able to leave user reviews and by mid-August the company will have deleted all previously published user reviews from the site. So any users who have left reviews for movies or TV shows on the site that want to see them preserved will need to take action before they’re deleted permanently. This change will ultimately impact a relatively small number of those who use Netflix regularly, but it’s in line with changes the company has been making.
Not long ago Netflix also did away with their long-standing rating system for titles that was based on a five-star system. Users could rate a titled they had viewed from between one and five stars. That feature was phased out in favor of a simple thumbs up and thumbs down system. Netflix reports that they saw a 200 percent increase in users rating titles when they implemented this new system. But it also simplified the system to give titles either a positive or negative reaction. That could be key as the streaming service has made a much larger push in recent years toward original content, as opposed to licensed content.
In simplifying their ratings system, Netflix could be trying to safeguard from potentially negative reviews of their original content. By doing away with user reviews altogether and by simplifying with a thumbs up/thumbs down system, it certainly leaves a lot less room for those who didn’t enjoy a particular title to voice that opinion directly via Netflix. Streaming services and movie studios can’t stop a site like Rotten Tomatoes from providing review aggregation, however, they can certainly do away with such things on their own platforms.
