Who moves faster: Netflix’s 1.5x function and how YouTube dictated it
A few months back, Netflix introduced an update introducing a function to play videos at variant speeds on handheld devices, ranging from 0.5–1.5 times as fast.
Vice President Keela Robison span the controversial change as a fast-forward function, pointing to how it was a mainstay on DVD devices. She has also noted how it was already in demand, which is entirely true, as we will explore a little later. However, she concluded in the way most expected of someone in her position: “This last test has generated a fair amount of feedback — both for and against.” An option given or the absence of options are both choices for the Digital Service Provider (DSP)to make.
Why did Netflix make this change? Dip your head in Twitter and plenty of people are furious. Directors and actors have been expressing their vehement disapproval. Judd Apatow erupted on Twitter over it, with some scorned rage. “Save me the time. I will win but it will take a ton of time. Don’t fuck with our timing. We give you nice things. Leave them as they were intended to be seen.”
I think this outburst is very demonstrative of how there is a gulf in understanding as to what is driving viewing habits. And to find an answer requires us to look at YouTube.
We can start with this question: who dictates the ways in which media is consumed? In very broad terms, we have three parties: the DSP, the content-creator and the consumer. There is an uneasy triumvirate of control and influence between these groups and their contributions to online platforms.
However, if we break each of these parties into smaller categories, we can see how there are dominant voices and trends emanating from specific quarters. For example, a content-creator on YouTube can have hundreds of thousands of subscribers and millions of monthly views and yet has very little say in the operation of the platform, which often treats video creators with enormous disdain. YouTube’s system of ranking, or “throttling” as critics are calling it, content creators demonstrates a widening rift between what is seen and promoted on YouTube and what is not. Once again on the internet, there is disparity based only on already established reputation, the exact thing the internet was believed by some to neutralise. It is, as always, the artists who can’t shout as loud as more famous counterparts who will lose out, and these are the artists who are present in chorus on YouTube.[1]
Returning to the issue of 1.5x speed, it is worth mentioning that video speed controllers for Netflix already existed as plug-ins. One website justifies this as a sleek method of shaving hours off your binge-watching. By watching the entirety of Mad Men on 1.1x speed, you can obtain a precious 9.2 hours of time you can use to build a boat or otherwise throw extravagantly over your head like potpourri.
This is because the issue that Judd Apatow is railing against is something that YouTube content creators have been engaging with for years. YouTube has introduced this system and its users have adapted to it.
I’ve seen YouTube’s 1.5x function used primarily for skipping rapidly through video blogs or tutorials. I’ve occasionally dipped into it myself. However, there is a vital difference in the way in which viewing is programmed between Netflix and YouTube. YouTube’s functions are designed almost entirely around keeping you watching. Guillaume Chaslot, who used to work on the ‘Recommended’ function for YouTube and now runs projects to demand greater transparency from online platforms, uses stronger words. He claims the function is “toxic”and designed to “get you addicted to YouTube.” ‘Watch next’ videos are not primarily intended to be relevant. They are instead targeted very specifically to your own compulsions in order to extend your time on the site. If you are locked into a topic, then it benefits YouTube to recommend related content. If you are merely dipping into YouTube, it works to hook you as quickly as possible.
And it works. YouTube’s CPO Neal Mohan has revealed how 70% of time-spent on YouTube is spent watching its ‘Recommended’ videos. The audience has come to expect this from the platform, as it is a source of constant comment on YouTube itself. You don’t need to dig deep into comments to read how people have found themselves on some bizarre corner of YouTube at 2am. They’re amusing comments but hide a darker truth, which is that the 1.5x speed system doesn’t help YouTube viewers skip through content faster so that they can do other things. It pile-drives them deeper into a Lovecraftian spiral of bottomless YouTube content.
Netflix is pursuing viewing habits without truly interrogating the extent to which they match the construction of its own platform, or where these viewing habits originate from. YouTube’s culture of addictive videos is increasingly decried as a severe problem.[2] Netflix’s adoption of YouTube’s system seems nefarious.
This is not the first time that Netflix has had to adjust its layout to catch up with viewing habits. In 2017, Netflix rejected stars in favour of YouTube’s thumbs up or thumbs down system, citing that their users are now conscious that they are ‘training an algorithm.’ YouTube weaned their users onto this through, again, curating viewing habits. Netflix followed suit.
Only Netflix once again is not designed in the same way as YouTube. Although its star rating system was always an ugly means of curation within Netflix, and still predominantly designed to feed algorithms, it still bared some resemblance to a film sharing site, a social space. Its replacement is far more conglomerate, more individually-catered but it suits Netflix’s need to push certain forms of content more aggressively towards you. This works because it mirrors how people consume video content on the ‘other’ platform.
Interestingly, this is an inversion of which DSP was following who. Netflix influenced YouTube’s original recommended system, according to academic articles by developers. In 2008, creators/curators of Google’s recently acquired service wrote about proposed systems for finding value in YouTube’s rapidly multiplying gallery of content. They came up with the recommended bar that we now see on YouTube. In devising the model, they turned to Netflix’s rating system. By placing viewers together who rated similar products highly, Netflix found a system by which they could predict which films their individual customers would be more likely to enjoy. This allowed the DVD delivery service to filter through hundreds of thousands of films at a much faster rate. YouTube conceptually jacked this co-viewing system to bolster its own algorithms.
YouTube constantly influences viewing habits through its updates. One relatively recent example is how they changed its video formatting in order to negate the challenge of the IGTV launch in June 2018. One of the unique quirks of the new video channel was that videos would all be vertical, introducing a new By September 2018, YouTube announced the introduction of a vertical video format on the platform. There were a multitude of reasons why IGTV is continuing to stall, but YouTube’s absorption of its original quirk was almost certainly a deliberate move to undermine the new platform.
All of this is important for two reasons. First of all, it is demonstrative on what drives platform updates. A study from Aswath Damodara argues convincingly how digital industry is increasingly valuing companies based off the acquisition and retention of individual customers as opposed to revenue. The number of streams, of subscribers, of ratings. Not only does this create false narratives, whereby companies chase after what is perceived as the potential users without asking where this will lead, it also allows a select few DSP giants to control that narrative.
This was demonstrated quite clearly in Facebook streaming scandal. Although Facebook’s ad revenue per video was pittance, companies felt they should migrate to the service as that was where the viewers were. Only we now know that those figures were fabricated. It was content-producing organisations such as College Humour and Funny or Die that sacrificed their own website-centric content to follow the ‘consumer’ to larger platforms. It feels as if not enough time is taken to consider where internet habits derive from. The result is the pursuit of ghost-like data on the internet, potentially leading to disastrous consequences. Like YouTube’s consumers, companies are driven towards the more sinister edges of capitalism.
Secondly, there is also a deeper sociological question here about the extent to which the internet influences behaviour, something that is rarely substantively explored. Regardless of influence, we all build habits on the internet and it is vital to consider how these are being influenced. We see it in the study of extreme right-wing pockets of the internet. YouTube constantly seeks to change the viewing habits of its consumers, tugging them relentlessly in directions dictated by YouTube’s own need to satisfy the needs of an individual customer base. And the effects ripple outwards in unexpected ways.
Comments by Apatow and others highlight just how large the gulf is in understanding the ways in which viewing habits are influenced. This is yet another reminder of how giant companies in the online age exploit and it impacts everyone, including other giant companies.
[1] This is well-documented online, this Verge article does a good job of structuring the chronology — https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/5/18287318/youtube-logan-paul-pewdiepie-demonetization-adpocalypse-premium-influencers-creators
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/03/youtube-addiction-mental-health
