Netflix doesn’t make broad, sweeping changes to its site very often, but one such change was just made heading into this past weekend. As BGR’s sister site Variety noted, there are no longer any user reviews on Netflix. As of Friday, the last of the user reviews on Netflix have been deleted. Now, there is no longer any way on the site to get a sense of what other viewers think about all the shows, movies, and other content on Netflix. Star ratings were eliminated earlier this year, and now the reviews section has been nixed. That means the only way on Netflix’s site to get a sense of whether or not you might enjoy something is to look at the match percentage, which is Netflix’s best guess of how likely you are to enjoy something based on your viewing history.
Of course, that’s not good enough. Netflix merely guesses based on shows and movies that you’ve rated in the past using a thumbs up or a thumb’s down, so it’s often way off base. But don’t worry, there’s already a better way to check in with the internet’s hive mind to see whether or not a new show or movie is worth watching.
User reviews are always a great way to see what people think, so why would Netflix delete them? According to a new page on the company’s support site, not enough people used them. “You can no longer post reviews on Netflix,” the page reads. “Netflix customers were able to leave reviews on Netflix.com until mid-2018, when reviews were removed due to declining use. To learn how Netflix suggests TV shows and movies we think you’ll love, visit our Ratings & Recommendations article.”
It’s definitely a bummer for Netflix subscribers who did use reviews to help determine whether or not to watch something. But the good news is there are much better places to get user reviews of TV series and movies, and now there’s a site that ties it all in with Netflix.
We told you about New On Netflix back in April of this year, and we got a ton of great feedback from people who were so happy that we helped them find it. In a nutshell, the site lists new Netflix content as it gets added to the catalog each day, so it’s always each to check out the latest available movies and TV shows. But there’s another great feature of the site: it displays ratings from several popular sites like Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB, The Movie Database, and more. There’s also a search feature so you can read up on a specific move or show that you’ve been thinking about watching.
It’s a terrific site that was already quite useful, but it’s even more useful now that Netflix has done away with user reviews. Definitely add New On Netflix to your bookmarks.
