There’s no denying that Netflix is one of the greatest tech companies of our time. It provides a simple to use and affordable service, it has a steady stream of new releases, and it has a pretty good track record defending net neutrality.
But the following tweet easily qualifies as the creepiest thing Netflix ever said.
“To the 53 people who’ve watched A Christmas Prince every day for the past 18 days: Who hurt you?” Netflix tweeted a few hours ago.
To the 53 people who've watched A Christmas Prince every day for the past 18 days: Who hurt you?
— Netflix (@netflix) December 11, 2017
Yes, that’s somewhat hilarious if you don’t mind the bullying/shaming in there. “Who hurt you?” That’s not your business Netflix, even if it’s all a joke. The tweet in question got almost 400,000 likes and more than 100,000 retweets too, so mission achieved. So, at least, its advertising mission was accomplished. People are talking about that movie.
If you’re wondering what A Christmas Prince really is, I’ll tell you that it’s a brand new silly Christmas movie made by Netflix that I could not absolutely watch, no matter how hard I tried. But, clearly, some people really like it.
What’s creepy about this unusual statistic, from a company that never shares viewing data with anyone, is that it’s able to single out such stats about its users.
It makes you think about how much data Netflix is hoarding about each user. And that’s insanely creepy. It’s what you’d expect from Facebook and Google, whose product you happen to be. But not Netflix.
As long as Netflix doesn’t actually use that data to turn you into the product. Although it may very well decide to do so in the future. After all, there may be customers willing to trade in their privacy just so they can binge-watch their favorite shows for free. Well, that would be an ad-based free subscription, if Netflix ever launches one.
