There are numerous streaming services competing today. Of course, Netflix has essentially been the first and biggest of the bunch for many years now. Subscribers are familiar, then, with the many changes that Netflix has undergone over the years. Now a likely Netflix change will result in the removal of a key feature.
Subscribers are no doubt familiar with the “Match” process. A pop-up menu will appear that offers a percentage for how much you will “Match” with the title you’re hovering over. Itself was a replacement of the streaming platform’s earlier “Surprise Me” feature.
The “Match” feature first launched in 2021 while “Surprise Me” was removed in 2023. Now, according to IndieWire, Netflix confirmed that “the streamer is likely to drop those confusing percentages.” As it turns out, the streaming service has a different feature they want to focus on.
Instead, it looks like Netflix will be emphasizing the importance of Tags. These Tags can be located at the bottom of a tile’s pop-up. Additionally, as shared via NYT, it looks like Netflix has 30 employees solely responsible for Tags.
“Imagine magazines that have no cover lines, and there were just photographs on them,” Allan Donald, a director of product at Netflix, told the NYT. “Tags make as much of a difference as a cover line in that snap ‘this is for me’ decision.”
Interestingly, there are as many as 3,000 different Tags on the streamer. The most common of these are “romantic,” “exciting,” and “suspenseful.” Though the least used happens to be “Occupation: farmhand.” The employees in the Tags department tend to discuss new Tags or the possibility of merging older ones.
It’s an interesting direction for the service, which has always used Tags, but a new focus on them could pay off in different ways. Netflix has always been known for innovation and doing its best to evolve in a growing industry, so we’ll have to see how this turns out and if Netflix decides to remove its “Match” feature. Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional Netflix updates as we have them.