Netflix's UI is total shit. It is as if they are purposefully trying to keep it that way to hide the fact that most of the movies they have are garbage and the only way to get people to watch those is to give them some odd "compatibility" with your taste rating.
I totally agree that they're anti-user. But they have a dilemma.
Imagine a nicely formatted table of Netflix movies and shows available in your country. New, potential users can quickly find out if it's worth signing up. Existing users can quickly realize that maybe the service is not worth it.
I also have a theory that if you're stuck looking for something to watch and you've already spent enough time on their platform, you might just settle on something.
They're trying to stay as the "first stop" of when you want to watch something, and the only way they can keep that position is purposefully being murky with their offerings because, yes, it's a 90% shitty collection.
Search is a binary proposition. Netflix either has the content you're searching for, or it does not. Because Netflix is optimizing for total time spent on platform, this is a bad proposition, from their perspective.
That's why the Netflix home screen has become a circus of autoplaying videos, "recommended for you" queues, and "watch it again." The goal, from a UX perspective, is to stimulate you into watching something you didn't come there wanting to watch.
You say its anti-search, but its like three button presses on my Roku to get to the search menu which seems pretty fast and accurate. Its one click to get to the search box in the Windows app. I've never had a hard time trying to search for a specific title.
Sure, but I'm more commenting on the ease of use. I mean we can debate it until heat death of the universe, but the fact is, my less computer-proficient family members ask me to download torrents for them, whereas they have no problem buying/watching films on Amazon/Netflix/etc.
