Noah,

I think you’re exactly right that the technical side of this UX decision problem came before the communities interpretation of this. While I think the foundation could be a way of Netflix safe-guarding the accuracy of their watch data (I’m sure their royalty/licensing structures are modeled around this very design problem), I think there’s another way that users experience it on the frontend of viewing.

While I’m still hopeful, I too doubt the decision was informed by social responsibility, but also completely suspect that it was also thoughtfully deployed.

Thanks for engaging in the conversation, I truly appreciate the thoughtfulness!