The Netflix Prize Paradox: When a Better Algorithm Creates a Worse User Experience
In 2006, Netflix announced a challenge: improve our recommendation algorithm by 10%, win $1 million. The Netflix Prize became one of the most famous machine learning competitions ever. Thousands of teams from around the world competed for three years. In 2009, team “BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos” won. They’d built an algorithm that was 10.06% better than Netflix’s existing system. Netflix awarded the $1 million prize. The press celebrated the triumph of data science. ...