Social media and streaming platform are used to implementing new features out of the blue, in order to answer their members’ request or to attract new subscribers. However, feedback is never exclusively positive and critics are always around the corner.
In particular, Netflix has recently introduced a new option to allow users to speed up or slow down its programmes and movies. This move has caused negative reactions from filmmakers, actors and producers, who consider this feature as offensive for their products on the platform.
Filmmakers including The Incredibles director Brad Bird and Knocked Up’s Judd Apatow have reportedly expressed their concern, with Apatow, also creator of the Netflix series Love, describing the function as “ridiculous and insulting”.
Netflix has promptly defended the new feature, claiming that it is only a temporary test limited to mobile devices alone. Beside this, users will have to vary the speed everytime they watch something new, even though they changed it in a previous movie.
Netflix vice-president Keela Robinson has stated: “We regularly test new features that could help improve Netflix. This last test has generated a fair amount of feedback – both for and against. This is a mobile only test and gives people the ability to vary the speed at which they watch on phones or tablets…”
She then added: “It’s a feature that has long been available on DVD players – and has been frequently requested by our members. For example, people looking to rewatch their favourite scene or wanting to go slower because it’s a foreign language title”.
Netflix is only the latest streaming platform to implement the speed-up function, following YouTube and Apple. Since this fuction has been introduced to answer members’ request, we will see whether their experiences will change the general judgement about this feature.
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