Netflix has done away with preferences. Apparently the only way to teach it what you like now is based entirely on what you watch and what you rate. This wouldn't be so bad except for a couple of things. Now when you click on a title, show or movie, even just to rate it for preferences sake, it starts playing automatically. So in order to prevent Netflix from using movies you were just down rating as preferences you have to manually go into Recently Watched and delete the movies you were only rating. Very time consuming.
The second problem is without the taste preferences you can't get the custom rows as easily now. When you watch a show or movie it remembers what row you used to launch it, so for example you are trying to trick it into creating a row just for 80's now and you spend all day watching different movies from the 80's you have to find them in different rows, some comedies, some action, some horror, etc. Well under the old system you could just tell it Often under 80's in Decade preferences. Well If I launch an 80's title I found in teen comedies, it doesn't register I am trying for an 80's theme, it see I "like" teen comedies and creates a new row with more teen comedies, but it assumes I am a teen and shows me stuff released recently. Very annoying. It was always a pain in the ass to find what you wanted but with taste preferences it was easy to customize, not anymore.
I sat through Crocodile Dundee, Bill N Ted, Masters of the Universe, and about four or five other random 80's movies this past week trying to get that 80's row back I used to have under the old system. No luck. Now I am seeing stuff like Revenge of the Bridesmaids "because of your interest in Full Metal Jacket." what is the connection?