I can't speak to Netflix. At Disney the willingness to experiment with streaming UX was thin on the ground six years ago. It was about making something that felt like a direct Netflix competitor. Other experiments have shipped since then, like co-viewing.

I actually believe TikTok is more of the spiritual inheritor of this kind of project more than any other platform.

I guess what I am trying to ask is why was UX research "thin on the ground" (lovely expression, never heard it before). Was it a profit loss thing or more like the progress wasn't fast enough