Secrets Netflix doesn't want you to know!

[iNFAMOUS]

Netflix is now an inseparable part of our culture, but few people know the secrets behind the cheerful red and white logo: purposeful deception, secret warehouses, and a foundation story based on lies. Opening Netflix is daunting — there are so many movies and TV shows. What to watch? The genre categories don't help at all. Sure, an action movie sounds good, but that's such a wide genre, it can include everything. If only Netflix had a way to narrow the search down to something more specific.

Secret Super Specific Categories

 

Turns out it does! Netflix itself has a hard time with the unwieldy amount of content, so the website organizes by very specific genres. They just don't appear on the user side interface. But we can hack Netflix to organize movies by oddly specific genres. Instead of searching through Netflix, users can type in the URL "http://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/####" where the #### represents a specific numeric code corresponding to an oddly specific genre. You just have to know the code.
Nobody knows why Netflix doesn't allow users to search for very specific genres without knowing the codes, but with this knowledge, Netflix gets a lot more fun. In the mood for something mind-twisting and (for some reason) specifically German? Use the code 6546 to access the genre "Cerebral German Language Movies." Code 6541 opens up "Critically Acclaimed Emotional Independent Dramas," complete with Miss Stevens and Fish Tank, movies so emotional, nobody's ever seen them. Die-hard John Savage fans can use code 6536 to see all the movies starring him. There are so many codes, a whole website is dedicated to cataloguing them, perfect for a night of staying in with a picky friend or significant.

 

Netflix Depends on Pirating Websites

 

We've all experienced the most crushing disappointment of modern society: after getting all comfortable on the couch with a nice cup of tea or a bottle of beer, we open up Netflix only to find the movie we want to watch … isn't streaming. It's the worst! We either find something else, or some people (not anybody that works at Grunge … ahem …) go to their favourite pirate websites and watch it anyways.
Netflix knows we do this, but instead of getting angry and trying to crack down on pirating websites, they developed a clever plan. To find out which movies and TV shows they should acquire a license to, Netflix monitors the traffic on pirating sites and takes notes of which shows are getting stolen most frequently, turning them into the new content on Netflix. This is Netflix's ace in the hole — using it, they will always have the content that's most popular on the internet. Presumably, their company fridge is always stocked with rum.
This also explains why the content on Netflix randomly changes. When new stuff comes out on it, there are always the things you expect (new Marvel movies, Transformer 14 or whatever they're up to by now), along with a bunch of seemingly random movies and TV shows. Most likely, that content is hot on pirating sites, and Netflix is trying to get a piece of that metaphorical booty. It's in an ethical grey area, but nobody really cares, as long as they constantly get rad new content.

Where its Disk Warehouses Are?

In a shocking turn of events, Netflix still does DVD rentals. Surprising, right? Even in this age of streaming video services, the DVD rentals still go strong. But how do they get the DVDs shipping so fast? Well, dotting the continental United States, there are warehouses filled with movies, ready to ship out. They exist, but good luck finding them. Netflix acts like the warehouses are holding the Ark of the Covenant or alien remains — they're that impossible to find.
The whole setup is like something out of a Cold War spy movie. Although nearly sixty warehouses are in operation, they're all hidden in plain sight. None of the warehouses sport the company logo, or even the familiar red and white colour scheme. From the outside, they are bland buildings, but they're hiding a huge stock of entertainment. Employees sign confidentiality agreements when they start working, saying that none of them can ever reveal the locations of the warehouses.
Thinking about tracking the delivery trucks to and from the warehouses? Get ready for some early-morning stakeouts — Netflix delivery vans are unmarked, and dispatch at 3:00 in the morning to local post offices. Random delivery vans in office parks don't draw any attention. Chances are, some people reading this work right next to a Netflix warehouse and never noticed it. So if you're looking to acquire, say, thousands of copies of Ghost, keep those eyes open for 3am delivery trucks in your office park.

 

Binge Watching is Terrible for your Health!

More general truth that Netflix doesn't want you to know: binge watching is absolutely terrible for our health. It's not just one or two aspects — binging Netflix is a wrecking ball in our heads and bodies, causing all sorts of issues.
Studies show that binge watching can increase chances of mental health issues, causing an addiction to form and making viewers antisocial. Binge watching also eats up a ton of concentrated time that we could use for other activities that could improve our lives. Shockingly, binge watching also makes us enjoy a show less. We become accustomed to the show and our enjoyment of it decreases, just like a new car gets less exciting the more we drive it. The novelty of the experience falls apart, leaving us in a pit of TV despair, constantly searching for a new entertainment fix to make us feel something.
And it's not just affecting our brains. Binge watching also wrecks our bodies, causing an increased risk of cancer and chronic diseases that comes from a sedentary Netflix lifestyle. No matter how many episodes of House we watch, the health benefits just do not exist. Adding it all up, there is an ugly truth: Netflix is killing us.