It's time for Netflix to release its viewership data

[Commentary] Netflix still has the chance to be proactive regarding its data, and it can even turn its viewership treasure trove into another piece of content. Why not take a slice of easily comprehensible numbers — viewership over time and by country, basically — and make them available for public exploration? Spotify’s already doing it; I can’t begin to imagine the hours I’ve spent flipping through artist play counts, testing out the service’s frequent visualization gimmicks, and poring over my friends’ years in review when they’re unleashed in December. Netflix can easily enable the same kind of nerdy fun, and its strategy is robust enough to weather whatever minor impacts going public would have on negotiation and creative self-esteem. It’s time to open the vault.