Crumb
c/television · by Skavau@piefed.social · 262d

Netflix kills casting from phones

https://www.theverge.com/news/834655/netflix-phone-casting-chromecast-support-killed

Netflix has removed the ability to cast shows and movies from phones to TVs, unless subscribers are using older casting devices.

100 points · 20 comments · view on lemmy.world

20 Comments

TheTechnician27@lemmy.world · 87 pts · 262d (1 reply)

When piracy is easier and more feature-rich than Netflix at a fraction of the price, I'm reminded of Gabe Newell's opinions about piracy being a service problem.

mushroommunk@lemmy.today · 24 pts · 262d

Might be time to add a few more drives to my NAS 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 19 pts · 262d (7 replies)

Huh? Why?

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 262d (4 replies)

It forces people to log in from the TV instead of carrying around a subscription in your pocket.

tiramichu@sh.itjust.works · 32 pts · 262d (3 replies)

Which is to say, it's a ploy to force more subscriptions for use-cases that previously didn't need them.

Example: you go over your friend's place once a week for movie night. They don't have Netflix, but no problem - you can take your Netflix with you!

Well, now you can't. The hope from Netflix being that this will force said friend to cave and buy a subscription so you can continue doing movie night at theirs.

Just your standard corpo greed.

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · -7 pts · 262d (2 replies)

Well, now you can’t.

You can. You just need to de-select your old device and set the account up on the new device. I add Netflix to new devices all the time. It's just a pain to juggle between them with log-in codes.

For folks who aren't as tech sophisticated, this is a royal pain in the ass. But then so is phone streaming.

Just your standard corpo greed.

I'm willing to bet the dropped feature stems more from the need to invest company resources in support for casting from the phone to begin with. Why bother doing that when modern TVs are all "Smart" anyway? Just throw the QR Code on the screen and let the single device to all the work.

4am@lemmy.zip · 13 pts · 262d (1 reply)

Casting was a well defined and supported protocol. I don’t even think it required any licensing fees. It takes away all the problems with device authorization, password sharing, etc. because as soon as you turn it off, it’s done. You need the casting controller (I.e. your phone) in order to initiate additional content.

Messing about with QR codes, device authorization etc is a great way to log in somewhere, forget to deauthorize it, and oopsie now you have to pay the password sharing price! Teehee gotcha!

IDGAF if you always remember to log it back out, IDGAF if you look down your nose at those filthy plebs who don’t know enough to de-authorize their home TV first so they don’t get charged for multiple locations; both of those things are so much extra work, and were already solved problems. You aren’t the main character so please don’t lourde your autism over us all - this is a trap designed to extract money from users who don’t understand/can’t be bothered/simply forgot. It’s theft, IMHO, and “people are so dumb lee-maow I just jump through all these hoops it’s so SIMPLE” dude you sound like people making excuses for Windows 11 by describing how easy it is to just do these 12 steps in regedit to stop Copilot from emailing your medical records to Redmond so they can target ads at you and sell Palintir profiling data.

Stop being an enabler for enshittification. The world is crumbling around you and your response is “mm herm herm im a clever power user, M’akshully”

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · -8 pts · 262d

Stop being an enabler for enshittification

Things will get worse and it'll be my fault and you can't stop me

Bldck@beehaw.org · 4 pts · 262d (1 reply)

The casting changes announced on Netflix’s support page do not explain why the feature has been removed. It follows a similar move in 2019 when Netflix removed AirPlay support, citing a desire to “ensure our standard of quality for viewing is being met.” We have reached out to Netflix for comment.

Three likely reasons:

  1. The app bundles have different viewing session tracking features. This could make it easier to combine the streaming device’s behavior tracking with the TV’s tracking.
  2. It’s more challenging to use a VPN on a streaming device compared to a phone.
  3. Phones move around, while streaming devices don’t, this further limits the ability to share accounts.
4am@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 262d
  1. They only have to pay to maintain their QR-session activation system. While this is more costly than Casting was;
  2. people will forgot and remain logged in on devices away from home, triggering the “password sharing charge” on their account more often.
  3. support doesn’t have to refund that charge since the account was left logged in for an extended period of time at a second location, something which does not occur with Casting.
inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 262d

Yeah, streaming is just getting so much worse with, of course, companies wanting to make all the money instead of just making most of the money by introducing more and more enshitification.

And all of and making piracy once again a big thing.

BlackLaZoR@fedia.io · 18 pts · 262d (3 replies)

I unsubscribed from Netflix years ago, when they decided to crack down on subscription sharing. They just don't have content good enough to justify full price.

And they produce garbage like Witcher, which is atrocious

kent_eh@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 262d

They just don't have content good enough to justify full price.

That was the primary reason why I cancelled after the first year I subscribed.

TVA@thebrainbin.org · 2 pts · 262d

I didn't even share my account and I cancelled it. Not worth the money for less and less good content and having to put up with their bullshit rules/restrictions.

reddig33@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 262d

Same.

bradboimler@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 262d (1 reply)

I was annoyed when I learned the hard way that I couldn't cast Severance from my phone to my TV

kandoh@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 262d

So annoyed by that. The work around was opening Apple tv in firefix on android and streaming it from there.

The_Picard_Maneuver@piefed.world · 8 pts · 262d

Welp, that's the main way I watch any streaming service. Guess I'll just lean harder into Jellyfin.

FishFace@piefed.social · 5 pts · 262d

Bahahahahahaha as if I'm logging onto Netflix on my TV.

I mean the entire app is shit so we cancelled anyway, but that was the only way we used it. Smart TVs can suck an absolute bag of dicks. My not-particularly techy partner specifically wanted a dumb TV, so this isn't even a niche nerd bubble thing

TheBat@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 262d (1 reply)
[ removed ]
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 2 pts · 262d

Going to a lamaze class thinking it's an AA meeting, making an ass out of yourself just so you can talk to Brendon Frasier about being in Rob Reiner's new flick just because you can't call him on the phone. 😔