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

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[–] 94 points 11 months ago (1 child)

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.

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  • [–] 23 points 11 months ago (7 children)
  • [–] 25 points 11 months ago (4 children)

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

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  • [–] 33 points 11 months ago* (3 children)

    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.

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  • [+] -7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 13 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

    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”

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  • [–] 16 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    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.
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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago
    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.
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  • [–] 19 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    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

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  • [–] 18 points 11 months ago

    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.

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  • [–] 10 points 11 months ago

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

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  • [–] 9 points 11 months ago (1 child)

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

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago

    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

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  • [+] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago*

    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. 😔

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