Netflix has up to date its service so that it’s going to now not help casting a streaming video to a TV from a cellular system.
In case you’re watching a present in your cellphone, you’ll now not be capable of simply solid it onto your TV and hold watching. As a substitute, Netflix is prioritizing its TV app, which suggests you’ll have to seize your TV distant and use the app to play content material, and even pause or rewind the present. Quantity controls, playback buttons, closed captioning controls, or every other settings received’t be capable of be managed by your cellular system anymore if you happen to’re streaming on the TV.
The change was first noticed and reported on by Android Authority, and the information has garnered numerous scorn from customers in locations like Reddit. The change eliminates a workaround that lots of people use for both comfort—they will browse Netflix on their cellphone, then ship one thing to the TV as soon as they’ve chosen what to look at—or as a result of the one account they’ve entry to is authenticated on their cellphone, they usually could not be capable of log into the TV app.
“Why would they take away options which are extremely helpful? Why would they make the expertise worse?” reads the high Reddit remark on the publish sharing the Android Authority article.
A Netflix consultant, answering questions from WIRED through e mail, says Netflix is ending help for cellular system playback management as a result of it was not a characteristic that sufficient members use.
The consultant says that Netflix generally has to retire options which are now not broadly used in order that it may possibly spend money on those who present extra worth. Netflix wouldn’t share any details about how many individuals used the casting characteristic, or what sources the characteristic was taking over in comparison with anything the platform gives.
Casting to a TV will nonetheless work in a couple of circumstances. It doesn’t work in any respect on the cheaper ad-supported tiers that Netflix gives. However even if you happen to pay for the costlier streaming tier, casting out of your cellphone will solely work in case you are casting to an older system, like a pre-2020 Google Chromecast, which labored with out a distant management. However Google has all however killed off its Chromecast, and the most recent good TVs normally include apps like Netflix preinstalled.
Customers are riled up about this, declaring that Netflix has shifted its priorities through the years from getting as many customers on its platform as potential to maximizing subscription income by elevating costs, cracking down on password sharing, and imposing limits on how the service might be accessed.
