> Why was Netflix putting effort in to supporting a device that the vendor clearly didn't care about?
Because they supported a device USERS care about. They were focusing on their customers and user. Why would they punish users for something some random other corpo did?
The article mentions it was for a "large European Pay TV company". Having Netflix function on it would be a large group of potential Netflix customers that already had a compatible device hooked up to a TV. Potential low-friction onboards. And potential complaints from existing customers that upgraded to the new box if it didn't work.
Because they supported a device USERS care about. They were focusing on their customers and user. Why would they punish users for something some random other corpo did?