I remember a few years ago when our niece came to visit. One evening, we started watching a movie on Netflix together.
We only made it halfway before bedtime, but since she was coming back in two weeks, we decided to save the rest for her next visit.
Two weeks later, she returned, bouncing with excitement to finally see how the story ended. We opened Netflix, ready to hit play - and lo and behold… the movie had vanished from the catalog.
> She opens Netflix, and ⅔ of the films have now "expired"
I have given up saving Netflix titles in advance of travel because this has happened to me too many times. What is bizarre is you can only "download" them a certain number of times, despite being expired. So I now cannot download some shows ever again.
Nobody loses money if I cache a Netflix show to my device. The limitation is bizarre.
> Nobody loses money if I cache a Netflix show to my device. The limitation is bizarre.
It wouldn't surprise me if some executive has an irrational fear of millions of people passing ipads around their family and friends with a downloads of movies/series as a way to avoid paying subscriptions.
That's the problem with DRM in everything. Once the levers of power are there, it takes one overeager bean counter or paranoid executive to use them to squeeze out more revenue or exercise additional control. In the era of physical media none of this was possible - I could lend my DVDs to as many people as I want without approval from Reed Hastings.
I tried to download something from Netflix recently. The download wouldn’t process. It got stuck partway.
Not an issue, I’ll just delete it and redownload.
Nope. There’s a limit to the number of downloads on some content. I wasted mine trying to get the download to even work.
A week ago I downloaded a couple of movies and shows from Netflix for my 6yo daughter, to watch on a 3hr flight. Worked nicely!
Today we made the return flight. She opens Netflix, and ⅔ of the films have now "expired" with no notice and she can't watch the one she wanted.
For the next flight I'll remember to pirate!