Netflix may have pulled the plug on casting for this simple reason

Netflix still hasn’t explained why it removed casting from its mobile apps last month, but a new report offers a pretty convincing answer. It wasn’t going to ditch a popular feature, so the most likely reason is that not many people are using it anymore.

This speculation is based on reporting from Janko Roettgers of Lowpass, published via The Verge, who suggests declining usage might be behind the move. Roettgers writes that a streaming service operator told him at CES that casting was once essential to their service, but only around 10% of Android users still cast today.

That’s a sharp drop from casting’s heyday in the mid-2010s, when launching a show from your phone felt faster and easier than navigating clunky smart TV interfaces. But TVs and streaming boxes have improved a lot since then, and most people now just grab the remote and open the app. From Netflix’s perspective, maintaining casting may no longer make sense when the vast majority of viewers aren’t touching it.

Still, 10% is still a lot of people, and it includes members of the Android Authority team. Netflix is still missing from some devices, such as certain projectors, and the mobile app might just be faster for some. The fact that Netflix helped invent modern second-screen playback in the first place makes the reversal more poignant.

Roettgers also notes that Netflix may be prioritizing other phone-to-TV interactions instead, like gaming and interactive features that already rely on multi-device setups. Adding casting into that mix could simply be more complexity than it’s worth. Netflix declined to comment when The Verge asked about the decision.

Casting itself isn’t going away entirely. Apple recently added Google Cast support to its Apple TV app on Android, and Google says it’s still invested in the technology. But Netflix’s move does feel like a signal that casting is no longer a must-have feature for major streaming services — even if some of us aren’t quite ready to let it go yet.