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koinedad parent
Not sure the full motivation behind this but this is very annoying for a parent with kids. Especially if you've lost your remote, or want to quickly find something and cast it to your Chromecast/Apple TV.

I'd prefer video streaming apps be required to support Casting/AirPlay.

mikeyouse
I’ve helped several elderly neighbors get setup with casting to their TVs as well. Just a debacle that’s going to frustrate a bunch of people for no good reason. Really wish the teams that implement ‘features’ like this were forced to deal with the consequences. At least in the olden days, they’d get feedback in the form of calls and complaints to their help line but now it’s just “Too bad, app changed, deal with it.”
littlecranky67
Well, the consequence would be to cancel the subscription now?
hollerith
>I'd prefer video streaming apps be required to support Casting/AirPlay.

Do you mean required by law?

koinedad OP
No, I’d say the App Store,

I consider it a device perk. I bought the iPhone and Apple TV largely because of airplay so if they remove that functionality it will move me to use other streaming services that support it or I’ll just buy movies again and stop paying streaming altogether.

happymellon
Required by store?
qwertox
This is such a good answer, it puts the entire situation into perspective. About who wants to (and theoretically should) act in favor of consumers.
happymellon
Its a selling point for Apple and Google devices.

Buy into their ecosystem and things "just work". Except when they don't.

Its a cross cutting requirement that adds value for the platform.

otterley
Apple TV has a Netflix app already. Plus you can use your iPhone as a remote.
jaffa2
All this app stuff is so annoying. I reverted back a while ago. Now when i want the radio on i just switch it on. With an actual switch. Same with my lights— an actual real switch! Theres no benefit to chaining all your behind someapp the needs updated installed, logged in passwords, managed, ooo you haven’t logged in for 90 days lets send you an email to update your password- bro i just want to increase my heating. Its all nonsense. Sooner people realise the better.
inanutshellus
TODAY I got an email saying my $600 robot vacuum cleaner -- which only works via an app -- would no longer work with said app.

It has no physical buttons to manage schedules, just a "spot clean now" button.

I hand-wrung when I bought it -- knowing it was a risk requiring I trust them -- aand I was bitten.

Awesome.

Welcome to the future.

ryandrake
Nobody on HN wants to hear this, but REG-U-LA-TION. The glorious free market is consistently failing to solve the growing problem of cloud-tethered and app-tethered products being nerfed by their manufacturers after the point of sale.
deaux
But that's why the EU is so "behind" on cultivating parasitic FAANG-style tech megacorps! If they'd just do away with regulations, the EU could have some of their own, such joy!

Move fast and screw society for tasty RSUs!

tsunamifury
I think those who believe regulation is universally the devil forget the era where products were received DOA and customers had no recourse while companies simply called it profit.
alyandon
I can't take anyone that views regulation as universally evil seriously when history is full of stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor
2 More Comments →
nine_k
Sorry, but it's CUS-TO-MERS. They buy stuff that can only be controlled via an app talking to the cloud. They buy stuff that cannot be repaired. They buy stuff that openly lies about its specs, for an "unbelievably good price". The customers go for the cheapest, all else be damned.

Education in general, and about critical thinking in particular, could help.

inanutshellus
Your argument is in alignment with

    * "There's a sucker born every minute" and
    * "caveat emptor" and
    * "If I can trick you into giving me your money, that's your fault"
With a sufficiently large pool of people, scammers live and thrive on busy people.

Regulation helps discourage that.

In this case, "REG-U-LATION" actually "caused" the issue. Up-to-date LIDAR of every home in America was deemed to be invasive breach of privacy so was regulated out. This product didn't successfully account for future non-technical issues.

I "foolishly" tried to reward a previously known-good vendor by buying a product from the company that had sold me a vacuum that worked for ten years... which brings up the next truism:

    * "Past performance is not an indicator of future success"
Cue the tiny violin.
nemomarx
Customers would buy contaminated food if it was cheaper, too. There's value in having a floor on quality and design for products to avoid races to the bottom?
3 More Comments →
mort96
How's changing the behavior of every person on Earth to create the market pressures you wanna see working out for you?

Over here in the EEA, governments using regulations to create the market pressures I want to see has a fair amount of success, FWIW

watwut
> They buy stuff that openly lies about its specs

That one is very specifically failure or regulators and absolutely should subject to regulation. We can bicker about whether repairability should be regulated ... but false claims by the manufacturers absolutely should.

It is absurd to blame the user for this one.

anonymars
Sorry, it's not. Latest example, Canon's phone app for its cameras, for GPS tagging, remote shutter, transfer to phone, didn't require any Internet access, but now they changed it to require an online login for no reason. Oh and that login only works with chrome installed.

So miss me with this caveat emptor libertarian fantasy land ("openly lies about its specs" is the buyer's fault?!)

2 More Comments →
looperhacks
You may want to check if your robot is supported by Valetudo: https://valetudo.cloud/
jansper39
Reading through that site, it seems like instead of locking yourself into a corporations app, you're locking it into his instead. He doesn't seem to want to run an open source community, he's building an app for himself and publishing it for people who have exactly the same use case as him.
fwip
True, but you don't need to install updates once you have the software installed, and it's probably better not to. The software on the robot doesn't need the app to control, either - it exposes an API that either the app or custom software can talk to, sans cloud servers.
inanutshellus
ooo thanks for the link, buuut it appears NEATO Robotics vacuums aren't supported ... yet.

I had hoped Home Assistant might be able to handle it but it appears their integration just sends the data to NEATO, which no no longer works.

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/neato/

Blarg.

onetokeoverthe (dead)
mock-possum
Probably to drive people to piracy
ZeroConcerns
> this is very annoying for a parent with kids

But the parents without kids, will they at least continue to be leafs? (Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry...)

whatsupdog (dead)
clueless
> Not sure the full motivation behind this

This feature was one of the main reasons how Netflix movies/shows could be captured/uploaded to piracy sites in full quality as soon as they were released. People recorded the video output and uploaded them. This is to remove that path. Kinda obvious if you ask.

progbits
This is untrue. This method wouldn't get you the highres content, that's limited to higher widevine tiers. Pirates use other bypass methods and this will zero impact.
Dayshine
That's not how casting works. It's actually super locked down: the TV loads a netflix website and you can't create your own Chromecast receivers.
fragmede
How does VLC do it then?
mvdtnz
How is this different from recording video output from a not-casted stream?
progbits
It isn't, some people just like to post completely made up nonsense on topics they don't understand.

Edit: GP's username should have been a hint...

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