In early December 2025, Netflix silently removed one of the last remaining perks of its cheapest tier: the ability to cast or AirPlay video from the mobile app to a television or streaming device. The change rolled out globally without announcement, patch notes, or even a single line in the help center until users started complaining on forums. Weeks later, the company finally confirmed the removal, but only after tech blogs had already dissected the APK updates.
The feature is not gone for everyone. Subscribers on the Standard ($15.49) and Premium ($22.99) plans can still cast from Android phones using Google Cast and from iPhones using AirPlay. Only the $6.99 ad-supported “Standard with Ads” tier lost the functionality entirely. That single line in the sand tells the entire story: Netflix has decided that casting from your phone is now a premium privilege, not a basic expectation.
The timing is revealing. In the same quarter, Netflix reported that its ad-supported tier had surpassed 70 million monthly active accounts, making it the company’s fastest-growing plan ever. Yet those same 70 million users are now the only ones who must physically plug in an HDMI cable or hand over their Netflix password to the hotel TV if they want to watch on the big screen while traveling. Everyone else gets to tap the familiar cast icon and keep going.
Real-world usage data explains why Netflix felt safe making the cut. Internal metrics, leaked through former employees, show that fewer than 4 % of ad-tier subscribers ever used mobile casting in a given month, compared to nearly 20 % on the ad-free plans. For vacationers and business travelers, the feature was genuinely useful, turning a cramped 55-inch hotel screen into a lifeline for binge-watching. For the vast majority, it was simply another button they never pressed.
This is not the first time Netflix has used technical restrictions to nudge users toward higher tiers. The great password-sharing crackdown of 2023–2024 added roughly 40 million paying accounts in 18 months. Limiting simultaneous streams, blocking VPNs, and now stripping casting from the cheapest plan are all variations on the same playbook: make the entry-level experience just inconvenient enough that upgrading feels like relief rather than extortion.
The financial logic is airtight. Keeping one extra household on Standard instead of Standard with Ads is worth an additional $103 per year. Convincing 5 % of the ad-tier base to upgrade because they hate fumbling with hotel remotes or can’t cast The Diplomat to the living-room TV would generate hundreds of millions in pure profit with zero additional content spend.
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Netflix knows exactly what it’s doing. The company has run the A/B tests, watched the heat maps, and calculated the churn risk. The fact that the change flew under the radar for weeks proves the bet paid off: most ad-tier users either don’t travel enough to care or already accepted that “cheap” now comes with deliberate friction.
Casting used to be table stakes for any streaming app. In 2025, it’s apparently a luxury good. Welcome to the new era of tiered everything, where even the simple act of throwing video from your phone to the nearest screen has a price tag attached.
Author: Slava Vasipenok
Founder and CEO of QUASA (quasa.io) — the world's first remote work platform with payments in cryptocurrency.
Innovative entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in IT, fintech, and blockchain. Specializes in decentralized solutions for freelancing, helping to overcome the barriers of traditional finance, especially in developing regions.
