Netflix Offline: Yay I don’t have to pirate Netflix Originals anymore!

I never really caught the Netflix bug. While streaming movies and TV shows at home feels natural now, the idea of streaming a Netflix show on the train or the bus is just not a realistic one. There’s crap reception, I have a limited data cap, and streaming will kill my battery. So even with my Netflix subscription I’ve often found myself pirating Netflix Originals like House Of Cards just to watch them offline on a plane or train.

Today that changes. Netflix is adding an Offline mode to its iOS and Android app. So far the mode only works with a selection of titles — not every show just yet — but it’s still impressive to see such a feature launch. It also brings streaming video more into line with Spotify and Apple Music, which, despite serving much smaller audio files, have inherently launched with offline functionality.

There is one catch: most offline videos will eventually expire in a similar way to, say, an iTunes rental. Some titles give you 7 days, while others provide just 48 hours.

For Australian players this should be a wake up call, though it’ll likely fall to deaf ears. Since day one Stan and Presto have stumbled with terrible software, spotty platform support and no real innovation to the streaming product. Stan still sucks on iOS with plenty of bugs, while Presto is about to die because of its terrible software and performance. In Australia Netflix ironically has a limited library, though the service has still flourished thanks to great apps and interesting new features like this. Amazon will soon be launching their Prime Video service here with a similar maturity of software, which may be a nail in Stan’s coffin too.

While content matters, as we’ve seen with the success of Spotify, product is just as important, if not more important.