Pop culture obsessives writing for the pop culture obsessed.

Netflix to avoid panic over expiring titles by just not telling you about them anymore

Last month, the removal of some 1,800 titles from Netflix’s streaming library caused a mass hysteria dubbed the “Streampocalypse,” leading to rash, post-streampocalyptic measures such as the hoarding of old Cheers episodes and even, in some extreme cases, the desperate repurposing of long-abandoned materials. Someone also probably got cracked in the head with a shovel, because it’s not a streampocalypse without someone taking a shovel to the head. Understandably, Netflix would like to avoid this scenario in the future, so it’s taking the most logical route: It’s just not going to tell you what titles are expiring anymore, thus preserving the public order.

While Netflix has already made it quite clear that it doesn’t have to tell you jack, it’s pinning this decision on the “last-minute changes in content flow” that tend to make expiration data inaccurate. So, although it will continue to display impending expiration dates on individual titles through the service, what it won’t do is make this information available on its public API. This means third-party sites like Instant Watcher will no longer be able to compile lists of expiring titles to incite panic, and blogs like this one won’t be able to write stories about how Netflix is coming for everything you hold dear, then sit back, cackling, while the world burns. (“Dear Netflix, you no longer furnish the pictures. We'll furnish the war,” we used to say, back when the system still worked.)


Anyway, the new Netflix order now means watching your shows under a constant cloud of uncertainty, never quite sure when it could all be taken away from you. This should help you foster a Zen attitude of acceptance and letting go. Specifically, of the shovel.  [via UPROXX]

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