Casting is dead. Long live casting!

It is Low pass by Janko Roettgersa newsletter about the ever-evolving intersection of technology and entertainment, delivered solely to The edge subscribers once a week.

Last month, Netflix made the surprising decision to remove a key feature: Without prior warning, the company removed the ability to stream video from its mobile apps to a wide range of smart TVs and streaming devices. Casting is now only supported on older Chromecast streaming adapters that didn’t come with a remote, Nest Hub smart displays, and select Vizio and Compal smart TVs.

It’s a stunning departure for the company. Before these changes, Netflix allowed streaming to a wide range of devices that officially supported Google’s streaming technology, including Android TVs made by companies like Philips, Polaroid, Sharp, Skyworth, Soniq, Sony, Toshiba and Vizio, according to an archived version of the Netflix website.

But the streaming service didn’t stop there. Before last month’s changes, Netflix also offered what the company called the “Netflix 2nd Screen” streaming feature on a wide range of additional devices, including Sony’s PlayStation, TVs made by LG and Samsung, Roku TVs and streaming adapters, and many other devices. Basically, if a smart TV or streaming device was running the Netflix app, it probably also supported streaming.

That’s because Netflix laid the foundation for this technology 15 years ago. In 2011, some engineers at the company were studying ways to more closely integrate people’s phones with their televisions. “Around the same time, we learned that the YouTube team was interested in much the same thing: they had already started working on [second] screen use cases,” Scott Mirer, director of product management at Netflix at the time, said in 2013.

The two companies began collaborating and seeking help from TV makers like Sony and Samsung. The result was DIAL (short for “Discovery and Launch”) – an open, second-screen protocol that formalized the casting.

In 2012, Netflix was the first major streaming service to add streaming functionality to its mobile app, which at the time allowed PlayStation 3 owners to initiate video playback from their phone. A year later, Google launched its first-ever Chromecast dongle, which took DIAL’s ideas and integrated them into Google’s proprietary streaming technology.

For a time, the cast was extremely popular. Google has sold more than 100 million Chromecast adapters, and Vizio even built an entire TV around the cast, coming with a tablet instead of a remote. (It failed. Turns out people still like physical remotes.)

But as smart TVs have become more capable and streaming services have invested more in native apps on these TVs, the need for streaming has gradually diminished. At CES, a streaming service operator told me that casting was once absolutely essential to its service. These days, even among the service’s Android users, only about 10% are casting.

As for Netflix, the company is unlikely to change its mind when it comes to casting. Netflix declined to comment when asked if it would discontinue this feature. My best guess is that casting was sacrificed in favor of new features like cloud gaming and interactive voting. Gaming in particular already involves multi-device connectivity, since Netflix uses phones as game controllers. Adding casting to that mix might just have proved too complex.

However, not everyone has given up on casting. In fact, the technology continues to gain new supporters. Last month, Apple added Google Cast support to its Apple TV app on Android for the first time. And over the past couple of years, Samsung and LG have integrated Google’s streaming technology into some of their TVs.

“Google Cast continues to be a key experience we’re investing in, bringing the convenience of seamless content sharing from phones to TVs, whether you’re at home or staying in a hotel,” says Neha Dixit, PM of Google’s Android platform. “Stay tuned for more this year.”

Google’s efforts face competition from the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the group behind the Matter smart home standard, which has developed its own Matter Casting protocol. Matter Casting promises to be a more open approach to casting and in theory allows streaming services and device makers to bring second-screen use cases to their apps and devices without having to strike deals with Google.

“We have long been proponents of using open technology standards to give customers more choice when it comes to using their devices and services,” says Tapas Roy, Amazon’s vice president of device software and services, whose company is a major backer of Matter and its streaming technology. “We welcome and support media developers who want to build on an open standard with the implementation of Matter Casting.”

So far, however, support has been limited. Fire TV and Echo Show displays remain the only devices to support Matter Casting, and Amazon’s own apps have long been the only ones to use the feature. Last month, Tubi also joined the group by integrating Matter Casting into its mobile apps.

Christopher LaPré, technology strategist for the Connectivity Standards Alliance, acknowledges that Matter Casting has not yet become a breakthrough success. “To be honest, I have Fire TVs and I’ve never used them,” he says.

In addition to the lack of available content, LaPré also believes that Matter Casting is a victim of brand confusion. The problem: TV makers have started integrating Matter into their devices to let consumers control smart lights and thermostats from their couch. For this reason, a TV that has the Matter logo does not necessarily support Matter Casting.

However, LaPré also believes that Matter Casting could benefit from two new developments: Matter recently added support for cameras, which adds a new type of local content that people might want to stream. And the consortium is still working to bring casting beyond the screens.

“Audio casting is something we’re working on,” confirms LaPré. “A lot of speaking companies are interested in it.” The plan is to launch Matter audio casting later this year, at which point device makers, publishers and consumers could also give another look at video casting.