Here's one thing that might make you buy a new TV: Losing Netflix support
You may not be thinking about buying a new TV, but in the future, you might be compelled to do it sooner rather than later — and not just because the old one broke.
BGR reported Tuesday that Netflix will stop supporting some Samsung smart TV models after Dec. 1. The company wouldn't give a list of models just yet, but a rep did tell CNET that "Netflix will no longer be supported on a small number of older devices due to technical limitations."
The company's list of compatible devices currently merely says that "Smart TVs have Netflix already" without listing specific models that are incompatible.
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As for Samsung, the company had a notice about the issue on its support page that appears to be gone now. Mashable has contacted Samsung and will update this article when we hear back.
UPDATE: Nov. 7, 2019, 8:24 a.m. CET In a post on its support forums, Samsung clarified that the TVs losing Netflix support are "2010 and 2011 models, with C or D after the screen size in the model code".
"These devices will no longer support Netflix directly beginning December 1st, 2019," Samsung wrote, but "many other devices you may have connected to your TV are still supported."
It doesn't seem there's much you can do about this besides buying a new TV, or a complementary device such as Apple TV or Roku that supports Netflix. Note that Netflix said last month that it will stop working on certain older Roku devices after Dec. 1 as well.
As an owner of a 10-year old Samsung smart TV, I have to wonder whether this includes me. I had no intention of buying a new TV soon, but streaming services such as Netflix and HBO Go are important to me; should they stop working, I guess I'll have to spend some money to fix that.
Smart TVs have been around for more than a decade, and in recent years it was near-impossible to buy a TV that wasn't smart. The fact that older models aren't good enough to support new software isn't unusual; it happens on all hardware, including smartphones and computers. But it does make you wonder whether the next TV you buy will be something that lasts a decade — or just a couple of years.
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
