Can You Watch Netflix Offline?

Think back to maybe 10 years ago, when cable internet was just becoming a thing and download speeds quickly went from a few kilobytes a second to over a megabyte a second. It’s amazing what types of things have opened up online since internet started exponentially getting faster.

Things like YouTube, Netflix, Spotify and more, all streaming with very little buffering across almost any device. It’s even impressive to think about the future with advancements such as Google Fiber, that perhaps this whole internet thing is only destined to continue to speed up in the near future.

So what does this mean for all of our streaming services? Well, it seems likely that they might perhaps start offering offline mode, where you could select a few shows that download to a local device such as a phone, tablet or television set, thus allowing you to stream instantly on the device at a time of your choosing, regardless of internet usage. Think about how great it would be to binge watch your favorite television show on a long airplane ride.

The bad news is, Netflix doesn’t currently offer an offline mode, and has stated a few times that it isn’t interested in offering this type of service anytime in the near future. However, this seems like a perfect thing to offer subscribers as these internet speeds continue to increase and large quantities of storage become even easier to fit onto our mobile devices. Sure, saving a 2 GB HD movie to a phone might not seem that realistic now, it could very well be a lot more likely in the future right?

If I had to guess, I would think Netflix, or perhaps a competitor, would offer something along these lines within the next two years.