© Unsplash/Glenn Carstens-Peters
As you know, watching your favorite films and series on Netflix, Prime Video or Disney+ is not without consequences for the planet . Online streaming has an environmental impact and Arcom is determined to limit the damage. To do this, consumers will have to change their habits.
To do this, Arcom strongly encourages platforms to better inform and raise awareness among their consumers. The regulator has just published several recommendations for broadcasters. According to him, the best solution would be to lower the image quality of your series.
Indeed, this small gesture could have a significant effect on the environmental impact of Internet users. In this sense, the regulator would like streaming platforms to offer an “energy sobriety” function to their subscribers.
An “energy sobriety” function for Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, YouTube?
Implementing an “energy saving” function should systematically reduce the image quality of your program and prevent new content from automatically playing. Of course, the platforms would take into account the size of the screen of the terminal or network used so as not to completely spoil the spectator experience. By thus limiting the exchange of data, the Internet user would also limit their environmental impact. A small gesture, therefore, which could have major consequences.
Obviously, in the eyes of the regulator, this functionality must be visible and accessible in two clicks maximum. In which case, few Internet users will take the trouble to activate this low energy consumption option. Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and others must, in this sense, highlight this function on their respective platforms.
The reminder of good actions does not eat bread. Consequently, streaming platforms are also encouraged to indicate simple actions to easily reduce environmental impact, such as switching off unused digital equipment and terminals or even preferring a fixed network to a mobile network for watching. online content.
Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and their competitors are invited to work hand in hand to establish a common methodology for calculating the environmental impact of audiovisual uses.
Given that we are talking about simple recommendations from Arcom, it remains to be seen whether streaming platforms will make the effort to put this “energy sobriety” in place and to apply the various suggestions of the regulator. Even so, users should not welcome this news with joy. On social networks, the idea of reducing the quality of one's image already seems to annoy more than one Internet user.
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