Students living in campus housing might have to find a new way to procrastinate. The University announced March 24 that AirPennNet will no longer support Netflix.
Penn President Amy Gutmann emphasized that Penn made the decision — effective March 26 at midnight — for mostly financial reasons, citing the large toll it takes on the bandwidth for thousands of students to be watching high quality videos at the same time. Still, she noted the decision comes with the added benefit of refocusing students on their studies and peers.
“We live in a world where we interact more with our screens than with each other,” Gutmann said. “There are so many things to experience on this campus. This seemed like the best way to make sure students make the most of their time at Penn.”
But students are less than thrilled with the change.
“Banning Netflix won’t help me refocus on my studies,” College junior Peter Russo said. “If anything, it’s only going to remind me that I don’t have my life together.”
“This is really inhibiting our ability to watch cinematic magic,” Engineering sophomore, J.L.C. Man said.
Several students said they felt blindsided by the announcement.
“They gave us no time to prepare,” Wharton sophomore Nicole Nichols said. “I still have the entire third season of “House of Cards" left. Now I’m going to have to skip all of my Wednesday classes to binge watch.”
Of course, students may still find their favorite shows through pirated websites or even Hulu, but Penn is working on disabling the ability to access these websites as well.
“AirPennNet is designed as a platform to support the academic endeavors of Penn students,” Gutmann said. “We shouldn’t be using tuition dollars on students’ bad habits.”
A protest will be held on Friday at noon on Drexel’s campus. Over 500 students have already said on Facebook they would attend the demonstration, where students will storm into the Drexel library and obtain a Drexel WiFi login to watch their favorite shows.
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