I never let episodes in a series autoplay on netflix, but the other night I did and it paused a few minutes in to make me click to continue.
I assumed this was to protect their bandwidth. They don't want users streaming a whole series while they sleep (or aren't in the room for that matter).
I did wonder if the interruption was based on time of day, since it was late at night.
No, it's contractual. Netflix cannot act as a "broadcast" service due to the way they license content. It means that there is a limit to how many pieces of content they can play without any user interaction (a user-interaction will classify the play as "on-demand" as opposed to "broadcast").
(Yes, I'm a former employee who worked on the auto-play feature).
I assumed this was to protect their bandwidth. They don't want users streaming a whole series while they sleep (or aren't in the room for that matter).
I did wonder if the interruption was based on time of day, since it was late at night.