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My guess is because latency is not relevant when it comes to streaming videos from Netflix. A consumer will not be able to notice their video took 40 milliseconds longer to start streaming. They will, however, notice when the video stops to buffer every 10-15 minutes because their ISP can't keep up with the throughput.

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Latency matters depending on the video player. At 1080p I find FLV streaming services with encryption tend to fall over unless your Internet connection is silly fast, including latency. Any delay, due to poor protocols or poor playback software, will cause the video to stop and rebuffer. Then again, perhaps the video is coming from sufficiently far away that in a live stream, I'd be right on the borderline of watchable if my ping on the wider internet spikes too much. Eh, what can I say. Every time I can boost the speed tier on my cable line, it seems to slightly improve ping and dramatically improve the reliability of my connection. Perhaps the longer things are transferring on the internet the more likely I'll see variability during the transfer?

Would latency affect the non-streaming parts of Netflix, e.g. browsing titles?

of course. but not greatly. Generally (depending on the client implementation). The actual download of the data (and the images) far eclipses latency issues.

30ms vs 160ms delay is irrelevant when it takes you 3 seconds to download all the image tiles :D

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