Why cant I watch Netflix in Safari on my Mac?

I have a 2009 iMac running OS High Sierra, and Safari 12.0.2.

Eric's advice to try another browser is your best option. According to this Netflix help document:

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742

with a few exception, you need a 2012 or later Mac for for their implementation of HTML5 to work.

Safari stopped supporting plugins for security reasons. I have read that the newest version of most browsers have also stopped.

Try another browser as a test.

Firefox        10.9 or higher

Opera Browser        10.9 or higher

SeaMonkey      10.9 or higher8

Waterfox          10.8 or higher

Safari 12 stopped support for most plugins, to include Silverlight.

They have , but as Allan posted, you need a 2012 or later Mac for for their implementation of HTML5 to work.

Yes, but we used to be able to have Silverlight installed to watch, while using Safari. Now we can't, so that means Safari can no longer be used by anyone with a pre-2012 Mac, for watching Netflix or Amazon Prime, period. That's pretty bad, cause I know I don't like to have two browsers open all the time, so it likely means Safari won't be one I'll use, even on my Macs... Thanks for Apple creating premature obsolescence yet again...

I have, and can watch it on Firefox, but haven't yet used Opera or Chrome since their last update, and I see now, Firefox wants to update. I'm a bit wary, as I don't want to update it (it was just updated within the last few weeks, till now) if it means I won't be able to see any streams.

I'm still on Sierra , 10.12.6, as I don't like updating system software until there's been at least a couple updates. But I'm getting the idea that I may have to, if every browser has ended using plugins. But if that is the case, wouldn't Netflix and Amazon be forced to switch as well?

WHY? What then are we supposed to do if we want to watch something on Netflix or Amazon Prime????