I've always thought house automation was cool, but a lot of trouble and likely to wind up a waste of my time and effort once I stop using it in three years because whatever standard I was using became obsolete. But if Netflix can start automating my house one bit at a time and slowly sneak up on me...
I'm not saying it isn't on their radar, but this particular project is clearly for fun.
This is part of a marketing campaign not unlike the office depot "easy" button, except they've designed an actual button that sort-of works.
The point is to get people excited about the idea of a Netflix marathon and create some buzz among geeky subscribers. It doesn't matter how many people actually create or use "the button".
If I had to attribute anything, it's more of a recruiting move. They want clever hacker geeks working for them. Maybe they are moving into home automation and this will be an interview question? I dunno how effective that is, though. I think someone just said, yeah, screw it, let's do it!
I doubt they would piggyback on others' home automation systems and standards if that were their goal.