Play later seems like a wannabe gangster. Except the rare scenario (subway, airplane, and ...) where you don't have internet, it has no use-case.
You make a fair point, but I don't think the rare scenario is quite as rare as you make it out to be. I ride the subway for about forty minutes every day, and travel on long flights about six or seven times a year. I initially subscribed to PlayLater because I wanted to access streaming content without being tethered to a Wi-Fi connection.
I could have pirated it, but the creators don't get any money that way. I figure that with PlayLater, at least I'm still making use of a subscription that I pay for, just shifting the content in a way that's more convenient to consume. Is it legal? Maybe. That's one of the reasons I was interested in writing the piece.