The service’s growing appeal is, by all accounts, a result of the increasing mobility of modern society. Remote participation is often the only option for those who live far away or have other barriers—financial, temporal, health-related—barring them from attending a funeral. Within the industry, it’s seen as a compromise, an additive component that expands the accessibility of a service. “It’s not designed to replace folks attending funerals,” said Posey. “A lot of folks just don’t live where their family grew up and it’s difficult to get back and forth.”

Secularization may also play a part in its growing acceptance, as what qualifies as an acceptable funeral becomes more flexible. “The rules are starting to become more plastic,” said Dr. Wendy Moncur, a researcher in socio-digital interaction at the University of Dundee. “There's more of a personal approach to funerals, rather than a formulaic approach of what was always done in a church.” In other words, as we release ourselves from the constraints of tradition, we find more space not only to better reflect the decedent’s personality, but also for modern tools.

It helps, of course, that webcasting has gotten better and cheaper over the years. The funeral industry is indeed an industry, and as the service became easier-to-use and more affordable over the past decade, it also became more common to see it as an offering in funeral homes. According to The New York Times, some establishments offer the option for free while others charge between $100 and $300. Compared to the other possible costs associated with a funeral (in 2012, the median cost of embalming was $695 and a metal casket was $2,395), webcasting is a bargain.

While the utility of funeral webcasting is clear, what is less apparent is the technology’s impact on the Westerns world’s relationship with death. For individual mourners, is it helpful or harmful to the grieving process? What happens if there’s a technical problem with the webcast—will we grieve even more knowing we missed the service in person and online? Does webcasting bode well for the future of death acceptance? Or does it only promote of our further alienation from that inevitable moment?

According to Carla Sofka, it’s still too early to tell. A professor of social work at Siena College, Sofka has been studying the interface of technology and grief since the mid-1990s. She thinks we simply don’t know enough yet about the possible psychological consequences of funeral webcasting to make those calls. “I think it’s important for people who have experience with [webcasts] to share their stories and to reach out to people like myself, so that we can continue to learn. Are they positive? Are they negative? Are they a mixed bag? Because I think the potential for all of those things to be true is there.”