6 ms·

I'm not sure I care that they are trying to get people to stop sharing accounts. At large, that feels fine and I'm always curious the lengths people will go th

by taeric 4y ago

I'm not sure I care that they are trying to get people to stop sharing accounts. At large, that feels fine and I'm always curious the lengths people will go through to not pay a small subscription fee. Especially for things they actively use the heck out of. (Notably, I seem to only know of people that do this where both sides of the share watch a ton of television.) I am not at all looking forward to it again thinking I'm sharing my account within the same household. Last time they were trying this, I had to setup the kids TVs, again. Was very annoying.

fbernier 4y ago
I can't think of a way they can enforce almost anything without annoying a bunch of people with false positives. If someone has a secondary home like a chalet they go to from time to time, they'd have to pay for a second account?
- tptacek 4y ago
  No, because they do explicit vacation passes. If you literally maintain two households --- or, like my family, have a kid in a college apartment --- you're probably going to have to spring for a second account. Which, fair enough: the college apartment also requires us to spring for a second ISP bill, second utilities, second toaster; it was nice to get away with not duplicating the Netflix bill, but not reasonable to feel entitled to it.
  - taeric 4y ago
    Probably will impact folks that travel and want to watch while away from home. Specifically, those where their family did not travel with them. That said, probably easy enough to deal with that, as I'm guessing most of them take a common device with them? Not sure. But, yeah, your example is pretty much how I view this. Was nice for a few cases where it was working. But hardly earth shattering.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      I don't know anything about Netflix's system, but similar-seeming anti-fraud systems just fingerprint devices. Chances are, if you normally watch from your laptop or iPad and travel a lot, you're not going to notice any changes.
      - taeric 4y ago
        Exactly. Is what I tried to allude to with "common device." That said, with how many folks leave their contacts in rental cars, I wouldn't be too shocked to know folks try to login at other locations. I imagine that would be a popular integration with hotel booking systems. Basically, make it so your netflix is attached to the hotel tv when you get there. My gut is that hotels also don't want that?
  - earthling8118 4y ago
    No, it is not "fair enough". Those aren't the same situations. You need to pay a second ISP bill because that requires physical infrastructure to be laid down and maintained. Same with utilities and the toaster. Once you have the network connection you can access Netflix just fine. Unless they place an arbitrary restriction on it.
    - taeric 4y ago
      Me thinks you haven't given much (any?) consideration to how much physical infrastructure Netflix has sprinkled around so that streaming works well.
      - earthling8118 4y ago
        Then they shouldn't sell multi-screen plans. I don't particularly care about how much they spend on infrastructure-- that's not my problem. If I'm a customer I expect to be able to use what I pay for
    - andsoitis 4y ago
      By that logic, everyone on earth can share a single account! Perhaps you didn’t know, but Netflix operates one of the biggest CDNs on the planet: https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/ https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/
      - dns_snek 4y ago
        > By that logic, everyone on earth can share a single account! I suppose we can take turns watching content on their 3 screen(!) plan. My ticket #1,204,394,701 should come up in around 30,000 years.
      - crayboff 4y ago
        If I pay for 7.88 billion concurrent streams, yeah I would expect to be able to have everyone access it
      - earthling8118 4y ago
- hirundo 4y ago
  Presumably they know when they are streaming for a given account. They could simply say an account can be used for a single stream, and decline to start a second concurrent stream for the same account. Include download playbacks as a form of stream. The headache of coordinating watch times when sharing accounts would incentivise additional subscriptions.
  - taeric 4y ago
    That is precisely what they shouldn't do. I have several televisions and devices in my one house. Granted... We don't actually watch too much television, such that it may not actually impact us if they do it this way. Still, I imagine many families with children would be heavily impacted by this strategy.
- joe463369 4y ago
  Yes! You have a second home and it's a chalet. You can afford two Netflix subs.
nickthegreek 4y ago
This is the thing, I pay for a family plan with 4 concurrent streams. I allow my mom and brother to use this account. They barely use it. But the service isn't worth $20 to me if they cut them off. I will just cancel it, and they wont pick it up either. If you sell me 4 concurrent streams, then I want to be able to use them regardless of physical location.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  So you’re paying $20 for a service that you and your brother and your mother barely use? Why?
  - smugma 4y ago
    If a movie rental is $6 and you watch one movie a month, it’s maybe worth it if 3 people are watching 1 movie a month (plus a little extra). But not worth $20 for 1 movie or show a month. Better off just renting stuff or buying shows. Or for some people, worth toggling subscriptions as needed eg I subscribed to Hulu to watch The Bear, Peacock for the Olympics, Fox for the World Cup, etc. Then cancelled immediately after (with Apple I can cancel immediately after subscribing, so I don’t forget!)
  - nickthegreek 4y ago
    I signed up to Netflix prestreaming. When they switched to streaming, it was a great deal. They had loads of content and no competition. That is not the case anymore. I continued to pay because I used it enough that it was worth it. Then I kept it because my mother and brother couldn't afford it on their own and I wanted to provide some value to them. Netflix is making me re-evaluate the value they provide us. Here is a corporation that I have been paying for for over 15 years. My oldest subscription. If they are about to lose me, imagine how many others are on the fence as well.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      You should cancel Netflix!
- 4y ago
torstenvl 4y ago
> that feels fine Sure. It's also fine for everyone they're betraying to cancel their subscriptions. I don't understand what your point is. Are you saying it isn't fine to be upset? Netflix specifically promoted account sharing. Paying for multiple streams, "love is sharing your password," etc. And they made millions of dollars off that marketing during the pandemic lockdowns. Now they want to pull the rug out from under people. They deserve every bit of criticism they're getting.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  While it isn’t unnatural to react so emotionally to this, I think the only thing to really ask yourself is: do you enjoy the shows and movies that Netflix has? Is it worth the price? If the answer is yes, then who cares how they evolve their terms?
  - taeric 4y ago
    This is a funny aspect to me. I'm much more likely to cancel if they keep canceling shows after a season. :D
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - torstenvl 4y ago
    No. The only thing to ask yourself is: do you allow antisocial behavior to go unpunished? Your proposed heuristic is both objectively terrible from a game-theoretical perspective and completely unnatural for any primate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#The_iterated_prisoner's_dilemma https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#The_ite... https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1220806110 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1220806110
    - andsoitis 4y ago
      > allow antisocial behavior to go unpunished? I don't know where people get the energy from to do this sort of thing. It must be exhausting.
neogodless 4y ago
Because there are so many services just like Netflix, I cancel the ones I'm not using. Netflix is the only one I share with my in-laws, who watch a few episodes a week on it. But I also don't care to cancel it when they are using it. That's a human thing, not a money thing. Take that away, and I will happily cancel Netflix for at least half the year, and only have it active when a particularly compelling show comes along for binging. It is at least twice as expensive as the other services, so I'd prefer not to have it active 12 months out of the year.
BFLpL0QNek 4y ago
Yes. Not to bothered about the account sharing but it’s looking like it may add a bunch of friction to use Netflix away from your primary residence/device. If the friction becomes to much, Netflix looses its value and illegal downloads look more appealing again. When current budgets are tight I can’t see how Netflix wins with this as likely will push away users as it’s a non essential service with declining content quality as they’ve gone for quantity not quality now and Netflix isn’t the only streaming provider in town now.
spike021 4y ago
If I have an apartment and I'm single, but the plan that best fits my needs has an allowance for streaming on two or four devices at once, then why should I not be able to share that extra device I'm never using but paying for?

by taeric 4y ago

fbernier 4y ago

I can't think of a way they can enforce almost anything without annoying a bunch of people with false positives. If someone has a secondary home like a chalet they go to from time to time, they'd have to pay for a second account?

tptacek 4y ago
No, because they do explicit vacation passes. If you literally maintain two households --- or, like my family, have a kid in a college apartment --- you're probably going to have to spring for a second account. Which, fair enough: the college apartment also requires us to spring for a second ISP bill, second utilities, second toaster; it was nice to get away with not duplicating the Netflix bill, but not reasonable to feel entitled to it.
- taeric 4y ago
  Probably will impact folks that travel and want to watch while away from home. Specifically, those where their family did not travel with them. That said, probably easy enough to deal with that, as I'm guessing most of them take a common device with them? Not sure. But, yeah, your example is pretty much how I view this. Was nice for a few cases where it was working. But hardly earth shattering.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    I don't know anything about Netflix's system, but similar-seeming anti-fraud systems just fingerprint devices. Chances are, if you normally watch from your laptop or iPad and travel a lot, you're not going to notice any changes.
    - taeric 4y ago
      Exactly. Is what I tried to allude to with "common device." That said, with how many folks leave their contacts in rental cars, I wouldn't be too shocked to know folks try to login at other locations. I imagine that would be a popular integration with hotel booking systems. Basically, make it so your netflix is attached to the hotel tv when you get there. My gut is that hotels also don't want that?
- earthling8118 4y ago
  No, it is not "fair enough". Those aren't the same situations. You need to pay a second ISP bill because that requires physical infrastructure to be laid down and maintained. Same with utilities and the toaster. Once you have the network connection you can access Netflix just fine. Unless they place an arbitrary restriction on it.
  - taeric 4y ago
    Me thinks you haven't given much (any?) consideration to how much physical infrastructure Netflix has sprinkled around so that streaming works well.
    - earthling8118 4y ago
      Then they shouldn't sell multi-screen plans. I don't particularly care about how much they spend on infrastructure-- that's not my problem. If I'm a customer I expect to be able to use what I pay for
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    By that logic, everyone on earth can share a single account! Perhaps you didn’t know, but Netflix operates one of the biggest CDNs on the planet: https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/ https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/
    - dns_snek 4y ago
      > By that logic, everyone on earth can share a single account! I suppose we can take turns watching content on their 3 screen(!) plan. My ticket #1,204,394,701 should come up in around 30,000 years.
    - crayboff 4y ago
      If I pay for 7.88 billion concurrent streams, yeah I would expect to be able to have everyone access it
    - earthling8118 4y ago
hirundo 4y ago
Presumably they know when they are streaming for a given account. They could simply say an account can be used for a single stream, and decline to start a second concurrent stream for the same account. Include download playbacks as a form of stream. The headache of coordinating watch times when sharing accounts would incentivise additional subscriptions.
- taeric 4y ago
  That is precisely what they shouldn't do. I have several televisions and devices in my one house. Granted... We don't actually watch too much television, such that it may not actually impact us if they do it this way. Still, I imagine many families with children would be heavily impacted by this strategy.
joe463369 4y ago
Yes! You have a second home and it's a chalet. You can afford two Netflix subs.

nickthegreek 4y ago

This is the thing, I pay for a family plan with 4 concurrent streams. I allow my mom and brother to use this account. They barely use it. But the service isn't worth $20 to me if they cut them off. I will just cancel it, and they wont pick it up either. If you sell me 4 concurrent streams, then I want to be able to use them regardless of physical location.

andsoitis 4y ago
So you’re paying $20 for a service that you and your brother and your mother barely use? Why?
- smugma 4y ago
  If a movie rental is $6 and you watch one movie a month, it’s maybe worth it if 3 people are watching 1 movie a month (plus a little extra). But not worth $20 for 1 movie or show a month. Better off just renting stuff or buying shows. Or for some people, worth toggling subscriptions as needed eg I subscribed to Hulu to watch The Bear, Peacock for the Olympics, Fox for the World Cup, etc. Then cancelled immediately after (with Apple I can cancel immediately after subscribing, so I don’t forget!)
- nickthegreek 4y ago
  I signed up to Netflix prestreaming. When they switched to streaming, it was a great deal. They had loads of content and no competition. That is not the case anymore. I continued to pay because I used it enough that it was worth it. Then I kept it because my mother and brother couldn't afford it on their own and I wanted to provide some value to them. Netflix is making me re-evaluate the value they provide us. Here is a corporation that I have been paying for for over 15 years. My oldest subscription. If they are about to lose me, imagine how many others are on the fence as well.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    You should cancel Netflix!
4y ago

torstenvl 4y ago

> that feels fine Sure. It's also fine for everyone they're betraying to cancel their subscriptions. I don't understand what your point is. Are you saying it isn't fine to be upset? Netflix specifically promoted account sharing. Paying for multiple streams, "love is sharing your password," etc. And they made millions of dollars off that marketing during the pandemic lockdowns. Now they want to pull the rug out from under people. They deserve every bit of criticism they're getting.

andsoitis 4y ago
While it isn’t unnatural to react so emotionally to this, I think the only thing to really ask yourself is: do you enjoy the shows and movies that Netflix has? Is it worth the price? If the answer is yes, then who cares how they evolve their terms?
- taeric 4y ago
  This is a funny aspect to me. I'm much more likely to cancel if they keep canceling shows after a season. :D
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- torstenvl 4y ago
  No. The only thing to ask yourself is: do you allow antisocial behavior to go unpunished? Your proposed heuristic is both objectively terrible from a game-theoretical perspective and completely unnatural for any primate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#The_iterated_prisoner's_dilemma https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#The_ite... https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1220806110 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1220806110
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    > allow antisocial behavior to go unpunished? I don't know where people get the energy from to do this sort of thing. It must be exhausting.

neogodless 4y ago

Because there are so many services just like Netflix, I cancel the ones I'm not using. Netflix is the only one I share with my in-laws, who watch a few episodes a week on it. But I also don't care to cancel it when they are using it. That's a human thing, not a money thing. Take that away, and I will happily cancel Netflix for at least half the year, and only have it active when a particularly compelling show comes along for binging. It is at least twice as expensive as the other services, so I'd prefer not to have it active 12 months out of the year.

BFLpL0QNek 4y ago

Yes. Not to bothered about the account sharing but it’s looking like it may add a bunch of friction to use Netflix away from your primary residence/device. If the friction becomes to much, Netflix looses its value and illegal downloads look more appealing again. When current budgets are tight I can’t see how Netflix wins with this as likely will push away users as it’s a non essential service with declining content quality as they’ve gone for quantity not quality now and Netflix isn’t the only streaming provider in town now.

spike021 4y ago

If I have an apartment and I'm single, but the plan that best fits my needs has an allowance for streaming on two or four devices at once, then why should I not be able to share that extra device I'm never using but paying for?