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It's funny. Right now I have access to around 5 streaming services while I only pay for 2. My girlfriend's friend has access to Netflix, my sis HBO. I provide a

It's funny. Right now I have access to around 5 streaming services while I only pay for 2. My girlfriend's friend has access to Netflix, my sis HBO. I provide access to Disney+ and Prime to my family. I used to get YT premium from my sis's boyfriend, but they detected I'm not in the family household and they kicked me out. If it wasn't because other people use my accounts (and I use theirs), I wouldn't be paying for disney+ or A. Prime. Maybe other people are in the same situation as me. There's a tenuous balance in the streaming service subscriptions thanks to the fact that people can share their accounts. If they close the door to account sharing, maybe the subscriptions will start falling like domino pieces.

dmix 3y ago
> I used to get YT premium from my sis's boyfriend, but they detected I'm not in the family household and they kicked me out. I'm surprised you achieved that at all. Google accounts are locked down hardcore... As it should be My gf wanted me to share my ChatGPT plus account but I signed up via Gmail and it was impossible. All of these sites can easily lock it down but choose not to. We're probably living in the Golden era. Although I still think Netflix's multi location accounts are far more expensive than their utility. And I fully see Netflix as an essential service but spending $35CAD/m is a serious consideration when I already buy 4 streaming devices that will very likely result in $18/m max if I pull the trigger.
- dom96 3y ago
  Funnily enough creating a service that allows ChatGPT to be shared seems rather easy to build.
  - epolanski 3y ago
    Good luck monetizing it or even post the source code on GH and not be legally bullied..
- finnish-food 3y ago
  “ living in the Golden era.” If you actually lived in a Golden Era entertainment would be free, quality, and meant to enrich the people instead of advertise and moralize to them. I really don’t understand how a DVD collection is an “essential service” either. Or why you would effectively choose not to look at your watching statistics and then simply buy the media you watch the most. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/134503468553 https://www.ebay.ca/itm/134503468553 https://www.ebay.ca/itm/285243804109 https://www.ebay.ca/itm/285243804109 https://www.ebay.ca/itm/145050977289 https://www.ebay.ca/itm/145050977289 Why not just buy what you like?
  - automatic6131 3y ago
    >meant to enrich the people >not to moralize to them I feel the current crop of writers employed by Disney, Netflix, Amazon etc. cannot tell the difference between these two.
    - finnish-food 3y ago
      No they cannot. And I am not just speaking in abstract terms, in the 1960s and 1970s (and even before) many shows were made that had a moral core but did not moralize at the audience. Shows like Star Trek, The Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, etc. which would question or discuss complex ideas without turning them into soap operas or basic dramas. The only shows that I can think of like that now are Black Mirror or perhaps your odd HBO offering, but those are not shining examples, and often, even if they do discuss or engage with deeper concepts or ideas, it’s not handled in a way that allows for nuance. (Black Mirror is happy to be quite crass at moments, same with HBO and other “top-tier” shows.)
      - pjc50 3y ago
        > Shows like Star Trek, The Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, etc. which would question or discuss complex ideas without turning them into soap operas or basic dramas. There's something in this. Tickbox diversity is a lazy solution that doesn't really satisfy people who want broader representation while at the same time causes the rightwing culture warriors to go increasingly berzerk. Writers need to get better at doing incidentally diverse shows, because "hello I'm a token look at me" is bad characterization. Or address it by commissioning a broader range of shows from different settings; not everything needs to be a flagship. While at the same time there are still lots of odd misses (Ghost in the Shell 2017 managed to annoy almost everybody in this regard).
- MadSudaca 3y ago
  For YT premium it's not necessary to share your account, you can become part of the google family group and tie the group to the YT premium subscription. They realized that I don't live in the same household (I am quite far away), so it was pretty easy for them I guess. It's funny that they didn't explicitly kick me out. They simply asked me to contact their customer support and certify that I did indeed live in the same household.
- Macacity 3y ago
  Youtube has a Family Plan where you can add other google accounts to your family. So everyone is on their own google account.
Varqu 3y ago
It's interesting to see that free market competition actually worsened the customer offering when it comes to streaming services. Back in the days, Netflix was a one-to-see-all service and that was also one of the reasons why it took people from torrenting to paying for movies. Nowadays, if you want to watch a particular movie, you have maybe a 10% chance that it is available on the streaming service that you are currently paying for. And it makes more sense to just buy it directly, than pay monthly.
- mypastself 3y ago
  The competition against another media giant, Blockbuster, created Netflix in the first place. It wasn’t a state-owned monopoly.
  - oblio 3y ago
    Yeah, but there was no real competition for Netflix' main business, streaming, for at least 5 years, when everyone was happy with the show selection.
    - mypastself 3y ago
      That’s correct, and I’m personally dissatisfied with the content currently available on Netflix, as well as the distribution of content across too many services. But it would be disingenuous to describe it as a market failure when the market was responsible for creating the industry in the first place. If there’s a critical mass of consumers unhappy with the current streaming landscape, providers will be forced to improve or risk being replaced by superior competitors. That’s what happened to Blockbuster as well, and what I suspect is going to happen to many major providers in the coming years.
- pjc50 3y ago
  As an old movie kind of guy: I don't get why nobody wants me to have a big economical catalogue of all the movies. If you want to watch stuff from before about 1990 your best bet is pirating it off Youtube, oddly. Or hoping it's part of the 20th Century Fox that ended up on Disney+. The most generous film studio is .. Mosfilm. I suppose it's fitting that the Communist movies are available for free. (Criterion looks promising but is a long way from all movies and US/CA only)
m000 3y ago
> If they close the door to account sharing, maybe the subscriptions will start falling like domino pieces. If people turn out to not watch that much content to warrant 3-4 subscriptions per (strict) household, I wonder if this could lead to a Highlander-like streaming showdown: There can be only one. The thing there is that Netflix should try to avoid the showdown, not push towards it, because they are the least equipped to win: - Disney+, HBO Max (Warner) -> Own/produce AAA content. - Prime Video -> Deep pockets, bundled as value added service, own distribution infra. - Apple -> Very deep pockets, customer loyalty. - Netflix -> ???
- brnt 3y ago
  Netflix has a looooooong arm of international content. Which is probably an important reason why they are by far the largest internationally. I don't see anyone replicating that anytime soon.
  - m000 3y ago
    Good point. Which makes me wonder why Netflix pushed back against EU regulation that would put content origin quotas [1]. They should be lobbying for that, as they would have to do very little (compared e.g. to Disney+ or Amazon) to be compliant. [1] https://tbivision.com/2022/12/09/exclusive-streamers-push-back-as-european-commission-explores-origins-of-content/ https://tbivision.com/2022/12/09/exclusive-streamers-push-ba...
    - throwaway290 3y ago
      That international content is quantity but not AAA quality. Dark is probably among the best and it doesn't clear the bar... 1899 is better, but cut short after 1 season. Most others are noticeably low budget.
      - rtpg 3y ago
        What quality bar does Dark not clear? American shows do of course get wild budgets and can do some crazy stuff, but there’s good international tv
moffkalast 3y ago
That sounds complicated, but with today's sponsor - piracy - you can get any content from any subscription service with just a few clicks for the low price of zero dollars. Sharing is caring :)
- ryan-allen 3y ago
  It's often of poor quality and not in 4k. I rented a movie from YouTube the other day and the stream supported HDR, and if I had a 5.1 surround that would have worked, too! If you're not watching 4 hours of TV per day it's not that expensive to rent content, but I'm saying this from the point of a westerner. For other parts of the world a $5 USD for a movie for 48 hours doesn't make any sense over straight up piracy.
  - rvschuilenburg 3y ago
    > It's often of poor quality and not in 4k. This really depends on how good of a pirate you are. If you put in some effort, you'll be watching 4k blu-ray movies in a higher bitrate than streaming services offer.
    - manmal 3y ago
      Yep. I actually prefer, ahem, sourced content because it looks better even on my iPhone. Apple TV+ is pretty good, but the other services are really stingy with bitrate.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - manmal 3y ago
    I haven't encountered poor quality recently on usenet. Except for shows that are so old that it doesn't make sense to go higher than 720p. The tooling has also improved greatly and can be automated to the point that getting a whole series is a matter of 2-3 clicks.
  - WelcomeShorty 3y ago
ryan-allen 3y ago
I've been a subscriber to basically everything for years. The only reason I haven't cancelled 90% of them is because my retired parents use my accounts. I almost never use the streaming services they use (I use YouTube Premium _a lot_, but I don't share that). Given our combined minor usage, the day they lock one of us out it's all over, I'm cancelling them all! I don't invest in streaming produced series any more as they have a tendency to want to eat their cake and have it too. They won't tie up a series but don't commit to producing a second one to tie it up, then arbitrary cancel them. It's like reading The Hobbit and the last two chapters are missing, never to be written, and there are plenty of actually finished books out there!
wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
Hahah yeah same, all my exes still use my netflix. Along with my mother and sister. Also my ex shared my Disney with friends, so 2 other families are now also using it. Ah well, as long as no issues, the more the merrier.
itslennysfault 3y ago
Similar situation for me. I've had Netflix since it was DVDs by mail. I still pay for Netflix, but rarely use it. First time my sisters can't use it I'll delete my account. I honestly just don't use it enough to justify the price.
madsbuch 3y ago
I think a lot of people are only holding their accounts because someone they love use it for access. These people would probably cancel it first thing, if their loved ones can not use it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
mitchdoogle 3y ago
As Netflix says, they end up with more subscribers at the end of the day. I'm sure all these services will follow suit once they reach some point of growth, or rather a halt to growth. It's kind of crazy they've let it go on this long. It's weird people actually have the gall to complain about this move like they feel they deserve to get things for free. Either you pay for the service and password-sharing doesn't affect you, or you freeload off someone else and you're getting it for free. Either way, there's not much reason to complain
- sidfthec 3y ago
  > It's weird people actually have the gall to complain about this move like they feel they deserve to get things for free. That's a strange thing to say, when Netflix blessed the behavior: https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712?lang=en https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712?lang=e... It was part of the business model. I've certainly kept my subscription longer because family was using it, so they've gotten more money from me by allowing password sharing.
- MadSudaca 3y ago
  How do you know they’ll end with more subscribers?
  - nomel 3y ago
    This is across four countries. They've already seen growth in Canada [1]. The math makes sense to me. If the average "sharer" shares with three people, they could lose 66% of the active users in the "sharing" population, before losing a single paying customer. Who knows what the average actually is [2]. [1] https://mobilesyrup.com/2023/04/18/netflix-password-sharing-crackdown-canada-results/ https://mobilesyrup.com/2023/04/18/netflix-password-sharing-... [2] sharing with everyone at work? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35719281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35719281

dmix 3y ago

> I used to get YT premium from my sis's boyfriend, but they detected I'm not in the family household and they kicked me out. I'm surprised you achieved that at all. Google accounts are locked down hardcore... As it should be My gf wanted me to share my ChatGPT plus account but I signed up via Gmail and it was impossible. All of these sites can easily lock it down but choose not to. We're probably living in the Golden era. Although I still think Netflix's multi location accounts are far more expensive than their utility. And I fully see Netflix as an essential service but spending $35CAD/m is a serious consideration when I already buy 4 streaming devices that will very likely result in $18/m max if I pull the trigger.

dom96 3y ago
Funnily enough creating a service that allows ChatGPT to be shared seems rather easy to build.
- epolanski 3y ago
  Good luck monetizing it or even post the source code on GH and not be legally bullied..
finnish-food 3y ago
“ living in the Golden era.” If you actually lived in a Golden Era entertainment would be free, quality, and meant to enrich the people instead of advertise and moralize to them. I really don’t understand how a DVD collection is an “essential service” either. Or why you would effectively choose not to look at your watching statistics and then simply buy the media you watch the most. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/134503468553 https://www.ebay.ca/itm/134503468553 https://www.ebay.ca/itm/285243804109 https://www.ebay.ca/itm/285243804109 https://www.ebay.ca/itm/145050977289 https://www.ebay.ca/itm/145050977289 Why not just buy what you like?
- automatic6131 3y ago
  >meant to enrich the people >not to moralize to them I feel the current crop of writers employed by Disney, Netflix, Amazon etc. cannot tell the difference between these two.
  - finnish-food 3y ago
    No they cannot. And I am not just speaking in abstract terms, in the 1960s and 1970s (and even before) many shows were made that had a moral core but did not moralize at the audience. Shows like Star Trek, The Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, etc. which would question or discuss complex ideas without turning them into soap operas or basic dramas. The only shows that I can think of like that now are Black Mirror or perhaps your odd HBO offering, but those are not shining examples, and often, even if they do discuss or engage with deeper concepts or ideas, it’s not handled in a way that allows for nuance. (Black Mirror is happy to be quite crass at moments, same with HBO and other “top-tier” shows.)
    - pjc50 3y ago
      > Shows like Star Trek, The Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, etc. which would question or discuss complex ideas without turning them into soap operas or basic dramas. There's something in this. Tickbox diversity is a lazy solution that doesn't really satisfy people who want broader representation while at the same time causes the rightwing culture warriors to go increasingly berzerk. Writers need to get better at doing incidentally diverse shows, because "hello I'm a token look at me" is bad characterization. Or address it by commissioning a broader range of shows from different settings; not everything needs to be a flagship. While at the same time there are still lots of odd misses (Ghost in the Shell 2017 managed to annoy almost everybody in this regard).
MadSudaca 3y ago
For YT premium it's not necessary to share your account, you can become part of the google family group and tie the group to the YT premium subscription. They realized that I don't live in the same household (I am quite far away), so it was pretty easy for them I guess. It's funny that they didn't explicitly kick me out. They simply asked me to contact their customer support and certify that I did indeed live in the same household.
Macacity 3y ago
Youtube has a Family Plan where you can add other google accounts to your family. So everyone is on their own google account.

Varqu 3y ago

It's interesting to see that free market competition actually worsened the customer offering when it comes to streaming services. Back in the days, Netflix was a one-to-see-all service and that was also one of the reasons why it took people from torrenting to paying for movies. Nowadays, if you want to watch a particular movie, you have maybe a 10% chance that it is available on the streaming service that you are currently paying for. And it makes more sense to just buy it directly, than pay monthly.

mypastself 3y ago
The competition against another media giant, Blockbuster, created Netflix in the first place. It wasn’t a state-owned monopoly.
- oblio 3y ago
  Yeah, but there was no real competition for Netflix' main business, streaming, for at least 5 years, when everyone was happy with the show selection.
  - mypastself 3y ago
    That’s correct, and I’m personally dissatisfied with the content currently available on Netflix, as well as the distribution of content across too many services. But it would be disingenuous to describe it as a market failure when the market was responsible for creating the industry in the first place. If there’s a critical mass of consumers unhappy with the current streaming landscape, providers will be forced to improve or risk being replaced by superior competitors. That’s what happened to Blockbuster as well, and what I suspect is going to happen to many major providers in the coming years.
pjc50 3y ago
As an old movie kind of guy: I don't get why nobody wants me to have a big economical catalogue of all the movies. If you want to watch stuff from before about 1990 your best bet is pirating it off Youtube, oddly. Or hoping it's part of the 20th Century Fox that ended up on Disney+. The most generous film studio is .. Mosfilm. I suppose it's fitting that the Communist movies are available for free. (Criterion looks promising but is a long way from all movies and US/CA only)

m000 3y ago

> If they close the door to account sharing, maybe the subscriptions will start falling like domino pieces. If people turn out to not watch that much content to warrant 3-4 subscriptions per (strict) household, I wonder if this could lead to a Highlander-like streaming showdown: There can be only one. The thing there is that Netflix should try to avoid the showdown, not push towards it, because they are the least equipped to win: - Disney+, HBO Max (Warner) -> Own/produce AAA content. - Prime Video -> Deep pockets, bundled as value added service, own distribution infra. - Apple -> Very deep pockets, customer loyalty. - Netflix -> ???

brnt 3y ago
Netflix has a looooooong arm of international content. Which is probably an important reason why they are by far the largest internationally. I don't see anyone replicating that anytime soon.
- m000 3y ago
  Good point. Which makes me wonder why Netflix pushed back against EU regulation that would put content origin quotas [1]. They should be lobbying for that, as they would have to do very little (compared e.g. to Disney+ or Amazon) to be compliant. [1] https://tbivision.com/2022/12/09/exclusive-streamers-push-back-as-european-commission-explores-origins-of-content/ https://tbivision.com/2022/12/09/exclusive-streamers-push-ba...
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    That international content is quantity but not AAA quality. Dark is probably among the best and it doesn't clear the bar... 1899 is better, but cut short after 1 season. Most others are noticeably low budget.
    - rtpg 3y ago
      What quality bar does Dark not clear? American shows do of course get wild budgets and can do some crazy stuff, but there’s good international tv

moffkalast 3y ago

That sounds complicated, but with today's sponsor - piracy - you can get any content from any subscription service with just a few clicks for the low price of zero dollars. Sharing is caring :)

ryan-allen 3y ago
It's often of poor quality and not in 4k. I rented a movie from YouTube the other day and the stream supported HDR, and if I had a 5.1 surround that would have worked, too! If you're not watching 4 hours of TV per day it's not that expensive to rent content, but I'm saying this from the point of a westerner. For other parts of the world a $5 USD for a movie for 48 hours doesn't make any sense over straight up piracy.
- rvschuilenburg 3y ago
  > It's often of poor quality and not in 4k. This really depends on how good of a pirate you are. If you put in some effort, you'll be watching 4k blu-ray movies in a higher bitrate than streaming services offer.
  - manmal 3y ago
    Yep. I actually prefer, ahem, sourced content because it looks better even on my iPhone. Apple TV+ is pretty good, but the other services are really stingy with bitrate.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- manmal 3y ago
  I haven't encountered poor quality recently on usenet. Except for shows that are so old that it doesn't make sense to go higher than 720p. The tooling has also improved greatly and can be automated to the point that getting a whole series is a matter of 2-3 clicks.
- WelcomeShorty 3y ago

ryan-allen 3y ago

I've been a subscriber to basically everything for years. The only reason I haven't cancelled 90% of them is because my retired parents use my accounts. I almost never use the streaming services they use (I use YouTube Premium _a lot_, but I don't share that). Given our combined minor usage, the day they lock one of us out it's all over, I'm cancelling them all! I don't invest in streaming produced series any more as they have a tendency to want to eat their cake and have it too. They won't tie up a series but don't commit to producing a second one to tie it up, then arbitrary cancel them. It's like reading The Hobbit and the last two chapters are missing, never to be written, and there are plenty of actually finished books out there!

wouldbecouldbe 3y ago

Hahah yeah same, all my exes still use my netflix. Along with my mother and sister. Also my ex shared my Disney with friends, so 2 other families are now also using it. Ah well, as long as no issues, the more the merrier.

itslennysfault 3y ago

Similar situation for me. I've had Netflix since it was DVDs by mail. I still pay for Netflix, but rarely use it. First time my sisters can't use it I'll delete my account. I honestly just don't use it enough to justify the price.

madsbuch 3y ago

I think a lot of people are only holding their accounts because someone they love use it for access. These people would probably cancel it first thing, if their loved ones can not use it.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

mitchdoogle 3y ago

As Netflix says, they end up with more subscribers at the end of the day. I'm sure all these services will follow suit once they reach some point of growth, or rather a halt to growth. It's kind of crazy they've let it go on this long. It's weird people actually have the gall to complain about this move like they feel they deserve to get things for free. Either you pay for the service and password-sharing doesn't affect you, or you freeload off someone else and you're getting it for free. Either way, there's not much reason to complain

sidfthec 3y ago
> It's weird people actually have the gall to complain about this move like they feel they deserve to get things for free. That's a strange thing to say, when Netflix blessed the behavior: https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712?lang=en https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712?lang=e... It was part of the business model. I've certainly kept my subscription longer because family was using it, so they've gotten more money from me by allowing password sharing.
MadSudaca 3y ago
How do you know they’ll end with more subscribers?
- nomel 3y ago
  This is across four countries. They've already seen growth in Canada [1]. The math makes sense to me. If the average "sharer" shares with three people, they could lose 66% of the active users in the "sharing" population, before losing a single paying customer. Who knows what the average actually is [2]. [1] https://mobilesyrup.com/2023/04/18/netflix-password-sharing-crackdown-canada-results/ https://mobilesyrup.com/2023/04/18/netflix-password-sharing-... [2] sharing with everyone at work? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35719281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35719281