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Netflix: ”You get two parallel streams with your family. Family means trust and password sharing.“ Customers: “Farewell pirating. We pay a fair flat and it is

• webmobdev 3y ago
  According to a TF article in 2012 - https://torrentfreak.com/top-bittorrent-countries-in-the-world-top-torrent-towns-in-the-uk-120917/ https://torrentfreak.com/top-bittorrent-countries-in-the-wor... - Spain was one of the top 10 countries of torrent downloaders. Is there any statistics of torrent users (by country) for 2023? It will be interesting to see if those million outraged spanish Netflix users have now turned to torrenting Netflix shows.
  • bragr 3y ago
    Are torrents even the primary methods of piracy now? That's an actual question: I get the impression that a lot of piracy has switched to grey market file hosting and streaming sites, but I don't have the perspective to say if that's accurate.
    • mig39 3y ago
      My impression is that the tech-savvy people still use torrents, but nowadays they share these torrents with their less savvy group using things like Plex (and Plex alternatives). That's what I've witnessed with my Portuguese and Spanish friends anyway. Extended groups who depend on one or more sources of "private Netflix (ie: Plex)".
      • inversetelecine 3y ago
        Even more savvy people use full automation with Usenet and torrents as backups.
        • _0ffh 3y ago
          What does "full automation" mean in the context of media acquisition?
          • davidkarim 3y ago
            There is a full suite of software that helps with torrenting. They are the ARR software, it’s kind of a lose collection of open-source software. Radarr, sonarr, homarr, there are many others. Together, they make finding and organizing torrents very easy as long as you can set them up, typically with Docker.
          • thisismyaccoun7 3y ago
            The arrs are sweet. Plex serves media. Prowlarr maintains a list of torrent sites to use. Radarr for movies, sonarr for tv, and lidarr for music monitor things and auto download, move, rename, etc., and are tied into prowlarr for where to get them. Some examples, every new Minions movie or every new episode of The Witcher or every new album from IVE you can have auto download once available and get moved to the correct Plex library folder with the correct filename, and you can set up metadata requirements like size, bitrate, etc. for those the downloads. Overseerr has a slick ui for discovering media and requesting downloads; you can have it set up to use plex accounts where you or other users logged in with their plex account can request something, and it reaches out to the correct arr for that to do its thing according to the *arr settings for that media. What's everything is set up, imagine a Netflix where you can also request something not available and get that added in the time it takes to download in the exact resolution, language, subs, etc., that you want with no more than a search and a click.
            • shaky-carrousel 3y ago
              Don't forget readarr for books and audiobooks. For serving media I personally prefer jellyfin with its overseer equivalent, jellyseer.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • grolimpio 3y ago
      I don't believe torrents are the primary source. It's not hard to find illegal streaming websites nowadays and they are probably more convenient, but still a good source for malwares I guess.
    • rolodato 3y ago
      Stremio with torrent addons is extremely common.
      • georgiecasey 3y ago
        this is the answer, Stremio is the easy-to-use solution that I setup for my parents and forgot about. the comments above with their complicated usenet setups reminds me of the famous hackers news comment when dropbox was released.
    • 14 3y ago
      I use a plex share now. Soon as Netflix announced the password lockdown I quit their service and signed up to a plex share where I get 10 times the content, more simultaneous streams and all the way up to 4K resolution. Oh and the cost is slightly less then the cost of Netflix.
    • IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
      I stumbled on a paid sub that i am able to access via IPTV / OTT. Most of my network that is from LATAM seems to be on it. EU seems to be lagging, but iberians are jumping on it slowly. I have no idea what USA peeps are doing. Buying it involved whatsapping with someone far away and sending pic of the wire sent page. It was cheap and fast, tho highly unorthodox Service works well. Main issue is that most of the content is in spanish. Only about 2k movies are native english, but i suspect a big chunk of movies may have 2nd audio channel for eng. Most series seem to have that 2nd channel. Content is brand new and works. Also seems like there are a million live channels. I dont trust web based streams anymore. Too many poppups and games being played with ads. It was only a matter of time until i got kissed by with drive-by malware.
    • webmobdev 3y ago
      I guess it depends on the market. In India, all streaming and file hosting sites with pirated tv / movies materials are immediately blocked now. As are nearly all torrent sites. But sharing torrent magnet links are still easier and cheaper than trying to bypass the ISP blocks. And once someone downloads something, it gets shared around a lot.
• WheatMillington 3y ago
  Users need to accept that Netflix was never going to be profitable that way. We had a taste of that amount of content at that price, but it simply can't be economically done.
  • inopinatus 3y ago
    Consumers do not exist so that companies can be profitable, and are not required to accept anything of the sort. What a vampiric, corporate lickspittle point of view.
    • cde-v 3y ago
      Also it has been profitable for years
      • dmonitor 3y ago
        As the copyright holders (not creators, mind you) realized the vast worth of their IP, licensing costs started to put the pressure on Netflix.
        • the_af 3y ago
          I'm sure that's true, but then we've found the actual problem! And it's not viewers sharing their accounts with their families.
          • tekknik 3y ago
            If more users have accounts then licensing costs are less of a burden to Netflix.
            • the_af 3y ago
              Yes, but the real problem are rising licensing costs, not account sharing.
• anonymousiam 3y ago
  I've got two houses across two states where any one us (four) can be at any time. If they start blocking based on IP geo-location, I'll drop them immediately.
  • alam2000 3y ago
    [dead]
  • debian3 3y ago
    They will. That’s basically what their new policy is blocking.
  • oefnak 3y ago
    > money for two houses > no money for separate accounts for family members
    • gnicholas 3y ago
      That's not what GP said. GP complained about having to pay as if there were multiple households benefiting, when it's actually just one household, albeit a wealthy one. If NFLX said "we're going to start charging rich people more, based on zip code," there would be a revolt. I would assume it's not their intention to try to "go after" this segment and make them pay more (since it's a small portion of their users, and the revenue opportunity is small), but they've undoubtedly thought about this possibility and the unfairness it creates.
      • tobyjsullivan 3y ago
        To be fair, this seems like a very convenient redefining of "household". If a household can, quite literally, span two houses (and states!), then what does household actually mean? Edit: double checked and Netflix today is clear that plans are for a single "household". No idea if that language has changed over time but I vaguely recall them always referring to multiple "devices", not people.
        • 3y ago
• moffkalast 3y ago
  > I wouldn’t be surprised if artists (filmmakers, musicians…) create a common fair streaming platform. I think they tried that with Nebula already, to some? success.
• HeavyStorm 3y ago
  TBH, I know of a lot of people sharing beyond their family...
  • riffraff 3y ago
    I believe thats what "family means trust and password sharing" meant. Everybody knew this was not "legal-base family", it was advantageous for everyone to pay lip service to "family" while meaning "anyone you trust".
  • matthew9219 3y ago
    I know a lot of people on "family" cell phone plans beyond their family. Doesn't seem to bother Verizon.
  • lipoid_ecole 3y ago
    I pay for a Netflix plan that allows 4 people to stream at any one time. Why does it matter whether those people are biologically related or located geographically?
    • halicarnassus 3y ago
      Because it's a discount for a family, which wouldn't pay for four separate accounts, but are used to share a lot. Families might share a smartphone, but friends and acquaintances wouldn't.
• ilyt 3y ago
  > I wouldn’t be surprised if artists (filmmakers, musicians…) create a common fair streaming platform. Let us name it “United Artists“ ;) That falls under > And we have now competitors and doesn’t over anymore all relevant content The core problem is basically owners of IP all wanting to build walled gardens to distribute them (and get all of the cut), instead of just going "pay us X per view, regardless of who you are" which would allow every platform to potentially have everything at cost of having to actually compete on service, not exclusives.
  • genewitch 3y ago
    Verizon, who are well known for being affordable, honest, and "with the times", has announced they're going to bring back "cable" subscriptions - you give verizon a flat rate, and they get you all of the streaming services, presumably for less than you'd pay for them individually. Yes, the first part is obvious facetiousness.
    • hedora 3y ago
      I wish consumer protection laws applied to cell phone providers. I shopped around a while back, and walked into an AT&T, TMobile, and Verizon store. They all had big ass signs in the front window saying $25/month per line (with a bunch of fine print that can't be read from outside the store). Of course, none of them will honor that pricing. Also, none of them actually publish their prices. The best I got was some hand written scrawl from the the customer service person, who had memorized their pricing table. Of course, after handing the piece of paper to me, he said something like, "so that'll be $85 per line, but in practice your bill will probably be $110. I've seen some people end up with $115/month". Anyway, that's a long way of saying they can offer to pay me to subscribe to their crappy whatever service, and I'll still refuse.
      • runlaszlorun 3y ago
        But you’re getting unlimited data! :)
      • cebert 3y ago
• gs17 3y ago
  > Netflix: “We increase the flat permanently. And we have now competitors and doesn’t over anymore all relevant content (e.g. Star Trek Picard, Expanse, Disney). How about ruining it and blocking family members with heuristics, geoblocking, per-device-checks and so on?“. Don't forget cancelling shows constantly. I'm not getting invested in anything Netflix unless I know it has an ending already.
  • serial_dev 3y ago
    Yes, so annoying. Some shows just makes you interested, invested in the story, you learn the characters' names... Then the season ends, you look up when the next season comes out... And you see that the show has been canceled... Happened too many times, last one that really frustrated me was GLOW. I wonder if it has a vicious circle, spiral component to it, like how Google keeps killing their products because people don't adapt them, because Google keeps killing their products. Some percentage of users don't trust Netflix anymore and don't start watching a series until they know it has an ending. A new show launches, it doesn't perform too well, so Netflix cancels it after the second season. Now, the people who enjoyed the show will be more sceptical of new shows, and now a larger percentage of users will "boycott" new shows.
    • tekknik 3y ago
      > A new show launches, it doesn't perform too well, so Netflix cancels it after the second season. Now, the people who enjoyed the show will be more sceptical of new shows, and now a larger percentage of users will "boycott" new shows. This isn’t new, rarely is a cable tv show signed initially for more than 1-2 seasons and then if it does well it’s renewed. Netflix is literally following industry standard here so if you’re going to call them out call everybody out.
      • sgift 3y ago
        If that's the case Netflix definition of success is very different from anyone else, cause no one cancels as much as Netflix does.
• _the_inflator 3y ago
  If you have a look at Amazon prime these days, it reminds me of a YouTube clone, where you have to pay for every video you want to watch. Only nice thing is, that the channel subscriptions are easily cancelable. Spending 3-9 bucks on a channel for a month is essentially the price for one movie, so it is ok for me to a certain extent.
• johnchristopher 3y ago
  Netflix: "Consuming media sucks. Let's try something different, affordable." Customers: "Oh, great ! Looks too good to be true but so cool !" A few years later Netflix: "Well, reality caught with us, we must tighten the bolts or sink in" Customers: "But... but... you are now forcing me to pirate again !" /s
• ketzu 3y ago
  > pay a fair I often read a sentiment close to this around the topic of copyright. But what is "fair" seems to be more often than not "we want to pay as little as possible" with no relation to any tangible values, cost or anything. I remember during my time at university, a popular point was a culture flat rate of 10€/month to cover everything: Games, videos, books, music, you name it. Of course the media companies would claim fairness for themselves as well. Everybody is for fairness, they just mean vastly different things.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • hirako2000 3y ago
    We will achieve fairness once legislation adjust to Intellectual Property abuses, if not in the laws, at least in its interpretation the abuses are pretty clear to me. IP Protection is for the ownership of the art. Whether an intermediary between the audience and the author exists or not. Somehow, by extension, we ended up with exclusivity contracts and protection of the distribution. Lobbies made the law against consumers who don't play by the distributor rules, and worse, even against authors of tools made for use against distributors abuses (DRM) OK, who's to say what is fair, but it's certainly not individual consumers who have the upper hand: actually they do, unsubscribe and going pirating full on, everybody loses.
• redeeman 3y ago
  didnt they always require shitty DRM? no thanks, they can keep their shit