14 ms·

Update on Sharing

238 points by mfiguiere 3y ago

toxik 3y ago
I like how they never even say why they send this e-mail. It’s so incredibly passive aggressive. They don’t want to say “the gravy train is over, cough up” but that’s what they actually are saying.
owaislone 3y ago
Did they actually post a screenshot of the email they are sending out as an update? How hard is it to copy the text for the blog post? Why so lazy?
- bradlys 3y ago
  Formatting the text to be exactly like the email is probably more hassle than it is worth. It’s not likely to be a simple copy/paste into their CMS.
tikkun 3y ago
It would've been smart for them to do this transition during the COVID stimulus era - lockdowns, work from home, stimulus checks, low interest rates.
nvr219 3y ago
Here's an update: I'm canceling my account. The amount of entertainment I and the three people I share with get out of Netflix isn't worth the 4x cost increase. Maybe the other guys will get accounts, I don't know. I'm sure for some people it's worth it.
- 2023throwawayy 3y ago
  Yup. Especially given their propensity to cancel shows on a whim.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    It's become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, like how people didn't trust Google to keep Stadia running so why would they buy full price games on it? Why would I pay for Netflix and get excited about their shows when so many get canned with no conclusion? But as more people say that and don't bother watching until there's a whole finished story, then even more shows get canceled earlier because nobody watched the first season. Aggressively launching lots of shows and canceling the lower performing ones might be a sound financial strategy in the short term, but I don't think it's doing great things for customer goodwill.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      > But as more people say that and don't bother watching until there's a whole finished story, then even more shows get canceled earlier because nobody watched the first season. That's still netflix's fault. They need to stop expecting the world to flock to their newest shows the moment they are released, there's too much competing for our attention, and instead invest in stories and creators they believe in, and make sure that they're always funding and releasing a complete and quality product. It doesn't matter if a show is only one season, so long as that one season has a satisfying conclusion. Stories written to span multiple seasons are fine too, but they need to commit to seeing that show to its conclusion. Even if a show doesn't perform very well, some percentage of Netflix subscribers will enjoy it making it an asset for their library and on a long enough timescale it'll be worth it, but if they really want to cancel a show before the story has a chance to reasonably end, they'd be better off removing it entirely from their library. Right now their library is filled with shows that will entice new watchers only to piss them off when they learn the plug was pulled early, or which will sit unwatched by the people who have already heard that netflix screwed the show and its fans over and that's a liability.
      - wlesieutre 3y ago
        Totally agree that it's Netflix's fault. I was a Netflix subscriber and bailed when they announced the account sharing restrictions because frankly they don't have the catalog to back up their ever increasing prices. They want $20/month for 4K. If I were going to subscribe to one of the big streaming services again, that's a tough sell against Apple's TV+ at $8/month for 4K and a better track record on show cancellations. Maybe for people who watch a lot more TV than I do it's worth the expense. The only streaming I'm paying for now is dropout.tv, the little niche service descended from College Humor that only has like 3 shows producing new seasons. But it's consistently great, I'm not worried they're going to cancel after every season, and I'm supporting a small group of creators who all seem like nice people. Win-win-win.
- xyst 3y ago
  I am only keeping my account because of cellular carrier subsidies. If my account gets subject to this notice, then I am definitely canceling. I pay for 4K streaming and simultaneous streams. Viewing should not be constricted to a single IP or address.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  If just one of the other three gets an account (which seems statistically likely), it's the same for Netflix. If two of them get an account, or you change your mind later, it's a huge win for Netflix. Netflix has done the math and already tested this policy in several countries. They would never be rolling this out in their home market of the US if they weren't extremely confident that new subscriptions will outweigh cancellations.
  - cma 3y ago
    > If just one of the other three gets an account (which seems statistically likely), it's the same for Netflix. Not 100%; with less viewers there will be less word of mouth about Netflix shows. Maybe that will be offset by paying less to license third party stuff with less viewers though.
  - The_Colonel 3y ago
    Let's see. The experiment in Spain didn't work out that well: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-25/netflix-loses-1-million-users-in-spain-over-password-policing#xj4y7vzkg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-25/netflix-l... Out of that 1 million, I think only ~300 000 were paying customers, but still it did not achieve the desired effect.
JohnMakin 3y ago
So if they are allowing you to use on devices and networks outside of your home or ones you don't normally use, how are they identifying unique individuals or "households?"
- michaelmior 3y ago
  > To verify accounts within the same household, Netflix said they will use information including IP addresses, device IDs and account activity from devices already signed into the Netflix account. Source: https://www.today.com/popculture/netflix-guide-password-sharing-rcna68653 https://www.today.com/popculture/netflix-guide-password-shar...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tristanb 3y ago
  Previously i read that the device must connect to your home WIFI connection every N days.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Not all of the devices I watch netflix on are connected to wifi at all. I've got DVD and bluray players that don't even have wireless cards in them.
- bonzini 3y ago
  The idea that was floated was that they identify a device that defines the household (e.g. a TV), for example based on being always on the same SSID, or being on a wired connection, or the IP address. Then other devices need to be in the same network as that stable device at least say once a month.
  - galleywest200 3y ago
    Can I have my other households VPN to my local network to bypass this?
michaelmior 3y ago
I'm probably in the minority, but I wish Netflix offered a profile transfer function that allowed me to transfer my profile to another existing account.
- pinecamp 3y ago
  They do. It's mentioned in the link.
  - jkaplowitz 3y ago
    The link mentions a profile transfer to a new membership, not to another existing membership.
    - pinecamp 3y ago
      You're right! I misread. That would be nice to have.
- cglong 3y ago
  I really like the Spotify model, where everyone just has their own account. Then a Family Plan owner invites others to join the plan via their email address.
zamadatix 3y ago
Honestly, I wouldn't have minded something like "buy an extra member" if it were introduced years ago. Introducing it now just seems to be a trigger to re-evaluate "is Netflix really worth that much" at a time their content selection doesn't look as amazing as it once did. I'm coming from a background of having recently cancelled my account though, and may be biased in thinking along those lines as a result. Overall it'll be interesting to see how much impact this actually has or doesn't have for subscription volume. My guess is maybe not as much as the usual uproared comments would have you think.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  > at a time their content selection doesn't look as amazing as it once did I feel like Netflix is seasonal. Just like Disney+ and HBO. Come fall Netflix will debut a bunch of viral bangers, and by February you'll be questioning if Netflix is worth it again.
  - joemi 3y ago
    That's how I treat all streaming services nowadays. With the fractured landscape it's kind of the only way to handle it now.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    I was probably ~3 years delayed in cancelling Netflix based on actually using it. I started maintaining a watchlist of what I actually want to watch instead of constantly searching/cross-referencing through what is new or currently available on these interfaces designed to hide how little good new content is actually there. Eventually I found out there wasn't really that much I was actually interested in on the services anymore and, for what there was, I came the conclusion pirating was once again the better option in terms of availability, quality, and user experience. Barring returning to piracy, I think I'd still have cancelled but sometimes subscribed for a month on the rare occasion something like The Queen's Gambit (2020) came out then cancel for a few years again.
    - ghaff 3y ago
gjulianm 3y ago
This is a US rollout of a restriction that they have already deployed in Latin America and Spain among other countries [1], that they restrict your account to a single household. So, no password sharing with friends. I am honestly surprised they keep pushing this. In Spain, Netflix is among the most expensive options, and the most expensive if you consider the features you get (the 7,99 euro option just gives you HD, not full HD, and only one concurrent device); and the content quality has been going downhill and has lost a lot of staple shows. Most people I know that had Netflix just canceled their subscription once the deadline hit, because the price for extra members is ridiculous (basically a full subscription cost) and without password sharing it's not worth it compared to the other options. I guess that the move didn't have as much effect as people thought it did, and that's why they're continuing the rollout. 1: https://about.netflix.com/en/news/update-on-sharing-may-us https://about.netflix.com/en/news/update-on-sharing-may-us
- autoexec 3y ago
  > I guess that the move didn't have as much effect as people thought it did, and that's why they're continuing the rollout. 1 million people canceled their netflix accounts in Spain over the change. The new policy has already cost them several million dollars. That's a pretty major effect. Maybe they think people sharing passwords costs them more over time, or maybe they're just willing to hemorrhage users now hoping that they'll somehow win some back later under tighter restrictions, and at higher prices. It still seems like a gamble to me, considering they have a ton of competition with better libraries. I think cracking down on the worst offenders (hundreds of people all over the globe using the same account) and keeping accounts to a reasonable number of simultaneous streams would have been a much better option.
- mdasen 3y ago
  > I am honestly surprised they keep pushing this I'm not surprised. One of the big problems that faces Netflix is market saturation. Lots of companies like Google or Facebook can grow profits by getting you to use their service more. The more you use, the more they earn. Netflix can only get more revenue by getting more paying users or raising prices on existing users. In the United States and Canada, Netflix has 74.4M subscribers. The US has 124M households and Canada has 15M (139M total). 54% of US/Canadian households already subscribe to Netflix. If each of those paying subscriptions is also being used by a second non-paying household, that means that 100% of US/Canada has Netflix. If that's true, the only way for Netflix to gain revenue would be by raising prices or eliminating the account-sharing and hoping that more people will be paying customers. I'm sure Netflix has run the numbers based on their internal data. They already know who is sharing accounts. If 50% of accounts are sharing, that means that the 74.4M subscribers becomes 111.8M households and 80% of US/Canada. Basically, Netflix should know how close to the total number of households already use Netflix (even if they aren't paying for it). If 80% of households already have access, you've basically hit your growth limit. You can't expect 100% - only 87% of households have broadband internet in the US and some people just won't be interested. It seems reasonably likely that Netflix is pretty close to their growth limit in the US/Canada without going after account sharing. If 50% of accounts are sharing, they've probably hit 90-95% penetration in the US/Canada given that 13% of households don't have the internet required for Netflix. I'm not surprised simply because it seems like the only avenue of growth for Netflix in many markets. Netflix doesn't charge you per show. They don't have add-on packages for sports or whatever. If you love your local take-out place, you might order from there more. If you love Facebook, you watch more of their ads. If you love Netflix, you don't buy a new account each day. To keep growing in many areas, Netflix needs to break up account sharing.
jkaplowitz 3y ago
So in which countries have they rolled out this policy so far? I remember enough from some prior announcement to know that the US is not the first or only such country, and that it's not yet worldwide, but I don't remember where else it's in place.
dangerboysteve 3y ago
In Canada, I had the full pickle 4K account and my girls in another city used my account. When the new rules kicked in, I cut my plan and pay half now. And I'll cancel it this month. The service is just not worth it with all the crappy content.
- ChikkaChiChi 3y ago
  This is the most mind-blowing aspect of this. Kids away at college use their parents' accounts for entertainment. Those kids graduate, then get their own accounts. Netflix is shooting themselves in the foot. These kids will just adopt content from other providers.
  - MikeBVaughn 3y ago
    If there's one thing I know from experience, it's that college students definitely won't turn to explicit piracy. Never happens, don't worry about it.
  - Paul-Craft 3y ago
    With kids and parents, what may very well happen is that the parents start subsidizing kids' individual accounts while they're already in school. It's not like the few extra bucks a month is meaningful compared to the low 5 figure sum it takes to send a kid away to college.
  - pcthrowaway 3y ago
    > Those kids graduate, then get their own accounts. Pretty sure those kids graduate and keep using their parents accounts (source: I graduated >10 years ago, still use my parents account). Unless they have kids of their own and need their own account. But most gen Z and millennials are pretty broke (half living paycheck to paycheck: https://fortune.com/2023/05/19/quiet-quitting-side-hustle-second-job-millennials-gen-z-paycheck-deloitte/ https://fortune.com/2023/05/19/quiet-quitting-side-hustle-se... -> https://archive.is/u415s https://archive.is/u415s ), so many wouldn't be able to pay for netflix on their own Shared netflix has been a nice way for boomers and gen X to do something nice for their struggling kids. Really curious if Netflix will even make more money from this. Even if revenue doesn't change or decreases, they might also benefit by paying less in bandwidth per paying user.
nocoiner 3y ago
I really dislike how every corporate communication regarding an “update” now means “here’s how we’re making things worse for you.” I know honesty has never really been the fundamental value of public relations initiatives, but it would be refreshing to occasionally see a company saying that they’re putting the squeeze on customers because they need to protect their margins or even just because they can. The formerly-neutral “update” is starting to rankle.
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  > ... "To better serve our customers, here's how we're making things worse for you. FTFY.
  - givemeethekeys 3y ago
    "To clarify our financial position, we're firing everyone and shutting down".
  - csours 3y ago
    To better serve some of our customers, here's how we're screwing the other ones.
  - CraigJPerry 3y ago
    Corey Doctrow has a good term for this, or at least it’s him i heard say it: enshitification. I think it just captures the dynamics beautifully, it’s almost poetic.
    - bsder 3y ago
      Oy, double T. It's "enshittification". And that's even the way Doctorow spelled it. The root word is "shitty". Double T. I've seen this a couple of times now without the double T, and it pains me.
    - latexr 3y ago
      Original post was on the enshittification of TikTok. https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
questime 3y ago
Ahoy there, mateys! I be here to say that I be leaving Netflix. They be raising their prices too high, and they be taking away all the good shows. I be sailin' the high seas for my entertainment now. Arrrr!
- 867-5309 3y ago
  I should think so too on a farmer's wages
- joemi 3y ago
  Why be coy and simply (heavily) imply pirating? Just say outright that you're going to pirate stuff because you for some reason believe you have a right to view their content and not pay for it?
  - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
    Pirating is seizing a ship for material goods. People get hurt or killed when this happens. And the economics of material goods are literally otherworldly from those of digital goods. (You can't download a car -- copying a car for practically free.) Torrenting is just choosing the most convenient distribution mechanism for data that you own. You can buy DRM-free music, but not DRM-free shows or movies unless they're bound to physical media. The reasons why have to do with backdoor meetings and lobbying by the MPAA, and I don't care much about them. And Netflix expects me to own nothing and be happy while leasing tenuous network access to compressed streams of content by paying indefinitely. Cute. I think it's funny they got us to implicitly condemn solving their greed-based distribution problem with a term as hyperbolic as "pirating" though. They want to remain in meatspace, where the old economic model makes sense -- scarcity, wear and tear, manufacturing costs per unit, so they try pretending we're all still there in cyberspace by guilt tripping us with meatspace vocabulary.
    - shapefrog 3y ago
      If I could download a car, I would.
    - 3y ago
zwieback 3y ago
My daughters have been freeloading on our Netflix even though WE TOLD THEM NOT TO DO THAT. So now they'll get booted off without us having to be the bad parents texting them that we want to use it now. No complaints from me.
- deeviant 3y ago
  Nice, solved that very serious problem there.
- brokensegue 3y ago
  change your password?
- KoftaBob 3y ago
  The idea of Netflix executives helping your parenting by letting you avoid the terrifying possibility of...saying no to your children...is hilarious to me.
  - zwieback 3y ago
    Yeah, it was meant as a joke but I guess I was too subtle. I still get why NF is doing it though.
say_it_as_it_is 3y ago
I'm really curious what management/accounting at Netflix estimated free-riding costs the company every year and what the savings will be for the second half of this year by pruning.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ChikkaChiChi 3y ago
No matter how they are accomplishing this, it's going to trigger a lot of false positives and cause plenty of headaches for the consumer.
- rektide 3y ago
  There should definitely be like 1 or 2 days a month where accounts get a free exemption. So people who bring their rarely used tablet with them traveling aren't screwed.
dvt 3y ago
It's kind of strange how Netflix has the gall to raise prices while they are objectively the worst original content platform out there (last show I watched was Squid Games almost 2 years ago). Will gladly cancel my Netflix sub and keep Hulu (huge back catalog), HBO (House of the Dragon, The Last of Us), and AppleTV (Ted Lasso, For all Mankind, Severance).
mupuff1234 3y ago
I'm gonna cancel my subscription, i hope all people here do the same.
- nomel 3y ago
  This only affects password sharers.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    password sharers and possibly anyone at all who travels or regularly watches netflix on multiple devices or from multiple locations. How annoying they make this will determine how long I keep paying them.
Dowwie 3y ago
I am really curious about how the engineering team took on the challenge of identifying and tracking households within the constraints defined by Apple related to tracking users
- ML_Comp_Sci_Guy 3y ago
  It's right here: https://netflixtechblog.com/machine-learning-for-fraud-detection-in-streaming-services-b0b4ef3be3f6 https://netflixtechblog.com/machine-learning-for-fraud-detec... They define any type of sharing as "Account Fraud and abuse of Terms of Service" <-- However, some restrictions are in place, such as the number of active devices, the number of streams, and the number of downloaded titles. Many users across many platforms make for a uniquely large attack surface that includes content fraud, account fraud, and abuse of terms of service. Detection of fraud and abuse at scale and in real-time is highly challenging. -->
rektide 3y ago
Anyone have a writeup on using TailScale to bypass these sorts of limits? Some folks have said it includes SSID as a check which is definitely a wrinkle. I would have assumed it was mostly just using IP address. This is one of those cases where the War Against General Purpose Computing is going to own society, score points against users. I assume if you can root & run Magisk you could fake a geolocation for example. But Google & Apple have done everything in their power to make rooted/jailbroken devices practically unusable, to build attestation frameworks & SafetyNet & other systems to make sure corporate payloads run safe from user-agency on devices. What a shitty future!
- jacooper 3y ago
  This LTT video is just for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CunwUs08og https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CunwUs08og
- moneywoes 3y ago
  Could you please eli5 how it works, a shared VPN?
  - yonatan8070 3y ago
    Basically you have a machine running at home, and when you want to watch Netflix, you send the traffic through that machine so it looks to Netflix like you're from your home network
- nepthar 3y ago
  I'd be curious about how Netflix would get access to your SSID. On a mobile app, you'd have to grant that permission - do they now ask for that?
  - fathyb 3y ago
    They should not be able to do that on the browser too, even with Widevine.
- runeb 3y ago
marinhero 3y ago
We are back to the cable days. We know the likely outcome for this: increase in piracy. I do not advocate for this (not even a Netflix user myself) but they have forgotten about one of the motivations that allowed the streaming business to flourish, "cable cutting" for minimizing costs.
MikeBVaughn 3y ago
Does their US pricing model still couple streaming quality to the number of concurrent streams? It drives me batty that I can't get a "4k, but only one stream" plan. Between that and the "is the thing I really want to watch available or not?" queue lottery, I got fed up a few years ago and ditched them completely. The general streaming experience has become so awful that I'll just go to Youtube or Amazon and pay $4 to get precisely what I want for 48 hours, instead of googling to figure out who the hell currently has 'Heat' or whatever on their streaming platform. It's amazing, we've looped around to 1999. You have to surf around to see where and if what you want is even available - people even make aggregate guides to tell you what's on where (a TV Guide, if you will). A decent amount of the time, depending on your tastes, the thing you want probably isn't available on a platform you're currently paying for. Tragically, though, you don't get the irreplaceable experience of talking in person with a full-bore, unfiltered Video Store Guy.
deepzn 3y ago
Even if I could purchase it I wouldn't. Haven't watched anything on Netflix in 3 or 4 months even with a sharing membership. Youtube Premium is where I spend most of my time, and get the most out of.
siliconc0w 3y ago
Without sharing its pretty hard to justify, every now and then there is a show that is a decent watch but then it's an eternity until the next season. I feeling a meta service that tracks your favorite shows and automatically subscribes/unsubscribes when they're new eps.
s1k3s 3y ago
Glad they're actually pushing this. The fact that people think it's somehow their right to use stuff for free, that others had to put in work for, is mindblowing for me.
- kstrauser 3y ago
  It would be more understandable if their founding CEO wasn't on record saying that they were happy to have people share their accounts, especially with their kids.
  - KingOfCoders 3y ago
    And now he changed his mind. So?
- autoexec 3y ago
  > The fact that people think it's somehow their right to use stuff for free, that others had to put in work for, is mindblowing for me. People aren't pissed because they can't "use stuff for free" anymore. You can already pirate every show that's on netflix. People are upset because they were sold one thing, and now will not be getting what they paid for. I paid for x number of simultaneous devices/streams. I paid for a service which told me sharing passwords was perfectly fine. That's what I signed up for. Now netflix changes the rules, which after multiple price increases, a library that has declined in quantity and quality, and an interface that is still terrible and increasingly stuffed with ads there is nothing mindblowing about the hate they're getting. They absolutely deserve to lose customers.
greatgib 3y ago
I really hate them for this move for them being fuckin hypocrites. In theory it would be ok to have such a rule. But for years they have used the sharing of account as a marketing trick to get new users. Imagine that they have 3 offers, with the most expensive one not far from 2x times the entry level price. The main difference was the ability to have 2 or 4 person's watching at the same time. Normally you would not have a real need for taking more than basic plans, but they pushed people to take the highest plan and share. Now that they reached a peak in term of users, they switch their speech and pretend that they have to do a change because people are abusing of something that was not allowed to them in the first place. So they need to get a good lesson with mass cancellation and downsizing subscriptions.
kossTKR 3y ago
This seems like a weirdly public rollout. I've always had the intuition that bigcorps with relaxed anti piracy enforcement were better off because of networks effects and goodwill. This honestly makes me want to cancel my subscription. Why not just silently do this? What's the actual deal here?
xbmcuser 3y ago
I still have a Netflix account as my family in another country use it. If get this letter I will probably close the account
- nomel 3y ago
  These types of comments completely justify Netflix’s actions, in my mind.
  - nomel 3y ago
    It appears that some think that sharing a password with someone in another country is an expected/justified use case, which is an objectively ridiculous interpretation of the terms of service. A similarly ridiculous interpretation, of sharing it with the whole office: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35719281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35719281 I suspect Netflix will come out ahead with this, with how casual it seems to be.
    - xbmcuser 3y ago
      I don't use the account anymore they do so I am mostly just paying for the top tier account. My canceling the account will be a net loss for netflix as the subscription price is 2 times cheaper over there and good for me as I have been too embarrassed to tell my family I no longer use netflix so want to cancel my account.
xur17 3y ago
Are they actually blocking extra users, or is this just the precursor?
gumby 3y ago
I don't understand their logic. First: you can subscribe to n simultaneous streams/downloads. Ours is 2, and sometimes the kids complain, and end up sorting it out somehow.* Second: if you have a kid at college, they "live at home" for various other mechanisms (count as a dependent for taxation; qualify for parents' health insurance, can vote in their home district regardless of where they live; can be part of a family phone plan, family apple plan, etc etc...) * And third: they don't seem to argue about netflix much any more; I think if I dropped the sub to a single session everybody would still be fine. Netflix seems to have an increasing density of junk content, losing its distinguished position.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  The logic seems pretty clear to me, both in terms of financial necessity (keeping Netflix in business) and in terms of policy for households. And Netflix is a private company, so however dependents or health insurance or voting or phone plans are defined is irrelevant. Also, all of those definitions are different from each other anyways, so it's not like there's any consistency in the first place.
  - mikeortman 3y ago
    This isn’t about keeping Netflix in business, they are doing just fine. This is about squeezing out every last drop of exponential growth expected by shareholders.
    - crazygringo 3y ago
      Their stock plummeted 75% between Oct 2021 and June 2022. That's not "doing just fine" by any standard. So no, this isn't about squeezing out every last drop, this is about making necessary structural changes to remain viable in the long-term.
      - dghlsakjg 3y ago
        It was also up 300% between 2019 and 2021, and has bounced way back up since June 2022. This is just reversion to the mean
kylemh 3y ago
If I'm nomadic and live in a different "household" every 1-3 months... Do I have any options?!
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  That is actually a very good question. I know people who literally do this, though not only moving "households" every few months, but moving countries. TBH, my guess is NFLX's solution is going to be "Yeah, fuck those 12 people who do that. We've got bigg^H^H^H^H more lucrative problems."
  - hn92726819 3y ago
    Netflix should invest in learning about ^w :D
    - Paul-Craft 3y ago
      What LeetCode problem is that one? (Yes, yes, is joke.)
  - kylemh 3y ago
    I do this. It's why I asked
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Yes it works fine -- their policy and this e-mail are explicit that it works "on the go". Your option is a regular subscription. As long as you pay for a single subscription and you're not sharing it with others who try to keep accessing it after you've moved on to a new location, there's no problem. Just make sure you log out of your account on the living room TV when you leave a home, that's all you need to do.
kstrauser 3y ago
From https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/netflix-is-cool-with-you-sharing-your-account/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/netflix-is-c... : > "We love people sharing Netflix," CEO Reed Hastings said Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show here in Las Vegas. "That's a positive thing, not a negative thing." > Hastings, who earlier in the day also revealed Netflix was now in 130 countries, didn't address broad password swapping, but did say a household sharing an account was fine. A lot of the time, he said, household sharing leads to new customers because kids subscribe on their own as they start to earn income. I mention this lest anyone wrongly think Netflix has the moral high ground on this. Their CEO explicitly said it was OK to share your account, especially with your kids. It's not like those of us who did so were trying to be sneaky and steal service. If Netflix wants to change the rules, that's their right. I loathe that this is sometimes being portrayed as a crackdown on piracy, though.
- autoexec 3y ago
  They also advertised their plans as allowing a certain number of active screens at once. If I pay for something that allows three people to watch at the same time on different devices I don't care which house or what building those three people are sitting in.
- suddenclarity 3y ago
  Am I missing something? You quote the CEO saying it's fine to share account within the household and eventually the kids will grow up and get their own accounts when making money and moving. How does it differ from Netflix now saying that you're not allowed to share your account with people OUTSIDE of a household unless paying for it?
  - kstrauser 3y ago
    Yes, you're missing something: the CEO said, quote, "we love people sharing Netflix". There's no plausible interpretation where they're referring to people living under one roof, because of course those people can share the account. That's why they have profiles in the first place. Additionally, their premium plan includes "download on 6 devices". They didn't intend that for the average person who has 6 Netflix-capable devices themselves, as most people have far fewer. No, the only viable interpretation of their account setup is that it's explicitly designed for several people to use a single account. That means the "several family members in one house" setup is the baseline, and "people sharing Netflix" couldn't reasonably mean "...with their spouse and kids living with them.
deepzn 3y ago
Netflix once had an advantage, mostly tech and UI based, as well as network effects. I feel all of it has subsided. They did well to weather the studios and networks pulling their content into their own services. While deciding to invest in original content early, they built a pretty decent library, but they're still way behind with other networks who have 50+ years of content. While their focus now to cover the breadth of programming like cable as opposed to quality content, means they will likely stay where they are (lose selective subs, and gain cable subs) but just not as an emerging tech co. with new ideas that was once the N in FANG, but just as a legacy media network, while their consumers have a wealth of choices fighting for their time including social, gaming, real world events, etc.
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mgrund 3y ago
Would feel like less of a money grab if they rolled this out with price reductions, given the increase in subscriptions I assume they expect as a consequence. They might even be able to sell it as a way to bring justice to those that do not share accounts and who are currently covering the cost of other people doing it.
jakebasile 3y ago
I think it's pretty ridiculous for Netflix to define what is and isn't my "household".
- tinglymintyfrsh 3y ago
  What if you have 5 homes (with 5 different ISPs)? Is each a household or are the collection of people households? What if you have friends who are basically family who more-or-less live with you? Are they not part of the "household"? "Sorry, Bob, while you maybe my daughter's godfather and donated a kidney to me, you're now going to need your own Netflix account because Netflix wants to mash the 'pump corporate profits' button that has been a primary contributing factor of both embarrassing wealth transfer from the poor to the rich and inflation post-pandemic."
  - KomoD 3y ago
    Who has 5 homes?
    - bombcar 3y ago
      Most people would consider someone with five homes as very rich, but you could get relatively close with only moderately excessive wealth and a divorce. Each parent owning a vacation home, perhaps.
      - KomoD 3y ago
        Still sounds rich to me.
    - buzer 3y ago
      5 homes is likely rare, but I don't think 2 is extremely uncommon. Like vacation home where family might spend summer or working at different city than where family and coming home for weekends. In Finland over 10% of people have a cabin and in average they spend 79 days of the year there (https://suomenkuvalehti.fi/kotimaa/yli-puoli-miljoonaa-kesamokkia-kolme-miljoonaa-mokkilomailijaa-vuodessa-suomalaiset-ovat-yha-mokkikansaa/ https://suomenkuvalehti.fi/kotimaa/yli-puoli-miljoonaa-kesam...) though I'm not sure how common it's to have electricity these days.
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BXlnt2EachOther 3y ago
edit to add: following is totally US-centric! Like the blog post I think? I was not familiar with how much Netflix costs these days, either the subscription or extra sharing slots. Pasted here in case it's helpful. Sorry if this is redundant, didn't find with ctrl-f. Standard with ads: $6.99 / month Basic: $9.99 / month Standard: $15.49 / month (extra member slots\* can be added for $7.99 each / month) Premium: $19.99 / month (extra member slots\* can be added for $7.99 each / month) Note that on Standard, when they say "extra member slots" it's really "extra member slot" because there's a limit of 1 there and a limit of 2 on Premium.
- autoexec 3y ago
  "standard with ads" is fine, but I wish Netflix would stop filling the other plans with ads too then. I have premium at the moment (how long that lasts depends on how annoying they become when they start cracking down on what they think my "household" is) and the ads are still getting out of hand.
  - tric 3y ago
    > I have premium at the moment ...and the ads are still getting out of hand. Do you mean promos for other Netflix shows? Or are these ads for products/services unrelated to Netflix?
    - autoexec 3y ago
      So far it's been mostly ads for other netflix shows, but they are everywhere. Full screen ads you have to click through to even get to the catalogue, a giant ad at the top you have to scroll past, ads taking up multiple rows as you scroll through their options, the ads that play in the middle of a show if you pause the screen for more than a few seconds, the ads that play as soon as the credits start rolling (even when there's still content), etc.
- nashashmi 3y ago
  I remember them increasing prices for those who were sharing accounts. The limit was the number of streams you can have (at different locations). what are they doing now that is different? and how does that affect me with 4 streams?
tinglymintyfrsh 3y ago
My first thought: How is this going to block me from Netflixing on a United flight or in a hotel? It seems problematic. Also, there are nontraditional families with multiple homes. How many accounts do they need?
someotherperson 3y ago
I installed an app on my Chromecast/Google TV a couple of days ago called Cloudstream. Some of the providers segment the different shows/movies by Netflix/HBO/Disney+/Paramount etc. Some of the providers give you 4K streams. Has subtitles, "watch later" lists and the ability to continue from where you left off. The interface is pretty nice too. It's really straight forward to add on any Android device -- phone, Fire stick, whatever. It took a couple of minutes to install and about a half hour to fully configure. If they want us to go back to piracy, it's now easier than ever before. And I'm wholly prepared for it.
- cj 3y ago
  This sounds similar to Popcorn Time (now defunct). I think they open sourced and then got taken down a while back. One major difference (I think?) is it appears Cloudstream doesn't include the "sources" by default in the core app. Maybe that will help them subvert copyright for a while if the client GUI is decoupled from the source of the pirated content.
- xtracto 3y ago
  I remember installing that CloudStream app and struggling a bit with plugins, repositores and whatnot, for a couple of hours... with regards to piracy up until now nothing has beaten simple BtDigg + WebTor for me until now.
NotYourLawyer 3y ago
I have 3 houses. Am I gonna be expected to pay extra Netflix fees? I can’t afford that!
joshe 3y ago
One tip I use is to not waste money is never be subscribed to any streaming platform. So sign up for 1 month, cancel immediately and then watch what you wish for the month. Netflix used to be a pretty good deal because they had a depth of great old content from the major studios. But now it's scattered all over the other services, and we've all seen most of their decent original content. Doing it this way I'm subscribed to Netflix 2 months a year. Apple for 1 month. Disney for 1 month. That's a difference of ~$40 a year vs ~$500 a year. Don't stress that you'll want to watch it and can't. You can just sign up again. Even if you do it 5 months a year, you'll be way ahead. Just use the psychology that if you sign up you cancel immediately. Now the default is to save money. Don't get drawn into the idea that this is a luxury that you can afford. Wasting money is not luxury.
- deleted 3y ago
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- hahajk 3y ago
  I think this strategy will only work a little longer. The crackdown on sharing is only start. As the pressure increases on streaming services to turn more profits I'd expect longer contract lengths. I wouldn't be surprised to see Adobe-style "reduced price monthly payment" contracts from the more corporate services.
  - pdimitar 3y ago
    They're free to try that and much more. However it's not like the customers have a gun at their head. You don't need a PhD to conclude you're being squeezed. At one point people just turn their backs and make do without the service. Squeezing the customers has soft limits and it's always hilarious to watch corporations being oblivious to them.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." As it is right now it's cheaper for me to hit up Disney+ for a month rather than rent or buy a new release elsewhere, but as that gets harder the less I'll consume.
brianjking 3y ago
Will they give any of the revenue to the writers?
librish 3y ago
I feel like the moral outrage over this is a little overblown. Reading the terms it seems clear that Netflix is targeting people who are blatantly account sharing. It makes sense to worry that this will inconvenience people who have non-typical lifestyles though. Similarly, saying this is a bad business move seems without any evidence seems rash. I don't think anyone at Netflix particularly _wants_ to implement this so my guess is that they have some pretty compelling evidence for why this makes sense. Anecdotally, most people I know are sharing the majority of streaming accounts with multiple people.
- batiudrami 3y ago
  I think companies can charge what they want for content and people are able to not use the service if they don’t like the price. So I think the moral outrage is ridiculous. But, like you suggested, my house has access to 6 steaming services, all shared with other people, which leaves our monthly outlay at about $25. That’s a reasonable price to pay for me, and if I stop being able to share I will start to make some choices about my subscriptions. I wonder how this ends for Netflix, cashflow wise. They definitely aren’t worth the $20/m they’re asking, especially because by comparison that’s what I pay for the rest combined. In terms of content I actually want to watch they’re probably only about 4th best.
- jackson1442 3y ago
  Most of the backlash is because: - one of the things you pay for in your netflix tier is the number of "screens" - 4 screens = 4 simaltaneous streams. Many people think the screens are theirs to use how they see fit - netflix used to _encourage_ password sharing[0] - and of course, the number one rule of the internet: never charge for what you used to offer for free [0]: https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712 https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712
  - librish 3y ago
    I've seen that tweet before and I think it's a bit ridiculous to take a cheeky line from a marketing person to represent a perpetual promise by the company.
tristor 3y ago
I pay for the maximum subscription for Netflix, and we are heavy Netflix users. We also share the account with my elderly parents who occasionally watch something because we tell them to do so. If the fact that this is the case causes Netflix to take action with my account, I'm happy to take my $21.74 ($19.99+tax)/mo and tell them to shove it.
anonu 3y ago
Do they define household? Same IP?
paxys 3y ago
Time to finally see whether the "this will make everyone cancel their subscriptions and kill Netflix" crowd knows the business better than Netflix's data analysts.
gathersnow 3y ago
I was a member of Netflix from 90s to about 2021. The beginning of the streaming era was great. But since then Netflix has a long history of being user-hostile that I said goodbye to them many years ago. I got sick of their stupid auto-play feature that couldn't be disabled. They used to seemingly care helping you find new movies you like based on a star rating. Remember the Netflix challenge? Now I suppose there's a thumbs up, but really they probably just gauge based on if you watch or not. Instead of adding tools to help people find a life-altering hidden gem of a movie they took them away. When their catalogue got exposed for being mostly garbage they just made it harder to stray from the most popular movies on the service. They had a social component I liked but they got rid of it a decade ago. Imagine if it were like letterboxd and you could have people you follow whose taste you liked and could trust to recommend movies? A company the size of Netflix would find this trivial to implement and yet they haven't because they want to make their service as stupid as possible. What about something like a faux-cable experience for people that don't want to pick from a list of 30k things? They refused to do that so now Pluto exists. There are tons of ways that I think you could add community value-add but Netflix never did because they take their users for granted. I am sure this is literally a play to boost subscriber numbers based on how it went down in other countries. We'll see how it works but I for one have zero loyalty based on the contempt they show for the people that consume their product.
notatoad 3y ago
i see the thread is full of people predicting that this is going to be a bad decision for netflix, because they personally cancelled their accounts or are going to. and i cancelled my netflix account too - recent changes to pricing and policies made me re-assess whether it was worth it for me, and i decided it wasnt'. but it's always good to remember that our own actions aren't necessarily the same as everybody else's. netflix has been rolling this out in a slow and cautious way across their territories, surely monitoring the impact, and decided to continue. and earnings are up, they've beaten or at least met projections the last couple quarters. whatever they're doing seems to be working.
- BonoboIO 3y ago
  Netflix got a lot of competition lately. I can not even name all the streaming platforms: HBO, peacock, paramount, Hulu, Disney, Apple ... Netflix sees themselves as a tech company with flashy servers toys, but they are in the media business. If their content is subpar, the best engineering will not fix it. They have 80% saturation in US households, no real path to growth here. Investors like to see more revenue ... so they try this. I think a paying costumer with shared passwords is better than, no customer at all. Why pay more, when I can share my passwords on [insert other streaming platform] with my buddies.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    >HBO, peacock, paramount, Hulu, Disney, Apple ... I think that is basically it except for Amazon and Netflix. And Hulu is also owned by Disney. And Starz I guess.
smeej 3y ago
I have tried to sign up for my own Netflix account repeatedly over the last three years. For some reason, they don't like my phone number. It's just a regular phone number, on an American SIM card, when I'm solidly (and always) in America. It's the only one I have. But they don't like it, so I can't use Netflix at all unless I sign into someone else's account (with that person's consent), usually my mom, who lives in the next town over but is not in my household, or my brother who lives farther away. I'm only willing to make so many attempts to convince a company to let me give them money before I decide their service isn't worth the hassle.
xtracto 3y ago
Screw these type of policies... I was bitten by a similar policy by Spotify a couple of years ago when I was a paying customer with a Family Plan that only my wife and I used. Suddenly they decided to "cancel" my wife's account and I had to add her again... but when trying to add her, they asked me for her address and it had to match whatever address I added when I first joined (hint hint, We've moved houses several times in the last couple of years). And they refuse to show the address you have of you in their systems (Is that GDPR compliant for people in Europe?) Suffice to say, I cancelled my account and moved my business to Google Play Music and Tidal (for HiFi/Masters) where I am a paying customer now. These type of controls are idiotic and are only thought to squeeze as much revenue as possible from existing customers. COMPANIES: STOP SCREWING YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMERS!!!
dahwolf 3y ago
Rationally, this move makes sense, but Netflix is dealing with the legacy of peaking early. It started with a low price and deep catalog. The very popularity of Netflix is almost entirely based on that steal of a deal. The cable breaker. People's expectations of Netflix are cemented in that era. Now the price has roughly doubled whilst the catalog has degraded, and this is just one more nail in the coffin. Almost everybody seems disappointed in Netflix in one way or another. Personally, I see the fragmentation of streaming services as a solution, not a problem. Jump from service to service with zero loyalty. Let them compete for your money instead of seeing it as a stale gym membership.
DrBenCarson 3y ago
Absolutely idiotic. I’m subscribing for n streams, not 1 address.
slothtrop 3y ago
Weirdly Netflix is still the little guy, but they don't appear that way to people. All the other services are from tech giants and the big telecoms (and Disney). I figure this is a move pretty much all of them want to make, but they want to see who blinks first. Netflix can't afford to bleed as much cash. They've tried ramping up the number of productions, and are now attempting to put out fires this way.
droobles 3y ago
Anyone else notice Netlfix also being laggy and shows crashing consistently in these past few months? I've pretty much stopped watching it in favor of HBO's streaming platform.
junon 3y ago
> We recognize that our members have many entertainment choices. It’s why we continue to invest heavily in a wide variety of new films and TV shows Swing and a miss. They've completely lost contact with their users.
janalsncm 3y ago
I travel a lot for work. The second my account is locked out I will cancel it. I signed up for tv shows not for headaches.
wly_cdgr 3y ago
Seems perfectly reasonable. In fact, I've always thought their terms are quite generous and they've been super patient with people who steal their product by sharing access in violation of their ToS.
- po1nter 3y ago
  Stealing? They're freaking paying for it. If you're paying for 4 streams why the fuck do you care where they are streaming it them from? This is just a money grab for their shareholders pure and simple.
  - wly_cdgr 3y ago
    Yes, stealing. If you are sharing your login with people the terms you agreed to don't allow you to share it with, you are stealing. As for why I care - because I despise stealing and the entitlement and distespect and ignorance that's usually behind it. This is not a food, medicine, shelter, human-rights, or access-to-knowledge situation. We're talking about bingeware, no one really needs this in any serious way, it's purely optional junk food for the brain, so there is absolutely no excuse for stealing it. Extra especially not because of how much as-good-or-better entertainment content is available online for free.
_8j50 3y ago
What part of this do people find unreasonable? A very large and updated catalog of entertainment for the price of a bimac meal is too much? Why are you paying to begin with then? Pirate away! I mean, let it all be free, not my problem but if you are willing to pay for entertainment then how can you say you should be able to allow other people to not pay. I ask myself why they even allow other household members for free? Basic cable will cost at least 4-5 more. If you can afford that, replace it with netflix. If you can afford even more, get multiple streaming platforms. I hate the fact that there are so many streaming platforms but none of their pricing is unreasonable.
ho_schi 3y ago
https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712 https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712 Love is sharing a password Didn’t aged very well. Why I shall give you my money if you lock out my loved ones?
imdoor 3y ago
I feel like many of the issues people are complaining about here would instantly dissapear if there was regulation preventing content producers and content distributors be the same entity. There's even precedent for a similar thing in USA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_P....

238 points by mfiguiere 3y ago

I like how they never even say why they send this e-mail. It’s so incredibly passive aggressive. They don’t want to say “the gravy train is over, cough up” but that’s what they actually are saying.

owaislone 3y ago

Did they actually post a screenshot of the email they are sending out as an update? How hard is it to copy the text for the blog post? Why so lazy?

bradlys 3y ago
Formatting the text to be exactly like the email is probably more hassle than it is worth. It’s not likely to be a simple copy/paste into their CMS.

tikkun 3y ago

It would've been smart for them to do this transition during the COVID stimulus era - lockdowns, work from home, stimulus checks, low interest rates.

nvr219 3y ago

Here's an update: I'm canceling my account. The amount of entertainment I and the three people I share with get out of Netflix isn't worth the 4x cost increase. Maybe the other guys will get accounts, I don't know. I'm sure for some people it's worth it.

2023throwawayy 3y ago
Yup. Especially given their propensity to cancel shows on a whim.
- deleted 3y ago
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- wlesieutre 3y ago
  It's become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, like how people didn't trust Google to keep Stadia running so why would they buy full price games on it? Why would I pay for Netflix and get excited about their shows when so many get canned with no conclusion? But as more people say that and don't bother watching until there's a whole finished story, then even more shows get canceled earlier because nobody watched the first season. Aggressively launching lots of shows and canceling the lower performing ones might be a sound financial strategy in the short term, but I don't think it's doing great things for customer goodwill.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > But as more people say that and don't bother watching until there's a whole finished story, then even more shows get canceled earlier because nobody watched the first season. That's still netflix's fault. They need to stop expecting the world to flock to their newest shows the moment they are released, there's too much competing for our attention, and instead invest in stories and creators they believe in, and make sure that they're always funding and releasing a complete and quality product. It doesn't matter if a show is only one season, so long as that one season has a satisfying conclusion. Stories written to span multiple seasons are fine too, but they need to commit to seeing that show to its conclusion. Even if a show doesn't perform very well, some percentage of Netflix subscribers will enjoy it making it an asset for their library and on a long enough timescale it'll be worth it, but if they really want to cancel a show before the story has a chance to reasonably end, they'd be better off removing it entirely from their library. Right now their library is filled with shows that will entice new watchers only to piss them off when they learn the plug was pulled early, or which will sit unwatched by the people who have already heard that netflix screwed the show and its fans over and that's a liability.
    - wlesieutre 3y ago
      Totally agree that it's Netflix's fault. I was a Netflix subscriber and bailed when they announced the account sharing restrictions because frankly they don't have the catalog to back up their ever increasing prices. They want $20/month for 4K. If I were going to subscribe to one of the big streaming services again, that's a tough sell against Apple's TV+ at $8/month for 4K and a better track record on show cancellations. Maybe for people who watch a lot more TV than I do it's worth the expense. The only streaming I'm paying for now is dropout.tv, the little niche service descended from College Humor that only has like 3 shows producing new seasons. But it's consistently great, I'm not worried they're going to cancel after every season, and I'm supporting a small group of creators who all seem like nice people. Win-win-win.
xyst 3y ago
I am only keeping my account because of cellular carrier subsidies. If my account gets subject to this notice, then I am definitely canceling. I pay for 4K streaming and simultaneous streams. Viewing should not be constricted to a single IP or address.
crazygringo 3y ago
If just one of the other three gets an account (which seems statistically likely), it's the same for Netflix. If two of them get an account, or you change your mind later, it's a huge win for Netflix. Netflix has done the math and already tested this policy in several countries. They would never be rolling this out in their home market of the US if they weren't extremely confident that new subscriptions will outweigh cancellations.
- cma 3y ago
  > If just one of the other three gets an account (which seems statistically likely), it's the same for Netflix. Not 100%; with less viewers there will be less word of mouth about Netflix shows. Maybe that will be offset by paying less to license third party stuff with less viewers though.
- The_Colonel 3y ago
  Let's see. The experiment in Spain didn't work out that well: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-25/netflix-loses-1-million-users-in-spain-over-password-policing#xj4y7vzkg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-25/netflix-l... Out of that 1 million, I think only ~300 000 were paying customers, but still it did not achieve the desired effect.

JohnMakin 3y ago

So if they are allowing you to use on devices and networks outside of your home or ones you don't normally use, how are they identifying unique individuals or "households?"

michaelmior 3y ago
> To verify accounts within the same household, Netflix said they will use information including IP addresses, device IDs and account activity from devices already signed into the Netflix account. Source: https://www.today.com/popculture/netflix-guide-password-sharing-rcna68653 https://www.today.com/popculture/netflix-guide-password-shar...
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tristanb 3y ago
Previously i read that the device must connect to your home WIFI connection every N days.
- autoexec 3y ago
  Not all of the devices I watch netflix on are connected to wifi at all. I've got DVD and bluray players that don't even have wireless cards in them.
bonzini 3y ago
The idea that was floated was that they identify a device that defines the household (e.g. a TV), for example based on being always on the same SSID, or being on a wired connection, or the IP address. Then other devices need to be in the same network as that stable device at least say once a month.
- galleywest200 3y ago
  Can I have my other households VPN to my local network to bypass this?

michaelmior 3y ago

I'm probably in the minority, but I wish Netflix offered a profile transfer function that allowed me to transfer my profile to another existing account.

pinecamp 3y ago
They do. It's mentioned in the link.
- jkaplowitz 3y ago
  The link mentions a profile transfer to a new membership, not to another existing membership.
  - pinecamp 3y ago
    You're right! I misread. That would be nice to have.
cglong 3y ago
I really like the Spotify model, where everyone just has their own account. Then a Family Plan owner invites others to join the plan via their email address.

zamadatix 3y ago

Honestly, I wouldn't have minded something like "buy an extra member" if it were introduced years ago. Introducing it now just seems to be a trigger to re-evaluate "is Netflix really worth that much" at a time their content selection doesn't look as amazing as it once did. I'm coming from a background of having recently cancelled my account though, and may be biased in thinking along those lines as a result. Overall it'll be interesting to see how much impact this actually has or doesn't have for subscription volume. My guess is maybe not as much as the usual uproared comments would have you think.

yieldcrv 3y ago
> at a time their content selection doesn't look as amazing as it once did I feel like Netflix is seasonal. Just like Disney+ and HBO. Come fall Netflix will debut a bunch of viral bangers, and by February you'll be questioning if Netflix is worth it again.
- joemi 3y ago
  That's how I treat all streaming services nowadays. With the fractured landscape it's kind of the only way to handle it now.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  I was probably ~3 years delayed in cancelling Netflix based on actually using it. I started maintaining a watchlist of what I actually want to watch instead of constantly searching/cross-referencing through what is new or currently available on these interfaces designed to hide how little good new content is actually there. Eventually I found out there wasn't really that much I was actually interested in on the services anymore and, for what there was, I came the conclusion pirating was once again the better option in terms of availability, quality, and user experience. Barring returning to piracy, I think I'd still have cancelled but sometimes subscribed for a month on the rare occasion something like The Queen's Gambit (2020) came out then cancel for a few years again.
  - ghaff 3y ago

gjulianm 3y ago

This is a US rollout of a restriction that they have already deployed in Latin America and Spain among other countries [1], that they restrict your account to a single household. So, no password sharing with friends. I am honestly surprised they keep pushing this. In Spain, Netflix is among the most expensive options, and the most expensive if you consider the features you get (the 7,99 euro option just gives you HD, not full HD, and only one concurrent device); and the content quality has been going downhill and has lost a lot of staple shows. Most people I know that had Netflix just canceled their subscription once the deadline hit, because the price for extra members is ridiculous (basically a full subscription cost) and without password sharing it's not worth it compared to the other options. I guess that the move didn't have as much effect as people thought it did, and that's why they're continuing the rollout. 1: https://about.netflix.com/en/news/update-on-sharing-may-us https://about.netflix.com/en/news/update-on-sharing-may-us

autoexec 3y ago
> I guess that the move didn't have as much effect as people thought it did, and that's why they're continuing the rollout. 1 million people canceled their netflix accounts in Spain over the change. The new policy has already cost them several million dollars. That's a pretty major effect. Maybe they think people sharing passwords costs them more over time, or maybe they're just willing to hemorrhage users now hoping that they'll somehow win some back later under tighter restrictions, and at higher prices. It still seems like a gamble to me, considering they have a ton of competition with better libraries. I think cracking down on the worst offenders (hundreds of people all over the globe using the same account) and keeping accounts to a reasonable number of simultaneous streams would have been a much better option.
mdasen 3y ago
> I am honestly surprised they keep pushing this I'm not surprised. One of the big problems that faces Netflix is market saturation. Lots of companies like Google or Facebook can grow profits by getting you to use their service more. The more you use, the more they earn. Netflix can only get more revenue by getting more paying users or raising prices on existing users. In the United States and Canada, Netflix has 74.4M subscribers. The US has 124M households and Canada has 15M (139M total). 54% of US/Canadian households already subscribe to Netflix. If each of those paying subscriptions is also being used by a second non-paying household, that means that 100% of US/Canada has Netflix. If that's true, the only way for Netflix to gain revenue would be by raising prices or eliminating the account-sharing and hoping that more people will be paying customers. I'm sure Netflix has run the numbers based on their internal data. They already know who is sharing accounts. If 50% of accounts are sharing, that means that the 74.4M subscribers becomes 111.8M households and 80% of US/Canada. Basically, Netflix should know how close to the total number of households already use Netflix (even if they aren't paying for it). If 80% of households already have access, you've basically hit your growth limit. You can't expect 100% - only 87% of households have broadband internet in the US and some people just won't be interested. It seems reasonably likely that Netflix is pretty close to their growth limit in the US/Canada without going after account sharing. If 50% of accounts are sharing, they've probably hit 90-95% penetration in the US/Canada given that 13% of households don't have the internet required for Netflix. I'm not surprised simply because it seems like the only avenue of growth for Netflix in many markets. Netflix doesn't charge you per show. They don't have add-on packages for sports or whatever. If you love your local take-out place, you might order from there more. If you love Facebook, you watch more of their ads. If you love Netflix, you don't buy a new account each day. To keep growing in many areas, Netflix needs to break up account sharing.

jkaplowitz 3y ago

So in which countries have they rolled out this policy so far? I remember enough from some prior announcement to know that the US is not the first or only such country, and that it's not yet worldwide, but I don't remember where else it's in place.

dangerboysteve 3y ago

In Canada, I had the full pickle 4K account and my girls in another city used my account. When the new rules kicked in, I cut my plan and pay half now. And I'll cancel it this month. The service is just not worth it with all the crappy content.

ChikkaChiChi 3y ago
This is the most mind-blowing aspect of this. Kids away at college use their parents' accounts for entertainment. Those kids graduate, then get their own accounts. Netflix is shooting themselves in the foot. These kids will just adopt content from other providers.
- MikeBVaughn 3y ago
  If there's one thing I know from experience, it's that college students definitely won't turn to explicit piracy. Never happens, don't worry about it.
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  With kids and parents, what may very well happen is that the parents start subsidizing kids' individual accounts while they're already in school. It's not like the few extra bucks a month is meaningful compared to the low 5 figure sum it takes to send a kid away to college.
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  > Those kids graduate, then get their own accounts. Pretty sure those kids graduate and keep using their parents accounts (source: I graduated >10 years ago, still use my parents account). Unless they have kids of their own and need their own account. But most gen Z and millennials are pretty broke (half living paycheck to paycheck: https://fortune.com/2023/05/19/quiet-quitting-side-hustle-second-job-millennials-gen-z-paycheck-deloitte/ https://fortune.com/2023/05/19/quiet-quitting-side-hustle-se... -> https://archive.is/u415s https://archive.is/u415s ), so many wouldn't be able to pay for netflix on their own Shared netflix has been a nice way for boomers and gen X to do something nice for their struggling kids. Really curious if Netflix will even make more money from this. Even if revenue doesn't change or decreases, they might also benefit by paying less in bandwidth per paying user.

nocoiner 3y ago

I really dislike how every corporate communication regarding an “update” now means “here’s how we’re making things worse for you.” I know honesty has never really been the fundamental value of public relations initiatives, but it would be refreshing to occasionally see a company saying that they’re putting the squeeze on customers because they need to protect their margins or even just because they can. The formerly-neutral “update” is starting to rankle.

Paul-Craft 3y ago
> ... "To better serve our customers, here's how we're making things worse for you. FTFY.
- givemeethekeys 3y ago
  "To clarify our financial position, we're firing everyone and shutting down".
- csours 3y ago
  To better serve some of our customers, here's how we're screwing the other ones.
- CraigJPerry 3y ago
  Corey Doctrow has a good term for this, or at least it’s him i heard say it: enshitification. I think it just captures the dynamics beautifully, it’s almost poetic.
  - bsder 3y ago
    Oy, double T. It's "enshittification". And that's even the way Doctorow spelled it. The root word is "shitty". Double T. I've seen this a couple of times now without the double T, and it pains me.
  - latexr 3y ago
    Original post was on the enshittification of TikTok. https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

questime 3y ago

Ahoy there, mateys! I be here to say that I be leaving Netflix. They be raising their prices too high, and they be taking away all the good shows. I be sailin' the high seas for my entertainment now. Arrrr!

867-5309 3y ago
I should think so too on a farmer's wages
joemi 3y ago
Why be coy and simply (heavily) imply pirating? Just say outright that you're going to pirate stuff because you for some reason believe you have a right to view their content and not pay for it?
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  Pirating is seizing a ship for material goods. People get hurt or killed when this happens. And the economics of material goods are literally otherworldly from those of digital goods. (You can't download a car -- copying a car for practically free.) Torrenting is just choosing the most convenient distribution mechanism for data that you own. You can buy DRM-free music, but not DRM-free shows or movies unless they're bound to physical media. The reasons why have to do with backdoor meetings and lobbying by the MPAA, and I don't care much about them. And Netflix expects me to own nothing and be happy while leasing tenuous network access to compressed streams of content by paying indefinitely. Cute. I think it's funny they got us to implicitly condemn solving their greed-based distribution problem with a term as hyperbolic as "pirating" though. They want to remain in meatspace, where the old economic model makes sense -- scarcity, wear and tear, manufacturing costs per unit, so they try pretending we're all still there in cyberspace by guilt tripping us with meatspace vocabulary.
  - shapefrog 3y ago
    If I could download a car, I would.
  - 3y ago

zwieback 3y ago

My daughters have been freeloading on our Netflix even though WE TOLD THEM NOT TO DO THAT. So now they'll get booted off without us having to be the bad parents texting them that we want to use it now. No complaints from me.

deeviant 3y ago
Nice, solved that very serious problem there.
brokensegue 3y ago
change your password?
KoftaBob 3y ago
The idea of Netflix executives helping your parenting by letting you avoid the terrifying possibility of...saying no to your children...is hilarious to me.
- zwieback 3y ago
  Yeah, it was meant as a joke but I guess I was too subtle. I still get why NF is doing it though.

say_it_as_it_is 3y ago

I'm really curious what management/accounting at Netflix estimated free-riding costs the company every year and what the savings will be for the second half of this year by pruning.

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[deleted]

ChikkaChiChi 3y ago

No matter how they are accomplishing this, it's going to trigger a lot of false positives and cause plenty of headaches for the consumer.

rektide 3y ago
There should definitely be like 1 or 2 days a month where accounts get a free exemption. So people who bring their rarely used tablet with them traveling aren't screwed.

dvt 3y ago

It's kind of strange how Netflix has the gall to raise prices while they are objectively the worst original content platform out there (last show I watched was Squid Games almost 2 years ago). Will gladly cancel my Netflix sub and keep Hulu (huge back catalog), HBO (House of the Dragon, The Last of Us), and AppleTV (Ted Lasso, For all Mankind, Severance).

mupuff1234 3y ago

I'm gonna cancel my subscription, i hope all people here do the same.

nomel 3y ago
This only affects password sharers.
- autoexec 3y ago
  password sharers and possibly anyone at all who travels or regularly watches netflix on multiple devices or from multiple locations. How annoying they make this will determine how long I keep paying them.

Dowwie 3y ago

I am really curious about how the engineering team took on the challenge of identifying and tracking households within the constraints defined by Apple related to tracking users

ML_Comp_Sci_Guy 3y ago
It's right here: https://netflixtechblog.com/machine-learning-for-fraud-detection-in-streaming-services-b0b4ef3be3f6 https://netflixtechblog.com/machine-learning-for-fraud-detec... They define any type of sharing as "Account Fraud and abuse of Terms of Service" <-- However, some restrictions are in place, such as the number of active devices, the number of streams, and the number of downloaded titles. Many users across many platforms make for a uniquely large attack surface that includes content fraud, account fraud, and abuse of terms of service. Detection of fraud and abuse at scale and in real-time is highly challenging. -->

rektide 3y ago

Anyone have a writeup on using TailScale to bypass these sorts of limits? Some folks have said it includes SSID as a check which is definitely a wrinkle. I would have assumed it was mostly just using IP address. This is one of those cases where the War Against General Purpose Computing is going to own society, score points against users. I assume if you can root & run Magisk you could fake a geolocation for example. But Google & Apple have done everything in their power to make rooted/jailbroken devices practically unusable, to build attestation frameworks & SafetyNet & other systems to make sure corporate payloads run safe from user-agency on devices. What a shitty future!

jacooper 3y ago
This LTT video is just for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CunwUs08og https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CunwUs08og
moneywoes 3y ago
Could you please eli5 how it works, a shared VPN?
- yonatan8070 3y ago
  Basically you have a machine running at home, and when you want to watch Netflix, you send the traffic through that machine so it looks to Netflix like you're from your home network
nepthar 3y ago
I'd be curious about how Netflix would get access to your SSID. On a mobile app, you'd have to grant that permission - do they now ask for that?
- fathyb 3y ago
  They should not be able to do that on the browser too, even with Widevine.
runeb 3y ago

marinhero 3y ago

We are back to the cable days. We know the likely outcome for this: increase in piracy. I do not advocate for this (not even a Netflix user myself) but they have forgotten about one of the motivations that allowed the streaming business to flourish, "cable cutting" for minimizing costs.

MikeBVaughn 3y ago

Does their US pricing model still couple streaming quality to the number of concurrent streams? It drives me batty that I can't get a "4k, but only one stream" plan. Between that and the "is the thing I really want to watch available or not?" queue lottery, I got fed up a few years ago and ditched them completely. The general streaming experience has become so awful that I'll just go to Youtube or Amazon and pay $4 to get precisely what I want for 48 hours, instead of googling to figure out who the hell currently has 'Heat' or whatever on their streaming platform. It's amazing, we've looped around to 1999. You have to surf around to see where and if what you want is even available - people even make aggregate guides to tell you what's on where (a TV Guide, if you will). A decent amount of the time, depending on your tastes, the thing you want probably isn't available on a platform you're currently paying for. Tragically, though, you don't get the irreplaceable experience of talking in person with a full-bore, unfiltered Video Store Guy.

deepzn 3y ago

Even if I could purchase it I wouldn't. Haven't watched anything on Netflix in 3 or 4 months even with a sharing membership. Youtube Premium is where I spend most of my time, and get the most out of.

siliconc0w 3y ago

Without sharing its pretty hard to justify, every now and then there is a show that is a decent watch but then it's an eternity until the next season. I feeling a meta service that tracks your favorite shows and automatically subscribes/unsubscribes when they're new eps.

s1k3s 3y ago

Glad they're actually pushing this. The fact that people think it's somehow their right to use stuff for free, that others had to put in work for, is mindblowing for me.

kstrauser 3y ago
It would be more understandable if their founding CEO wasn't on record saying that they were happy to have people share their accounts, especially with their kids.
- KingOfCoders 3y ago
  And now he changed his mind. So?
autoexec 3y ago
> The fact that people think it's somehow their right to use stuff for free, that others had to put in work for, is mindblowing for me. People aren't pissed because they can't "use stuff for free" anymore. You can already pirate every show that's on netflix. People are upset because they were sold one thing, and now will not be getting what they paid for. I paid for x number of simultaneous devices/streams. I paid for a service which told me sharing passwords was perfectly fine. That's what I signed up for. Now netflix changes the rules, which after multiple price increases, a library that has declined in quantity and quality, and an interface that is still terrible and increasingly stuffed with ads there is nothing mindblowing about the hate they're getting. They absolutely deserve to lose customers.

greatgib 3y ago

I really hate them for this move for them being fuckin hypocrites. In theory it would be ok to have such a rule. But for years they have used the sharing of account as a marketing trick to get new users. Imagine that they have 3 offers, with the most expensive one not far from 2x times the entry level price. The main difference was the ability to have 2 or 4 person's watching at the same time. Normally you would not have a real need for taking more than basic plans, but they pushed people to take the highest plan and share. Now that they reached a peak in term of users, they switch their speech and pretend that they have to do a change because people are abusing of something that was not allowed to them in the first place. So they need to get a good lesson with mass cancellation and downsizing subscriptions.

kossTKR 3y ago

This seems like a weirdly public rollout. I've always had the intuition that bigcorps with relaxed anti piracy enforcement were better off because of networks effects and goodwill. This honestly makes me want to cancel my subscription. Why not just silently do this? What's the actual deal here?

xbmcuser 3y ago

I still have a Netflix account as my family in another country use it. If get this letter I will probably close the account

nomel 3y ago
These types of comments completely justify Netflix’s actions, in my mind.
- nomel 3y ago
  It appears that some think that sharing a password with someone in another country is an expected/justified use case, which is an objectively ridiculous interpretation of the terms of service. A similarly ridiculous interpretation, of sharing it with the whole office: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35719281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35719281 I suspect Netflix will come out ahead with this, with how casual it seems to be.
  - xbmcuser 3y ago
    I don't use the account anymore they do so I am mostly just paying for the top tier account. My canceling the account will be a net loss for netflix as the subscription price is 2 times cheaper over there and good for me as I have been too embarrassed to tell my family I no longer use netflix so want to cancel my account.

xur17 3y ago

Are they actually blocking extra users, or is this just the precursor?

gumby 3y ago

I don't understand their logic. First: you can subscribe to n simultaneous streams/downloads. Ours is 2, and sometimes the kids complain, and end up sorting it out somehow.* Second: if you have a kid at college, they "live at home" for various other mechanisms (count as a dependent for taxation; qualify for parents' health insurance, can vote in their home district regardless of where they live; can be part of a family phone plan, family apple plan, etc etc...) * And third: they don't seem to argue about netflix much any more; I think if I dropped the sub to a single session everybody would still be fine. Netflix seems to have an increasing density of junk content, losing its distinguished position.

crazygringo 3y ago
The logic seems pretty clear to me, both in terms of financial necessity (keeping Netflix in business) and in terms of policy for households. And Netflix is a private company, so however dependents or health insurance or voting or phone plans are defined is irrelevant. Also, all of those definitions are different from each other anyways, so it's not like there's any consistency in the first place.
- mikeortman 3y ago
  This isn’t about keeping Netflix in business, they are doing just fine. This is about squeezing out every last drop of exponential growth expected by shareholders.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Their stock plummeted 75% between Oct 2021 and June 2022. That's not "doing just fine" by any standard. So no, this isn't about squeezing out every last drop, this is about making necessary structural changes to remain viable in the long-term.
    - dghlsakjg 3y ago
      It was also up 300% between 2019 and 2021, and has bounced way back up since June 2022. This is just reversion to the mean

kylemh 3y ago

If I'm nomadic and live in a different "household" every 1-3 months... Do I have any options?!

Paul-Craft 3y ago
That is actually a very good question. I know people who literally do this, though not only moving "households" every few months, but moving countries. TBH, my guess is NFLX's solution is going to be "Yeah, fuck those 12 people who do that. We've got bigg^H^H^H^H more lucrative problems."
- hn92726819 3y ago
  Netflix should invest in learning about ^w :D
  - Paul-Craft 3y ago
    What LeetCode problem is that one? (Yes, yes, is joke.)
- kylemh 3y ago
  I do this. It's why I asked
crazygringo 3y ago
Yes it works fine -- their policy and this e-mail are explicit that it works "on the go". Your option is a regular subscription. As long as you pay for a single subscription and you're not sharing it with others who try to keep accessing it after you've moved on to a new location, there's no problem. Just make sure you log out of your account on the living room TV when you leave a home, that's all you need to do.

kstrauser 3y ago

From https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/netflix-is-cool-with-you-sharing-your-account/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/netflix-is-c... : > "We love people sharing Netflix," CEO Reed Hastings said Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show here in Las Vegas. "That's a positive thing, not a negative thing." > Hastings, who earlier in the day also revealed Netflix was now in 130 countries, didn't address broad password swapping, but did say a household sharing an account was fine. A lot of the time, he said, household sharing leads to new customers because kids subscribe on their own as they start to earn income. I mention this lest anyone wrongly think Netflix has the moral high ground on this. Their CEO explicitly said it was OK to share your account, especially with your kids. It's not like those of us who did so were trying to be sneaky and steal service. If Netflix wants to change the rules, that's their right. I loathe that this is sometimes being portrayed as a crackdown on piracy, though.

autoexec 3y ago
They also advertised their plans as allowing a certain number of active screens at once. If I pay for something that allows three people to watch at the same time on different devices I don't care which house or what building those three people are sitting in.
suddenclarity 3y ago
Am I missing something? You quote the CEO saying it's fine to share account within the household and eventually the kids will grow up and get their own accounts when making money and moving. How does it differ from Netflix now saying that you're not allowed to share your account with people OUTSIDE of a household unless paying for it?
- kstrauser 3y ago
  Yes, you're missing something: the CEO said, quote, "we love people sharing Netflix". There's no plausible interpretation where they're referring to people living under one roof, because of course those people can share the account. That's why they have profiles in the first place. Additionally, their premium plan includes "download on 6 devices". They didn't intend that for the average person who has 6 Netflix-capable devices themselves, as most people have far fewer. No, the only viable interpretation of their account setup is that it's explicitly designed for several people to use a single account. That means the "several family members in one house" setup is the baseline, and "people sharing Netflix" couldn't reasonably mean "...with their spouse and kids living with them.

deepzn 3y ago

Netflix once had an advantage, mostly tech and UI based, as well as network effects. I feel all of it has subsided. They did well to weather the studios and networks pulling their content into their own services. While deciding to invest in original content early, they built a pretty decent library, but they're still way behind with other networks who have 50+ years of content. While their focus now to cover the breadth of programming like cable as opposed to quality content, means they will likely stay where they are (lose selective subs, and gain cable subs) but just not as an emerging tech co. with new ideas that was once the N in FANG, but just as a legacy media network, while their consumers have a wealth of choices fighting for their time including social, gaming, real world events, etc.

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mgrund 3y ago

Would feel like less of a money grab if they rolled this out with price reductions, given the increase in subscriptions I assume they expect as a consequence. They might even be able to sell it as a way to bring justice to those that do not share accounts and who are currently covering the cost of other people doing it.

jakebasile 3y ago

I think it's pretty ridiculous for Netflix to define what is and isn't my "household".

tinglymintyfrsh 3y ago
What if you have 5 homes (with 5 different ISPs)? Is each a household or are the collection of people households? What if you have friends who are basically family who more-or-less live with you? Are they not part of the "household"? "Sorry, Bob, while you maybe my daughter's godfather and donated a kidney to me, you're now going to need your own Netflix account because Netflix wants to mash the 'pump corporate profits' button that has been a primary contributing factor of both embarrassing wealth transfer from the poor to the rich and inflation post-pandemic."
- KomoD 3y ago
  Who has 5 homes?
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Most people would consider someone with five homes as very rich, but you could get relatively close with only moderately excessive wealth and a divorce. Each parent owning a vacation home, perhaps.
    - KomoD 3y ago
      Still sounds rich to me.
  - buzer 3y ago
    5 homes is likely rare, but I don't think 2 is extremely uncommon. Like vacation home where family might spend summer or working at different city than where family and coming home for weekends. In Finland over 10% of people have a cabin and in average they spend 79 days of the year there (https://suomenkuvalehti.fi/kotimaa/yli-puoli-miljoonaa-kesamokkia-kolme-miljoonaa-mokkilomailijaa-vuodessa-suomalaiset-ovat-yha-mokkikansaa/ https://suomenkuvalehti.fi/kotimaa/yli-puoli-miljoonaa-kesam...) though I'm not sure how common it's to have electricity these days.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

BXlnt2EachOther 3y ago

edit to add: following is totally US-centric! Like the blog post I think? I was not familiar with how much Netflix costs these days, either the subscription or extra sharing slots. Pasted here in case it's helpful. Sorry if this is redundant, didn't find with ctrl-f. Standard with ads: $6.99 / month Basic: $9.99 / month Standard: $15.49 / month (extra member slots\* can be added for $7.99 each / month) Premium: $19.99 / month (extra member slots\* can be added for $7.99 each / month) Note that on Standard, when they say "extra member slots" it's really "extra member slot" because there's a limit of 1 there and a limit of 2 on Premium.

autoexec 3y ago
"standard with ads" is fine, but I wish Netflix would stop filling the other plans with ads too then. I have premium at the moment (how long that lasts depends on how annoying they become when they start cracking down on what they think my "household" is) and the ads are still getting out of hand.
- tric 3y ago
  > I have premium at the moment ...and the ads are still getting out of hand. Do you mean promos for other Netflix shows? Or are these ads for products/services unrelated to Netflix?
  - autoexec 3y ago
    So far it's been mostly ads for other netflix shows, but they are everywhere. Full screen ads you have to click through to even get to the catalogue, a giant ad at the top you have to scroll past, ads taking up multiple rows as you scroll through their options, the ads that play in the middle of a show if you pause the screen for more than a few seconds, the ads that play as soon as the credits start rolling (even when there's still content), etc.
nashashmi 3y ago
I remember them increasing prices for those who were sharing accounts. The limit was the number of streams you can have (at different locations). what are they doing now that is different? and how does that affect me with 4 streams?

tinglymintyfrsh 3y ago

My first thought: How is this going to block me from Netflixing on a United flight or in a hotel? It seems problematic. Also, there are nontraditional families with multiple homes. How many accounts do they need?

someotherperson 3y ago

I installed an app on my Chromecast/Google TV a couple of days ago called Cloudstream. Some of the providers segment the different shows/movies by Netflix/HBO/Disney+/Paramount etc. Some of the providers give you 4K streams. Has subtitles, "watch later" lists and the ability to continue from where you left off. The interface is pretty nice too. It's really straight forward to add on any Android device -- phone, Fire stick, whatever. It took a couple of minutes to install and about a half hour to fully configure. If they want us to go back to piracy, it's now easier than ever before. And I'm wholly prepared for it.

cj 3y ago
This sounds similar to Popcorn Time (now defunct). I think they open sourced and then got taken down a while back. One major difference (I think?) is it appears Cloudstream doesn't include the "sources" by default in the core app. Maybe that will help them subvert copyright for a while if the client GUI is decoupled from the source of the pirated content.
xtracto 3y ago
I remember installing that CloudStream app and struggling a bit with plugins, repositores and whatnot, for a couple of hours... with regards to piracy up until now nothing has beaten simple BtDigg + WebTor for me until now.

NotYourLawyer 3y ago

I have 3 houses. Am I gonna be expected to pay extra Netflix fees? I can’t afford that!

joshe 3y ago

One tip I use is to not waste money is never be subscribed to any streaming platform. So sign up for 1 month, cancel immediately and then watch what you wish for the month. Netflix used to be a pretty good deal because they had a depth of great old content from the major studios. But now it's scattered all over the other services, and we've all seen most of their decent original content. Doing it this way I'm subscribed to Netflix 2 months a year. Apple for 1 month. Disney for 1 month. That's a difference of ~$40 a year vs ~$500 a year. Don't stress that you'll want to watch it and can't. You can just sign up again. Even if you do it 5 months a year, you'll be way ahead. Just use the psychology that if you sign up you cancel immediately. Now the default is to save money. Don't get drawn into the idea that this is a luxury that you can afford. Wasting money is not luxury.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hahajk 3y ago
I think this strategy will only work a little longer. The crackdown on sharing is only start. As the pressure increases on streaming services to turn more profits I'd expect longer contract lengths. I wouldn't be surprised to see Adobe-style "reduced price monthly payment" contracts from the more corporate services.
- pdimitar 3y ago
  They're free to try that and much more. However it's not like the customers have a gun at their head. You don't need a PhD to conclude you're being squeezed. At one point people just turn their backs and make do without the service. Squeezing the customers has soft limits and it's always hilarious to watch corporations being oblivious to them.
- bombcar 3y ago
  "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." As it is right now it's cheaper for me to hit up Disney+ for a month rather than rent or buy a new release elsewhere, but as that gets harder the less I'll consume.

brianjking 3y ago

Will they give any of the revenue to the writers?

librish 3y ago

I feel like the moral outrage over this is a little overblown. Reading the terms it seems clear that Netflix is targeting people who are blatantly account sharing. It makes sense to worry that this will inconvenience people who have non-typical lifestyles though. Similarly, saying this is a bad business move seems without any evidence seems rash. I don't think anyone at Netflix particularly _wants_ to implement this so my guess is that they have some pretty compelling evidence for why this makes sense. Anecdotally, most people I know are sharing the majority of streaming accounts with multiple people.

batiudrami 3y ago
I think companies can charge what they want for content and people are able to not use the service if they don’t like the price. So I think the moral outrage is ridiculous. But, like you suggested, my house has access to 6 steaming services, all shared with other people, which leaves our monthly outlay at about $25. That’s a reasonable price to pay for me, and if I stop being able to share I will start to make some choices about my subscriptions. I wonder how this ends for Netflix, cashflow wise. They definitely aren’t worth the $20/m they’re asking, especially because by comparison that’s what I pay for the rest combined. In terms of content I actually want to watch they’re probably only about 4th best.
jackson1442 3y ago
Most of the backlash is because: - one of the things you pay for in your netflix tier is the number of "screens" - 4 screens = 4 simaltaneous streams. Many people think the screens are theirs to use how they see fit - netflix used to _encourage_ password sharing[0] - and of course, the number one rule of the internet: never charge for what you used to offer for free [0]: https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712 https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712
- librish 3y ago
  I've seen that tweet before and I think it's a bit ridiculous to take a cheeky line from a marketing person to represent a perpetual promise by the company.

tristor 3y ago

I pay for the maximum subscription for Netflix, and we are heavy Netflix users. We also share the account with my elderly parents who occasionally watch something because we tell them to do so. If the fact that this is the case causes Netflix to take action with my account, I'm happy to take my $21.74 ($19.99+tax)/mo and tell them to shove it.

anonu 3y ago

Do they define household? Same IP?

paxys 3y ago

Time to finally see whether the "this will make everyone cancel their subscriptions and kill Netflix" crowd knows the business better than Netflix's data analysts.

gathersnow 3y ago

I was a member of Netflix from 90s to about 2021. The beginning of the streaming era was great. But since then Netflix has a long history of being user-hostile that I said goodbye to them many years ago. I got sick of their stupid auto-play feature that couldn't be disabled. They used to seemingly care helping you find new movies you like based on a star rating. Remember the Netflix challenge? Now I suppose there's a thumbs up, but really they probably just gauge based on if you watch or not. Instead of adding tools to help people find a life-altering hidden gem of a movie they took them away. When their catalogue got exposed for being mostly garbage they just made it harder to stray from the most popular movies on the service. They had a social component I liked but they got rid of it a decade ago. Imagine if it were like letterboxd and you could have people you follow whose taste you liked and could trust to recommend movies? A company the size of Netflix would find this trivial to implement and yet they haven't because they want to make their service as stupid as possible. What about something like a faux-cable experience for people that don't want to pick from a list of 30k things? They refused to do that so now Pluto exists. There are tons of ways that I think you could add community value-add but Netflix never did because they take their users for granted. I am sure this is literally a play to boost subscriber numbers based on how it went down in other countries. We'll see how it works but I for one have zero loyalty based on the contempt they show for the people that consume their product.

notatoad 3y ago

i see the thread is full of people predicting that this is going to be a bad decision for netflix, because they personally cancelled their accounts or are going to. and i cancelled my netflix account too - recent changes to pricing and policies made me re-assess whether it was worth it for me, and i decided it wasnt'. but it's always good to remember that our own actions aren't necessarily the same as everybody else's. netflix has been rolling this out in a slow and cautious way across their territories, surely monitoring the impact, and decided to continue. and earnings are up, they've beaten or at least met projections the last couple quarters. whatever they're doing seems to be working.

BonoboIO 3y ago
Netflix got a lot of competition lately. I can not even name all the streaming platforms: HBO, peacock, paramount, Hulu, Disney, Apple ... Netflix sees themselves as a tech company with flashy servers toys, but they are in the media business. If their content is subpar, the best engineering will not fix it. They have 80% saturation in US households, no real path to growth here. Investors like to see more revenue ... so they try this. I think a paying costumer with shared passwords is better than, no customer at all. Why pay more, when I can share my passwords on [insert other streaming platform] with my buddies.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  >HBO, peacock, paramount, Hulu, Disney, Apple ... I think that is basically it except for Amazon and Netflix. And Hulu is also owned by Disney. And Starz I guess.

smeej 3y ago

I have tried to sign up for my own Netflix account repeatedly over the last three years. For some reason, they don't like my phone number. It's just a regular phone number, on an American SIM card, when I'm solidly (and always) in America. It's the only one I have. But they don't like it, so I can't use Netflix at all unless I sign into someone else's account (with that person's consent), usually my mom, who lives in the next town over but is not in my household, or my brother who lives farther away. I'm only willing to make so many attempts to convince a company to let me give them money before I decide their service isn't worth the hassle.

xtracto 3y ago

Screw these type of policies... I was bitten by a similar policy by Spotify a couple of years ago when I was a paying customer with a Family Plan that only my wife and I used. Suddenly they decided to "cancel" my wife's account and I had to add her again... but when trying to add her, they asked me for her address and it had to match whatever address I added when I first joined (hint hint, We've moved houses several times in the last couple of years). And they refuse to show the address you have of you in their systems (Is that GDPR compliant for people in Europe?) Suffice to say, I cancelled my account and moved my business to Google Play Music and Tidal (for HiFi/Masters) where I am a paying customer now. These type of controls are idiotic and are only thought to squeeze as much revenue as possible from existing customers. COMPANIES: STOP SCREWING YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMERS!!!

dahwolf 3y ago

Rationally, this move makes sense, but Netflix is dealing with the legacy of peaking early. It started with a low price and deep catalog. The very popularity of Netflix is almost entirely based on that steal of a deal. The cable breaker. People's expectations of Netflix are cemented in that era. Now the price has roughly doubled whilst the catalog has degraded, and this is just one more nail in the coffin. Almost everybody seems disappointed in Netflix in one way or another. Personally, I see the fragmentation of streaming services as a solution, not a problem. Jump from service to service with zero loyalty. Let them compete for your money instead of seeing it as a stale gym membership.

DrBenCarson 3y ago

Absolutely idiotic. I’m subscribing for n streams, not 1 address.

slothtrop 3y ago

Weirdly Netflix is still the little guy, but they don't appear that way to people. All the other services are from tech giants and the big telecoms (and Disney). I figure this is a move pretty much all of them want to make, but they want to see who blinks first. Netflix can't afford to bleed as much cash. They've tried ramping up the number of productions, and are now attempting to put out fires this way.

droobles 3y ago

Anyone else notice Netlfix also being laggy and shows crashing consistently in these past few months? I've pretty much stopped watching it in favor of HBO's streaming platform.

junon 3y ago

> We recognize that our members have many entertainment choices. It’s why we continue to invest heavily in a wide variety of new films and TV shows Swing and a miss. They've completely lost contact with their users.

janalsncm 3y ago

I travel a lot for work. The second my account is locked out I will cancel it. I signed up for tv shows not for headaches.

wly_cdgr 3y ago

Seems perfectly reasonable. In fact, I've always thought their terms are quite generous and they've been super patient with people who steal their product by sharing access in violation of their ToS.

po1nter 3y ago
Stealing? They're freaking paying for it. If you're paying for 4 streams why the fuck do you care where they are streaming it them from? This is just a money grab for their shareholders pure and simple.
- wly_cdgr 3y ago
  Yes, stealing. If you are sharing your login with people the terms you agreed to don't allow you to share it with, you are stealing. As for why I care - because I despise stealing and the entitlement and distespect and ignorance that's usually behind it. This is not a food, medicine, shelter, human-rights, or access-to-knowledge situation. We're talking about bingeware, no one really needs this in any serious way, it's purely optional junk food for the brain, so there is absolutely no excuse for stealing it. Extra especially not because of how much as-good-or-better entertainment content is available online for free.

_8j50 3y ago

What part of this do people find unreasonable? A very large and updated catalog of entertainment for the price of a bimac meal is too much? Why are you paying to begin with then? Pirate away! I mean, let it all be free, not my problem but if you are willing to pay for entertainment then how can you say you should be able to allow other people to not pay. I ask myself why they even allow other household members for free? Basic cable will cost at least 4-5 more. If you can afford that, replace it with netflix. If you can afford even more, get multiple streaming platforms. I hate the fact that there are so many streaming platforms but none of their pricing is unreasonable.

ho_schi 3y ago

https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712 https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712 Love is sharing a password Didn’t aged very well. Why I shall give you my money if you lock out my loved ones?

imdoor 3y ago

I feel like many of the issues people are complaining about here would instantly dissapear if there was regulation preventing content producers and content distributors be the same entity. There's even precedent for a similar thing in USA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_P....