Netflix is trying to stop people from sharing passwords by testing out a charge for additional users
The new test isn't rolling out in America though... yet
Aux News Netflix
Netflix will soon launch a test that makes account owners pay an additional fee for anyone who logs in outside their household. The test is the streaming service’s latest effort to crackdown password-sharing.
“We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account, with features like separate profiles and multiple streams in our Standard and Premium plans.While these have been hugely popular, they have also created some confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared,” wrote Chengyi Long, Netflix’s director of product innovation in a blog post. “As a result, accounts are being shared between households—impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members.”
The test is launching soon in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru and “enable members who share outside their household to do so easily and securely, while also paying a bit more.”
This test function will allow users to “add sub accounts for up to two people they don’t live with—each with their own profile, personalized recommendations, login and password—at a lower price: 2,380 CLP in Chile, 2.99 USD in Costa Rica, and 7.9 PEN in Peru.”
It will also allow Netflix members to “enable people who share their account to transfer profile information either to a new account or an Extra Member sub account—keeping the viewing history, My List, and personalized recommendations.”
Netflix is estimated to be worth $176.07 billion so we’re not really buying that account sharing is hurting the company’s profits that much. Plus, a Netflix subscription is already pretty expensive (especially for accountholders living in the three marginalized countries that will receive the test roll out).
The streamer deciding to crack down on those who want to share the TV shows and movies they enjoy with their loved ones is unfortunate. While Netflix hasn’t announced whether its trying to implement the same additional charge worldwide—including in the U.S.—soon, it sure doesn’t look good. Warn your roommates and exes.
43 Comments
Netflix is estimated to be worth $176.07 billion so we’re not really buying that account sharing is hurting the company’s profits that much.Er… huh? The net worth of a company isn’t directly related to how much profit or even revenue it makes. It includes assets and debts, so it’s entirely possible for companies to be worth a lot of money and not make shit in profit.
Theranos the first few years rings a bell. Investors kept pouring money into the company, it was worth $9 billion in 2014 and hadn’t done anything worthwhile.
You don’t even need to dig that deep, Amazon was infamously in the red for over a decade.
Wasn’t Amazon only “in the red” as an accounting trick to avoid taxes though? I’m pretty sure they were making massive profits, but they were investing those profits back into the company to make it look like they were not breaking even. College athletics programs do the same thing.
And so does Netflix. They all do Hollywood accounting.
Given that A.V. Club writers can’t even proofread their work, I’m not the least bit surprised they lack a basic understanding of how businesses work.
It must be soul-crushing to be in PR or “director of product innovation” or whatever for some big company. Like you’re just saying dumb stuff, and everyone knows it’s dumb, and yet the whole ruse continues like we’re all schmucks. You just go home and die a little more.“Sharing accounts has directly impacted our ability to invest in the great shows and movies that you all crave. We here at Netflix have dedicated our lives to bring you endless hours of entertainment, but this sharing of passwords is basically the holocaust. Some might say your worse than Hitler.”
I can’t believe I screwed up the “your” in there. Thanks, Obama.
Oh, I get it! It’s a homophone! Bust’er taco. Bust. Her. Taco. *skeet skeet!* *wink wink*
You read “impacting our ability” as “basically the holocaust” but the reason those words were chosen is because anybody well adjusted *should* be able to sleep at night knowing you didn’t remotely say that. You say it’s implied, but if the job is to make money, anything you say gets rewritten in hyperbole. The number of people who stuff words in their mouths in response to tepid pr-talk like this probably makes the can’t-win nature of it go down *easier*.
What are you even saying, dude? Tell me my joke sucks and I should feel bad or something. You wrote multiple sentences that say absolutely nothing. “The number of people who stuff words in their mouths in response to tepid pr-talk like this probably makes the can’t-win nature of it go down *easier*.” What even is this? I read this a dozen times and can’t make sense of it. Are you head of PR and take offense?I didn’t misinterpret anything. I exaggerated their claim and ran with it. I made a joke that amused me and don’t care if no one else finds it funny. Are you doing a whole “your opinion on the internet is wrong and I’m here to correct it” thing? Why? Why are you like this?
“We HAD to cancel Glow because there’s a college student in Nevada who’s using his mom’s account instead of paying for his own!”
Get people to come in from the shadows to officially sign up cause, “Why not? It’s so cheap”, then gradually nudge the price up until it’s nearly full price.Am I too cynical? Cause otherwise it does sound like a fair deal.
Alternate headline: Most Expensive Streaming Service Unveils New Way To Squeeze Even More Money Out Of Members.
Its squeezing, but not any more money out of me. Their originals are getting worse and the good content they used to have has been pulled to the parent company’s service. If this is what it takes for me to stop checking out what is on there through my mom’s login, thats fine with me. I have other options to kill my afternoon.
Good luck. I pay for so many streaming services at this point, I won’t mind resigning from the one that has maybe 3 interesting series left. I mostly pay for it so my parents can watch films on it but they prefer HBO Max too.
I stay subscribed to Netflix for the same reason, but HBO has too many naughty bits and swear words for my parents, so they’re scared of it.
I subscribe now, but it’s probably the streamer I watch least, especially since they are so trigger-happy with cancelling shows. As soon as you start enjoying something, there’s a good chance it’ll be axed. My nephews use it a lot, so I keep the sub for them, mostly. But if they roll this out here, I’ll have no trouble cancelling, and then maybe subscribing for one month a year to catch up on the few things I care to watch.
I use my ex husband’s netflix account, but when I say “use” I mean “I have access to.” I so rarely use it I could give a shit if I lost it. There’s nothing on Netflix that I want. I use Disney+ and Hulu (which are my own accounts) way more. I even use YouTube more. Shit, I use Peacock more.
Mommy and poppy like to HBO Max and chill…*wink wink*
This is like the hotels with the sign saying you can keep the ratty bathrobe for $100. It’s just a nice way to threaten to fine you if you try to steal from them.
If this comes to Canada I’ll just unsubscribe. It’s the service I probably use the least and if it wasn’t shared between 4 of us it definitely wouldn’t be worth it. I think they’ll see this response from a lot of users who are increasingly unimpressed with the Netflix library and original content.
They already make you use a more expensive tier for 5 users and 4k, no other streamers charge extra for 4K. If they add an extra fee I’m downgrading my account.
I mean yeah netflix would like the people who use it to actually pay for it. Because they’re a business. Not a humanitarian organization. Not sure why anyone would expect otherwise.
They made 30 billion US dollars last year. Plenty of people who use it are already paying for it.
All this will do is annoy people who are paying for it with obnoxious overcomplicated messages, and get the people they shared their passwords with to either switch to Hulu or fire up bittorrent.
They should probably stop throwing wads of cash at stars for shitty movies like Red Notice then.
Did anyone say they expected otherwise?
But they are paying for it. I share an account with my mother (separate residences). When I gave her a roku and added her, I specifically asked if that was OK. They said yes, because I paid for 2 simultaneous devices and they didn’t care where they were. Now they are saying they may move to a system where we can share in the same house but not across town? It doesn’t cost them any more money if I am downstairs and she is upstairs or if I am in one residence and she is in another.
Thank god I don’t have any friends.
So what if you travel and want to view remotely? I’m the same user. Do I have to pay for a sub account? And if my wife is using it at home at the same time I am?
It likely only will kick in if they see consistent use from the same ip addresses. So travel is unlikely to be an issue. Watching at work when your boss isn’t looking may be though.
What if I bounce between two houses? Or people who live in a dorm part of the year for school? It just seems problematic to try to tell people you’re only allowed to regularly use their website from one location.
This is what I don’t get. It sounds like they want to stop people sharing profiles as well as all the separate places stuff. But for some people, it’s just easier to have one profile and login even if you are paying for multiple devices to be used simultaneously.
“Marginalized”? What does that mean in this context? Chile joined the OECD in 2010. Even Costa Rica did last year.
Brown. It means Brown.
I don’t think most Chileans think of themselves that way. But US media has mistakenly referred to Anya Taylor-Joy as a “woman of color” because she’s from Argentina and speaks Spanish as her first language.
(especially for accountholders living in the three marginalized countries that will receive the test roll out)Tatiana, all that I also want is for Rilo Kiley to get back together, but this is a pretty North American-centric way of viewing things and frankly insulting to the residents of the countries in question.
Chile has a higher GDP per capita than Romania, Croatia, Russia, Modova, and many other countries, and the seventh-highest GDP per capita in all of the Americas. It also has the most stable economy and government in Latin America.
Costa Rica is by far the most developed Central American country and the safest in the region (no doubt due to constitutionally banning its military in 1948 and avoiding the cycle of coups that has truly maligned many of its neighbors).
And Peru is right up there with the others, although its political situation is a slightly more tenuous.
You could take knocks at El Salvador for its violence and crypto-obsessed president. You could take pot shots at Paraguay. But going after three of the more economically developed countries in Latin America—no doubt why Netflix is testing there, where there’s more disposable income than elsewhere—as “marginalized” is just lazy.
It’d be better to explore the marginalized indigenous communities that exist in all three countries. That’s actually an issue worth exploring.
Good. Seems more than fair for them to charge extra for extra households. If they wanted to, they’d be well within their rights to ban multiple IPs for individual accounts, but instead they’re saying “We’ll allow a household to essentially subscribe to our service for a huge discount.” And yet this article is trying to frame this as a disreputable move.
I mean, it’s technically within their rights to ban multiple IPs, but it seems like it would be a bit harsh on people who move around.They already stop my account from being watched in two places at once, which strongly discourages excessive password sharing. Pretty much the only reason I still have Netflix is that I can’t quite be bothered to cancel it, and because my parents use it to watch The Crown. It’s not necessarily good business sense for them to put us to the test.
If they wanted to, they’d be well within their rights to ban multiple IPs for individual accounts.If they wanted to go bankrupt you mean? Because that would immediately ban anyone with a dynamic IP. And anyone who ever dares use a VPN. Which would translate in a rise of piracy and a huge decrease in the company’s own earnings, thus everyone losing.
yeah mostly I wonder now “dynamic IP” seems to be overlooked. There is barely anyone who has a fixed IP address nowadays.
It’s not that they aren’t profitable – it’s that their growth is starting to plateau. They have to grow their profits every year because that’s what businesses are expected to do, and they’ve pretty much gotten every subscriber that they’re going to have.
That’s why they’re increasing subscription rates so frequently, too.Eventually, in the not too distant future, they’re going to have to start getting into businesses that are near-but-outside their core competency. Maybe a Netflix Cloud service, or producing video games.
I don’t get it, I am not living with my parents but we share the same account, my sister also don’t live with them but she is also using that account. So, do we have to get seperate accounts? What the actual hell is this?