We’ve always been communal creatures, humans. From the dawn of time, it has been our capacity for partnership—for pooling the shared resources of collective labor, and leveraging them for great leaps forward into the progress-laden smorgasbord of the future—that has marked the great starts and stops of human existence. Agriculture. The industrial revolution. Sharing Debbie’s Netflix password so that everyone can keep up to date on all the hornt-up shit happening on Bridgerton. These are the iron bonds from which the future itself is forged.
And while such simple, glorious acts of inspiring co-existence do, technically, violate the terms of service of the streaming service (and all the others that have followed in its ilk), Netflix, etc. have typically been, well, “cool”—for lack of a better word—with the sharing of people’s passwords among multiple users. Not actively encouraging, mind you, but when the choice has come down to letting some percentage of potential subscriptions fall through its fingers, or deciding to be a big ol’ dick about trying to enforce “one password per household, please,” the companies have erred on the side of non-abundant dickery. That’s been especially welcome during the last 365 days or so, given how important streaming entertainment—and watching streaming entertainment with others—has become for maintaining some meager semblance of our mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But now, it sounds like our glorious socialist streaming utopia might finally be seeing its end: THR reports—working off reports from GammaWire—that perfectly legitimate, probably users of the streaming service have begun to see screens that declare “If you don’t live with the owner of this account, you need your own account to keep watching” when trying to log in and watch their Netflix content. Now, at this point, nobody’s actually getting blocked from anything—you can either pull up a prompt that allows the actual owner of the account (as though anyone could own something as beautiful or ephemeral as a Netflix password) to verify you, or you can just hit the ol’ “Verify Later” button to defer that mild chore. But the implication is clear: Netflix knows what you’re up to, and it’s doing a pretty clear version of one of its “How frothingly angry is this going to make people if we pull the trigger on it?” tests. (See also: Any time the company toys around with promos or advertising attached to the actual thing you want to see.)
Because, really: Cracking down on password sharing has never been about the technical side of things. Streamers keep track of that stuff already, and certainly know when one account is, say, being accessed by IPs from halfway across the country. It’s simply a matter of running the calculus of how much shit they’re willing to eat from consumers in exchange for turning some of those freeloaders into paying customers. We’re pretty sure that the current pandemic conditions are likely to amplify that “eat shit” variable mightily—although, to be fair, we’re not scholars in coprophilic mathematics—but it’s also possible our reliance on streaming entertainment might have given the company (and its competitors) enough leverage to pull the trigger on clamping down on this profit-diminishing public good at last.
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Netflix is starting to be not worth the trouble. They have genuinely interesting original movies, but so do a lot of the other services, and they used to have a lot more fun bingeable content than they do now. Plus the price keeps inching up. I’m probably getting Peacock this month (they’re folding the WWE Network into it, so price-wise it’s a wash for me) and that may be the one that’s culled.
At this point every streaming service has a lot of plain crap bundled with good stuff. It’s a good idea to switch frequently. Honestly I’ll sign up for the first service to put real critic’s ratings on the movie thumbnail.
Correct me if I’m wrong but is Netflix the only streaming site that charges extra for you to use with multiple devices at the same time. Also notice they also charge you extra for better picture quality. I have the cheapest plan and it says that it’s only at 420p. HBOMax is more money but atleast multiple people can use one account. So the more people pitching in the cheapest it gets.
HBO Max et al are all still in the “loss leader” phase of their lifespans and are trying to attract new customers by keeping prices low. Make no mistake, their ultimate goal is to be just as user-unfriendly as Netflix once they have you hooked.
HBO Max has all of their movies listed alphabetically, so they automatically win.
Was going to say the same thing–the endgame is definitely the same, it’s just a question of timeline.
I think they’ve changed. The basic plan used to be two screens at once, not it’s one.
There’s still just enough to keep me watching but I don’t see anything I care about on the horizon, I’m getting annoyed with them cancelling interesting original shows and dumping endless dubbed international shows they’ve licensed on us in exchange (yes, dubbed, I’ll watch subtitled movies but not 10 hours of a tv season.) One movie I kind of enjoy every two or three months isn’t going to cut it at this point. I’m just looking for a reason to quit and getting auto-hassled because I’m watching on a different device or from an unfamiliar IP address may just be it.
Might be a settings thing. I’ve watched a whole lot of international shows on Netflix, always with subtitles, and the only time I’ve ever found any dubbing at all is the very first time I started watching 3%, and it came on dubbed in English. I went into settings and changed the language to the original and turned on English subtitles, and since then, that’s the way everything foreign is.
This is the catch right here. Netflix fucking suuuucks nowadays. Our house only watches the occasional movie or show nowadays; most of its original content is balls, barring the occasional Roma or Mank, and they’re losing licenses left and right. HBO Max costs slightly more but has so much S-tier content that I would happily have that be our sole streamer if it were up to me
Agreed entirely. I’m at a point where I consider even Prime substantially superior to Netflix. Even counting third party content, I can’t recall anything new Netflix carried in the past year-plus other than Better Call Saul which I’ve been even modestly excited for. The Expanse by itself is probably an order of magnitude more compelling to me than every active series Netflix has, combined, and the forthcoming Tolkien series likewise towers over anything in their catalog. Meanwhile, HBO even swiped South Park from them, a bit like a division rival signing a declining team’s star player or something, so as to maximize the gain by directly harming the competition at the same time. Also, Max doesn’t cost more any longer, at least not if you’re paying for Netflix’s 4K package. Between the unjustified price hikes and this nonsense, they’re really playing with fire.
Netflix original content is basically being reduced to having a big movie once a month, maybe quarterly. Their original series for me is down to just Disenchantment, Stranger Things and Cobra Kai. But in Canada their back catalogue of movies and TV shows is still pretty deep. The Office is still on there (not my bag to rewatch, already saw it when it aired, but apparently people like it). Even oddly the Marvel movies left when D+ launched but now they’re back on Netflix, and also still on D+. (But D+ has them in 4k while Netflix is still HD)
Netflix is our least watched streaming service and will be the first to go if we need to trim our entertainment budget. My 6 year old would smother me with a pillow in my sleep if I tried to cancel Disney +.
Good lord, how big is your 6-year-old?
About 3 foot, but her love of Disney Princesses gives her super human strength.
Hard same re: my 8 year-old (and, let’s face it, I’m a Star Wars & MCU dork, so that’s not going anywhere). Hulu is the best for TV (even if their interface suuuuuuucks), HBO is the best for movies & Prime comes with my Amazon membership. Netflix is teetering.
since they lost their marvel shows this has been going downhill. Covid has hurt them too because their new stuff is probably delayed like everyone else’s. Their strategy of three seasons and done is also not helping because you need to keep replacing good shows with more good shows. Other than Stranger Things, do they really have anything that is must see?
I quit it last year for HBO and it felt so good. Canceling GLOW and Santa Clarita and the ending of Bojack made it feel like a good time. Also their movie selection has just become awful! You’ll find better stuff on Tubi and that’s free.
Not just their selection, but their search! HBO has every movie listed A-Z, I have found so many amazing movies but just starting to scroll through that list.
It’s really nice that their console and website UI are really similar. Makes it easier to know how to find things.
“Stranger Things” every couple of years isn’t doing it for you?
Heh, my 14 year-old would kill me if I didn’t re-subscribe for that.
No one in this scenario has the high ground.
Gotta maintain those growth projections…
I’ll worry about this when/if I see it. They may be floating it to see how people react (note, they aren’t happy). Frankly, I wouldn’t be unhappy with a family plan where, for a few dollars extra a month you can share with one other household.
It’s only my kids who are using my account, anyway. Two are going to college in other states, so Netflix better not cut them off!
I would actually prefer a plan like that over two accounts and two householders. Mainly because my parents are the one’s I share my account with and there’s no way they can maintain their own account without technical assistance every year. Just getting them to enter credit card information for an online subscription is a big enough headache.
This seems like the ideal solution to me, and I’m surprised no streaming service has tried it yet.
“Watch on 4 different devices at the same time with Premium, 2 with Standard and 1 with Basic.”That is literally what’s essentially already there, and the reason I pay for the 19/mth plan. They change the resolution on the different tiers but that’s some weird bullcrap no one else does. I bet this is showing up for people on lower tiers and not the ones on higher tiers.
There are rumors about Netflix doing this constantly, but it’s never actually eventuated.My sister and my parents use my account far more than I do personally. Netflix’ content has basically all been pulled and moved to the various networks own streaming services now so honestly, if they cut off the people who share my account I’ll probably just cancel entirely.
It’s late in the day, but it looks like William locked up today’s Dumbest AV Club Take of the Day prize.Such a shame. I really thought Andrew’s bowling alley drone post had that one in the bag today.
Speaking of dumb takes, I’m a little surprised that no one has used the phrase “late stage capitalism” yet.
I tried to do the right thing, but when Netflix decided I could no longer watch over a VPN, I cancelled my subscription and went back to pirating. So yeah, go ahead and double-down on making it hard to watch what we’re paying for. Let’s see how that goes.
i mean they were always going to pull this ripcord at some point. easy way to slowly keep subscriber numbers going up. even if they lose a few they’ll come back eventually.
See, I personally thought the whole “limiting number of simultaneous screens and pay a little more for additional screens” was a perfectly elegant and reasonable way to keep a lid on the password sharing.
There are so many damn streaming services now, it’s getting a lot easier not to come back to one you’ve dropped unless it’s got something very special. Password sharing also benefits them since a user is less-likely to drop in for two weeks for the ONE show they want to see and then cancel again.
This is what I’m not sure they’re considering. Between free trials and free extension offers when you try to cancel, the most financially savvy way to approach things is to join a streaming service, watch everything you want to see, then cancel and bounce to the next one. I’m confident you could watch streaming content uninterrupted for a year for less than $50. If you’re aggressive enough about it, you might be able to do it for free.
Where this plan falls apart is if you’re sharing because people have different viewing patterns and interests.
I thought this was the whole point of the multiple streams? It’s why my family pays for it, we’re spread out over the country but buy the most expensive Netflix.
You really think so? I’ve been seeing more and more people online (so yeah, take it with a grain of salt) noticing that Netflix is one of the worst streamers nowadays. It and Prime are on the chopping block in my home
I pretty much only have Prime because of, well, Prime. There are some awesome horror & genre movies on there, but it’s kind of a flea market.
Same with me. Prime has a ton of old horror movies, plus Shudder, and, you know, Prime anyway because I order so much shit from Amazon.
Shudder is an add-on, though, and you can just subscribe to it separately for roughly the same monthly price without Prime, can’t you?
I can’t fucking wait to watch our remaining movies on Prime because we make a point of not using the shipping aspects or going to Whole Foods (fuck Jeff Bezos forever). THAT SAID, it’s unexpectedly a repository of old foreign movies (Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre, etc, all of which are extremely hard to find if you don’t have Criterion) and movies by people of color (Small Axe, One Night in Miami, etc), so it certainly has some good stuff
For the older/obscure stuff Prime actually has a lot of overlap with Tubi. So you might want to check that out.
INTERESTING. It’ll be tough to see if my hatred of Prime counters my hatred of ads tho
Prime has some good UK shows as well. Surprised they haven’t mined that more.
it’s definitely the least exciting one, and i personally have unsubscribed and re-subscribed numerous times over the years, but i think they will find a way to keep the numbers going up. whether that reflects actual consumer opinions might be a different thing.
So the one’s getting angry about the messages are the one’s who aren’t paying for the service, right? Where exactly is the disincentive for Netflix?
Well, it’s annoying as hell. I have 3 Rokus, a laptop, an iPhone, and an iPad. My wife has a laptop, an iPhone, and an iPad. Guess how many of these devices I got this notice on today, despite the fact that I’m a legitimate subscriber to the service.
It’s a reasonable assumption that whoever owns the account *wants* the second party to have access. And for some (maybe a lot) of us, this kind of clamping down is an excuse to drop Netflix. I won’t deny I’m excited for a few upcoming projects, notably The Sandman, but my patience for them has grown thin.
Yep. That’s my position too. I share my account with my mom and in-laws, who are all retired with limited income. There’s not much I watch on Netflix anymore, but I know they all use it a fair bit, so I keep it more for them. If Netflix cracks down on that extended usage, I wouldn’t have a problem dropping it.
or you could, y’know, just pay for their netflix subscription since they’re watching it and you’re not. doesn’t that amount to the same thing you’re doing now?
As much as I appreciate and respect your response, and the others with similar financial considerations, I think framing it as a matter of affordability only plays into their game. They want people feeling bad about the sharing. But who the fuck are they to tell me what to do with my subscription? I think it’s reasonable for them to be concerned if I was a bar owner and had my Netflix account playing all day long for a room full of patrons. But personal use among less than a handful? That’s bullshit American Capitalist Pigfucker greed. To be hyperbolic.
There’s a Sandman series? Gaiman needs to finish one thing at a time!
Still in the casting stage. Personally the most interesting casting so far is Gwendolyn Christie as Lucifer. Though I like all the other currently known choices as well.
Ooh! I just want American Gods to stay strong! It suffered while he was doing Good Omens. And I love the american gods universe
What’s with the apo’strophe’s?
The best part of Netflix is still the DVD mail service weirdly enough. You get a huge selection with the mild inconvenience of having to wait a couple of days. If you prefer movies over TV, it’s a no brainer.
I have both. Discs for the unstreamable (or…even the streamable; with a disc it makes it harder to put off) and the streaming for the in between times.
Theoretically, yes. But I hate my stupid DVD player so much, I stopped watching discs. If I’m really desperate, I can get the DVD from my library.
That’s still a thing??! Mind. Blown.
I’m surprised too, but I guess I’m also glad they didn’t just dump all those millions of discs into a landfill somewhere.
It’s truly amazing to me how readily consumers will trade a better product for one that’s technologically more convenient, yet inferior in all other ways.
yeah, that’s sort of why I canceled my membership many moons ago. At the time, the streaming service wasn’t nearly what it is today (plus I rarely used it for 2 years). And iirc, we had to choose either to do streaming or the mail service, you couldn’t do both, so I did the streaming.
I just cancelled mine last year after 20 years but I do miss it sometimes. I would consider reinstating it at some point if they would give us the retail versions of discs that included bonus content. I do fear what I assume is the imminent day when they kill it as there still is some % of titles that don’t stream anywhere for various reasons. That % seems to be decreasing as the streaming wars heat up and the backlists from each studio become valuable from a pure quantity standpoint but “out of print” may become a practical reality for some content.
“a couple of days”If only. My turnaround time has recently come *down* to eight days, assuming I mail a disk back the day after I get it. I filed 7 reports in February for disks not marked as returned 7+ days after I mailed them.
I remember the days when I could do a turnaround twice a week.
Honestly, I think Netflix made a mistake in dumping all episodes of a new season of a series at once. It makes it far too easy to sign up for a free trial and just binge the 10 or so episodes of the “hot new show on Netflix” and then just cancel.Plus, being the old fart that I am, it just doesn’t seem right to have the beginning and end of a new season available on the same day. Spoiler dodging, and whatnot.
idk, as someone who waits for episodes to pile up so I can binge, I’d wonder how many people put off signing up for services like D+ until a full season of Mandalorian or WandaVision was out.
Well, that doesn’t really solve the problem of spoiler dodging, but I take your point.
idk, it feels like when a show releases all at once, people tend to be more considerate as there’s no telling when someone will watch it.If it releases weekly though, writers and commenters expect you to see each episode as it airs and spoil shit with wild abandon. i09’s fucking terrible for this, with spoilers in headlines and front-page images.I get that people like the social experience of watching it unfold together, but they can’t be trusted not to dick over people who don’t schedule their lives around TV shows.
I wait until a weekly show ends before watching all of it at once. I do that with stuff like The Expanse, Mandalorian, and WandaVision. But I recognize that doing so is my choice and I don’t fault anyone for spoilers. I don’t get angry at people or web sites for wanting to discuss something that they’re watching at a different pace than me. I might try to avoid certain subjects or articles until I’m ready to watch the show myself. If I inadvertently catch some juicy plot point or twist, I might be a little annoyed, but I just remind myself that it was my own choice to wait to watch. I respect your opinion on this, but I personally don’t view it as anyone dicking me over with spoilers. People get excited about their shows and movies, and they want to discuss the latest developments with other fans. Who am I to poo-poo that?
“People get excited about their shows and movies, and they want to discuss the latest developments with other fans. Who am I to poo-poo that?”Like I said, my problem is when sites post spoilers to their front page in the headlines and article images, so that they’re needlessly unavoidable. It’s so inconsiderate as to be insulting.
Again, I respect your opinion on this and I’m not trying to change your mind, but couldn’t it also be considered inconsiderate of you to demand that sites hide content about things they want to discuss, simply because you made the choice to wait until the show is finished to begin watching? That would be like me telling a pregnant woman not to tell me the sex of her baby, not to wear any item of clothing that might indicate the sex, not to post any pictures or messages to her social media pages regarding the baby’s sex, not to invite me to any gender-reveal party, just because I would rather wait until the baby is born to be surprised and I would think she’s inconsiderate if she overtly displays any indicators of her baby’s gender. I may choose to avoid those conversations about the baby’s gender because I genuinely would wish to be surprised, but that would my choice to wait, and I wouldn’t want to diminish her happiness or excitement because of my choice. This is simply my personal approach to spoilers.
My entire point is that I CAN’T avoid the spoilers, because they are in HEADLINES AND IMAGES ON THE FRONT PAGE.AVClub, the site we’re on now, doesn’t do this. Kotaku doesn’t do this. It’s not necessary, it isn’t part and parcel of discussing the content or being excited about it. It’s egregious.Also, plot twists in a TV show are not equivalent to someone’s baby. idk why you’d even make that comparison.
AV Club has absolutely done that
There is no good reason for a review site to post a giant spoiler in their headline. You literally can’t avoid them without unfolllowing the page or just staying off social media until you see the episode in question. Nobody’s asking for no one to write about anything And your analogy is remarkably terrible
ahah should’ve read the comments before commenting.
You’re exactly right, tha’s what I do with D+. I’ve been signed up 2 months total since it started, and will do a 3rd month when falcon and winter soldier is done, to catch up on it, wandavision and mando s2 🙂
Except for the need to be careful with spoilers, it works 🙂
Yeah… Outing one episode per week doesn’t change that.
You just need to be a bit more vigilant with spoilers. Best exemple is D+, I sub for a month every time they finish a couple things I wanna see. As of now, I’ve paid 2 months since the service got released. Probably gonna get a 3rd month to see mando s2, wandavision and flying captain bromance.
With how much original content D+ is putting out and how they’re spacing it out, I think you’ll probably just be signed up all the time in the near future. As soon as one show ends, another one begins. And between the Star Wars content and MCU stuff, it seems like it’ll just be an endless stream of shows starting and stopping.
“Spoiler dodging, and whatnot.”
If you so useless that you can’t dodge spoilers then you deserve to be spoiled.
What if two separate households legitimately split payment on a single account? That’s how I roll with D+. Although I can see if a single account logs in across like several spots across the globe all at the same time that could be problematic.
I also have Disney plus, Peacock, HBO max and Hulu. If they pull this shit on me I could easily dump Netflix, by far my least used streaming service.
The timing is really baffling. If they’d done it when they were the biggest player in the game and there was virtually no competition, sure, leverage your popularity and market position. But now, it’s a lot easier to nope out.
This is like a panic move bc some executive was looking at the books. But it’s dumb because they’re already being shoved to the margins. I can’t imagine why they decided to cancel GLOW instead of putting it on “hiatus”. The reason networks keep a show around forever is that they’re afraid of losing the fans
I mean who exactly is noping out here? People that don’t have their own account and are not giving Netflix any money. What are they losing? Nothing.
I’m talking about the actual subscribers, not people with whom passwords are shared. Given the sheer number of services, Netflix providing a new potential tipping point for subscribers to jump ship is a lot more fraught than it was when they were by far the biggest player in that space.I have no idea how big the subset of people who would ditch Netflix if they could no longer share their account is. I’m sure Netflix has done a lot of analysis, and if that indicates it’ll make them more money because the number of new subs will be higher than the number of people who ditch the service, they’ll do it.
You have to consider that a lot of people share accounts & split the cost, not just use a paying customer’s account. If they take away that loophole, a lot of people will decide that paying the full $18/month isn’t worth the price after they’ve been splitting the service for $6-9/month. Boom! Lost customer.
I almost exclusively use Netflix for streaming “background TV” by rewatching Schitt’s Creek and Legend of Korra while I’m cooking or playing games on my laptop.
I’m not understanding why people feel the need to share a Netflix password? Is Netflix that expensive that people can’t afford it otherwise? Or is it because people are generally prone to doing bad things because they can?
Netflix can get pricey if you add up all those accounts seperately.
“bad things”How’s that polish taste, you boot-licking corporatist shill?
How’s it bootlicking to pay for something you use?
It’s bootlicking to make a moral judgement in favor of corporate interests.
How is it “wrong” to use multiple screens/devices if you’re paying to be able to use multiple screens/devices, bootlicker?
It’s boot licking to call the sharing of streaming service passwords “bad things,” yes. When i think of bad things, I think of, say, robbery, and Netflix getting a slightly smaller pipeline of money because some people share the cost & account or exchange passwords to lessen the financial burden of streaming content balkanization, ain’t it.
Netflix itself isn’t expensive, but they’re changing from being a content provider to being a content producer. So, they’re making more original stuff, some great, most meh, yet their non exclusive selection is starting to thin out. That combined with everyone and their uncle starting their own streaming services means that all those $5-$15 a month charges start adding up fast.So what do people do to manage? They subscribe to some services, and share passwords with decently trustworthy people who subscribe to others: ie, a fb post along the lines of “I’ll trade my Netflix pw for Hulu no ads.”
I got the 4K account because otherwise the OLED TV I bought would go to waste… I didn’t need the streaming to 4 devices simultaneously at all but since that was included in the package, I put one account active in my mom’s place so she and her husband (and I when I’m there) can watch Netflix. They wouldn’t pay for it anyway.So if I, as a loner at home, can’t use those 4 streams in any way by giving family members in other households the right to watch them then give me a cheaper 4K account with only one simultaneous stream then! The whole point of those multiple streams being locked to the better picture quality account is a problem caused by Netflix’s own pricing scheme.
I let my parents use my account because they’re retired and don’t have any money coming in.
That’s valid…although I’m guessing the majority aren’t doing what you’re doing?
My elderly mother is on a fixed income and stuck at home alone all day courtesy of the pandemic. Clearly I’m a monster for letting her use our Netflix account.
I like how you went from my question to calling me a monster. You’re a delight.
Huh? I’m (sarcastically) calling myself a monster.
I share all my streaming access with my parents. They raised me and I love them so they can steal my Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu.
Hi, hello, you seem new to the world. Some people are, you know… poor ?
Giving them a hand is, you know… nice ?
Also, netflix is a multibillion dollar company, not a mom and pop shop. They’ll be fine, they don’t need your weird, weird defensiveness of their assets.
Netflix isn’t food. You don’t need Netflix. My weird defensiveness is a concern on how our society doesn’t see this as stealing…I don’t care if it’s a multibillion dollar company or not. I feel the same way about downloading music. If you’re poor and have to steal food to survive, I’m not going to judge. But this? Yeah.
It’s not stealing because nothing is taken. Would it be stealing if they were in the same house? Would anything be gained if those viewers were not watching at all?
Congrats on being a judgmental piece of shit that nobody likes, I guess
Mom?
Life isn’t survival. And helping doesn’t end at the bare minimum.
I bought my mom a subscription for Xmas a few years ago, but she is tech illiterate, so I’m the main account holder, and we live in different countries. I use it once in a while, so am I doing bad things or is she?
You are. For a good reason. You monster.
Doing things against click-wrap policies is pretty standard for most humans using computers. “Bad things” doesn’t quite get there.My parents and I own a vacation property, and it turns out they have been able to get there more often than I have in the last year (surprising, I know). Am I doing something bad by leaving my hulu account logged in there so my kid can watch curious George when my parents take him? What about when I log in and we’re all there, but my parents stay in the house and I take the boat out for an hour?
There’s lots of people like me who only recently moved out of his parents’ house and I still use their Netflix account because we created it when I was still living with them. I live halfway across the country from them now.Before someone calls me a loser (not that I personally think someone still living with their parents necessarily is one), I moved out three months after graduating from college, and that was only because my new job wasn’t going to start until then, and I needed a place to crash until then.
I’m talking about (and I’m assuming it’s the majority of) people who can afford it and don’t want to. I’d do exactly what you’re doing, in your situation.
I’m on a tight budget. I get Prime as a bonus because I want the free shipping and Disney+ because it’s a must with a 10 yo. Netflix is just one too many to justify when I can already barely justify what I have. (I had it for a while but cancelled to save the $15 after a COVID layoff.)So I share my D+ password with a friend in exchange for their Netflix, to watch the occasional movie and TV show.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa ohhh my god the brain worms are terminal with this one
Humans generally like free. Not every shoplifter is a starving Jean Valjean looking to feed his also starving child.
Uh, what about family plans? I’m sharing one with my cousins, and all 4 of us live in different parts of the city. We’re using one User each.
Me: They keep jacking up the price and now this? They really will do anything to squeeze a dollar out of their subscribers.Also me: *shares my password, subscribed to Netflix via VPN in Turkey so that I can pay ~$7 CAD a month for the UHD 4 stream package instead of $18.99 CAD, will not interrogate this*
Eh, honestly, taking a step towards enforcing the rules is a good idea, I think, and it seems like they’re doing it well enough. Having a week or more to have the account owner give them the code sent to the email or phone to verify their access is legitimate before cutting them off is reasonable, and it isn’t going to do anything to mess with people who are sharing accounts with their parents, kids, that one friend, and such. It’s the people still using the account of a guy a friend’s old roommate dated for two weeks two years ago who’ll see their access get blocked. Bottom line, if you can’t get an email from the person paying for the account saying, “hey, the Netflix code is BLAHBLAH69, have fun,” then they aren’t sharing the account with you as much as you’re taking advantage of someone who crossed your path not changing their password.
I am honestly surprised at this. Way back in the day, I actually called them to ask if my mother and I could share the account between the two households (I have to manage all her streaming accounts anyway, so it made sense). They told me that was fine, the account allowed for two different devices to be used simultaneously. That makes total sense. What difference does it make to them if the two screens are in the same household or not? How can they tell the difference between two people who live together but use screens in different places (say at work or while traveling) vs two people who live apart but share the expense? We pay for a two device account, it’s not like we’re trying to rip off netflix or anything.
Hopefully it’s just a scare tactic.
That’s the bit that I don’t understand: What amount of “account sharing” is Netflix saying is ok? Two simultaneous streams from the same location seem to be ok, but do they have a problem with simultaneous streams from separate locations? If so, rather than put scary pop-ups on the screen, why not change their pricing structure to make single-screen plans more affordable and charge extra for more streams? I think they already do something like this (I’m the only one who uses my account, so I never looked into the other plans too closely).And it seems that even Netflix themselves aren’t sure where to draw the line. The Variety article on this subject quoted Netflix’s CEO a few years ago stating: “Password sharing is something you have to learn to live with, because there’s so much legitimate password sharing like, you know, you sharing with your spouse, with your kids,” he said. “So there’s no bright line and we’re doing fine as is.” So, what is “legitimate” password sharing, and what’s not? If the company can’t decide, then it’s impossible for users to even know what’s permitted.
“If the company can’t decide”
They did decide.
And now they’ve apparently changed their minds.
Because that’s allowed.
Yeah if people are paying for two screens and two screens are running, is that going to get a nag screen? My sister’s been locked out in the past when too many people were on Netflix at once but we’re in different time zones so usually it’s not an issue. Netflix has been getting thinner and thinner selection these days. They focus so much money on lackluster stuff for teens. A lot of the shows I watched on there have ended and they don’t seem to be getting new ones from other places.
I’m only watching the Spanish language content on Netflix since i started learning Spanish 5 months ago. The last English language shows i watched were Russian Doll, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, and Unbelievable all were in 2019 and all were top notch, but since then nothing really spoke to me. I’m on my sister’s account and we don’t live together. If the company cuts me off i’ll just shrug.
As much as this might suck, I can never blame them. You dont make money when something is free. It was the same when musicians complain about people not paying for their music. I cannot hold it against someone who is trying to make a living not wanting people mooching their product and not getting paid. You do not have a right to free stuff. it is merely nice and when it ends that is it.
Yeah, subscription services do a lot of calculations and probably trial and error to determine the sweet spot for giving away and deeply discounting stuff.It’s definitely that way with SiriusXM. Everybody knows that you can call them when it’s time to renew, say you’re going to cancel, and get some variation of a deal that is far, far below their normal monthly cost. They know everybody knows, and they consider that model the best way to make the most money. If they determine it’s not, you won’t get that sweet deal the next time you call.
“Watch on 4 different devices at the same time with Premium, 2 with Standard and 1 with Basic.”Except for this is the exact reason I pay for premium. To stream on multiple devices. The fact that they have the resolution locked to the tiers is Bullshit.
That’s not the same
yep, stealing music is worse because it is the individual artist that suffers. Netflix is a big company, but still people are not entitled to free
Netflix knows what you’re up to, and it’s doing a pretty clear version of one of its “How frothingly angry is this going to make people if we pull the trigger on it?” tests. Very. Very very.
WAHHHH! I CAN’T MOOCH! WAHHHH!
Fuck off and buy it yourself. My passwords are mine and not yours.
Nobody cares about your password.
it feels like we are on the verge of all the companies that took a financial hit last year deciding that now is the time to recoup most or all of those losses, and turn the frowns of their shareholders upside down again, by cracking down on stuff like this, introducing new little fees here and there, raising prices a little more dramatically than they might otherwise do, and otherwise taking bigger chunks of flesh from consumers. Just in time for stimulus checks too!
I think now is time for Netflix to up the number of concurrent sessions available in the family plan and stop charging for 4k content.
What are your thoughts on the etiquette of looking at other people’s profiles on your account? My girlfriend and I share an account (we live together) and recently her brother asked if he and his fiancé could use it so we said sure and I set up profiles for the two of them.Now he’ll randomly text us and be like, “oh man you’re watching X!?” It seems a little weird to be creeping on what people watch. But it is her brother so it’s not really that big a deal.In fairness we did snoop on his account after he looked at ours. (but only that once! I swear!)
Reminds me of when Netflix tried to do this:
Whatever. Shell out the $9, cheapskate.
I know its trite to take the time to read the article, be mad about the article, and then comment on the article telling the author how fucking stupid their article is. In a way, really, this is more of a self-own than a real dig at William because like I said, I had to degrade myself by reading his piece of shit article, but, like my maternal bloodline before me, I simply cannot walk by an idiot’s speech and not try to save them from their own profound stupidity.William, I know it hurts to respect multimillion dollar corporations, but Netflix – evil, capitalist, buzzword du jour aside – is allowed to not let people steal from Netflix. Walmart is also evil, but you can’t go shoplift from Walmart. You praise people for stealing from Walmart, maybe, but you can’t get mad at Walmart for trying to stop shoplifters.Two things:(1) as many commentors have pointed out, Netflix is not worth stealing from anymore, so if your free ride is over, good for you – one less streaming service to mindlessly browse(2) if you’re wanting to be a frontline warrior in the culture clash to save the downtrodden american citizen, this is not the Most Noble Fight, dear website blogger, and you are not that war’s Most Noble Solider.I’ll look forward to your next GREAT JOB INTERNET article about some TikTok dance craze…
an addedum to this is that wow, freelance avc bloggers must have it as bad as they want us to think if you scamps can’t afford your own netflix passwords lmfao.
It’s not “stealing” because nothing is taken. It would be no different if the sharing viewers lived together. Nothing would be gained if the people sharing accounts were instead not watching.If you’re gonna spew vitriol in the comments over the author’s take, make sure you’re not shitting out a dumb fucking take yourself, otherwise you’ll just look like an angry dumbass shill.
I promise you I’m not getting roped into a ‘debate’ with people about whether or not the issue Netflix is pursuing is “stealing” or not. That would be the real self own, and like I said, reading Will’s article (and the other Gawk Media post about this exact same subject) was enough self-harm for one day without really getting into it with you, pal.
Well as long as you’re having fun doing or not doing whatever this is.
It amazes me how some people can get this worked up over a relatively benign article like this, like the author personally attacked them. One can have an opinion, on whatever subject, without jumping down someone’s throat.
It must be weird being so high and mighty
*FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAART*
here’s a fart for you Donkey Lips: It’s simply a matter of running the calculus of how much shit they’re willing to eat from consumers in exchange for turning some of those freeloaders into paying customers.
They’re cracking down on password sharing because, thanks to COVID-19 and three decent seasons of Stranger Things, Netflix has exhausted the one thing that brings them revenue: new customers. That’s why so few Originals go past three seasons, by then Netflix has maximized the new subscribers a show can attract. It isn’t the only trick they’ve used in a desperate attempt to get new users. They wanted to release something like 200+ new titles this year alone, most of which cannot possibly be good. But in casting a wide net, particularly in foreign language titles, they’re hoping to grab a few more users. This profit model can’t win the Streaming Wars. It’s just not sustainable. I won’t cry a river when it’s gone or bought out, though. They rarely stream anything good or renew things that deserve to be renewed. I don’t mind ads, and there are a million other apps for roughly the same price out there proving that Netflix’s days are numbered. And I’ve never had a problem sharing my Hulu password, and Hulu doesn’t care because it runs ads.
You know outside the US/Canada/UK ,its basically either the no.1 or one of the big 2 streamers , given that outside those countries its quite often the only show in town. It’ll be fine.
I remember ages and ages ago, in the early days of Netflix, they had a bunch of low grade schlock and horror – stuff from Full Moon Entertainment and Roger Corman, that kind of “The Thing with Two Heads” content just to flesh out their roster. The second the service started to get traction, they threw Charlie Band under the bus in favor of more “respectable” content.I wonder if they’ll drift back to Public Domain schlock and cheap Italian zombie flicks again as their market share shrinks?
If enough people get these warnings and Netflix persists on cracking down, I bet it will cause a lot of people to reconsider how much they even like Netflix in the first place.For some of the other services like Apple+ and Paramount+ I’m going to subscribe for a short periods to watch certain things and unsubscribe when I’m done, as I’m not interested in enough of their programming to justify maintaining constant subscriptions. I’ll keep Netflix for a while, at least until I catch up on the must-sees on my list. After that, I might cancel and subscribe periodically to them as well.
I was more annoyed when they started blocking VPNs a few years back.
So when I am visiting my girlfriend and we want to watch Netflix I’ll no longer be able to use my account there, as she is in a different town (and county)? I’m not buying a second account, and as we barely ever use this one to begin with, I’ll just cancel it. All of the TV shows we want to see are on different services anyway (some are on pretty much all of them), and their selection of movies keeps getting worse and worse as they transition to almost exclusively ‘original content’. Basically, they’ve been making lots of money off of me as I average probably 3 hours per week on the service…so they’ll go from making $13 a month for delivering next to nothing to, well, nothing. Ok, fine by me.
I guess they finally care about the unbearably high mountain of debt they’re in.
What if there was one reasonably-priced package where we could watch content from all of the different streaming services? Has anyone thought of that yet?
I do pay for my own subscription nowadays, but, there was a time when my parents paid for Netflix for their 4 college-age children as well as themselves, and as far as I knew they paid to have multiple screens. Why have the screen-count at all if they’re going to gauge at us with proximity now too?
People still pay for streaming services? The only thing I pay for is Amazon Prime and that’s for the deals, the streaming is just a bonus. Tubi, Vudu and Popcornflix are the only legitimate streaming services that you need, and occasional ads are a very fair alternative to paying a cable bill for all the brand name streams with the fancy new movies. New movies are overrated, unless you’re going to the theater it’s gonna be just as good in a few months, and all those old and foreign movies you haven’t seen yet are still good right now!
Netflix per month: $14 USD for HD
Nord VPN per month: $12 USD (or $5 if you buy a full year)
Private Internet Access VPN per month: $10 USDIf Netflix becomes a dick, it’s literally cheaper to torrent their content.
Speaking as a Brazilian, that would be a very dumb idea to try to enforce here. Take me as an example…I subscribe to the top plan, which allows me to watch in 4 different devices. But I live with only my wife, and we only watch Netflix on our tv. So why the hell I subscribed the premium package? Because I share the extra 3devices usage: 1 to one of my daughters; 1 to my other daughter; 1 to nephews. So, exactly one device per house, 4 devices total. Strictly inside the limit of my plan. Yes, I know it’s not exactly how Netflix wanted it to be used, but guess what…?If they try to enforce the usage of my 4 devices limit ONLY in my home, they will find that I don’t need to use more than one device to watch it, the other users can’t pay for individual accounts, and I’m not goint to pay for 4 more accounts for them.So while Netflix may think the options are “one premium customer” or “5 basic customers”, it’s in fact “one premium customer” or “one very pissed of basic customer”. If they try to enforce the limitations to try to get $45 (five new basic accounts) instead of $18 (my current premium account), they will instead get only one $9 basic account.Now multiply that by pretty much every single premium customer in Brazil…
Tethnical? Not a problem. Legal? All kinds. Who has the right to establish viewership rights?If your daughter goes to Cal St and you’re from Nebraska does she still not live in the household?So, Netflix is in a legal minefield and this soft roll out is just them testing the waters because they’re waiting for the lawyers to go after them.
Just coming here to say for those of you who are too cash strapped to afford Netflix (or know people who are) your local public library is a godsend. Free, includes everything from digital content to music, to dvds to extras like access to Kanopy streaming, language classes, etc. etc. On top of it all you get access to a bunch of books you don’t have to buy to read!
I think it’s reasonable for them to enforce a policy around account usage as long as it’s not tied to location or the concept of a physical household. A simple limit on the number of concurrent streams from different IPs seems perfectly reasonable. It just needs to allow one to use their account at multiple locations (e.g., second house, when traveling, etc.) or for maybe two groups of a family living in different places (like kids/parents) to share one account without issue. Sort of like cellular family plans. Amazon currently lets me have two locations in a “household” so I can set my elderly mother up to use my Prime account and benefits (which I don’t think she ever has).
Hawt TaekI have Netflix, Amazon, HBO Max, and Disney+, and I’m just going to keep paying for all for them without thinking about it no matter what. Whatever.
At this point, the main reason I still have Netflix is because I get it for “free” as a part of my T-Mobile plan (I put free in quotes because of course it’s not really free…). If it wasn’t for T-Mobile I’d probably still subscribe for a month here and there to binge some of their good shows, but as is I mostly use it to watch re-runs of Star Trek 🙂