r/technology • u/speckz • Jan 31 '23
Netflix’s Password Sharing Cash Grab Finally Arrives In The States Business
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/01/31/netflixs-password-sharing-cash-grab-finally-arrives-in-the-states/2.7k
u/Lopsided-Letter1353
Jan 31 '23
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I just want to know if I bring a streaming device to a hotel (I travel a lot and got sick of signing in on every Airbnb and hotel Roku tv) will I be treated as a freeloader? It’s my service, that I pay for, it shouldn’t be tied to my actual house. Where’s the freedom in that?
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u/redvitalijs Jan 31 '23
Wait are you telling me I won't be able to watch it on a different IP?
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u/Lopsided-Letter1353 Jan 31 '23
Without an additional fee no. That’s the way they’ve rolled it out in test regions prior to this tentative March US announcement
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u/Pascalwbb Jan 31 '23
how does that work? Your public IP can change pretty often.
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u/Lopsided-Letter1353 Jan 31 '23 •
I’m also waiting for an internet wizard to explain this
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u/Offbeatalchemy Jan 31 '23
It's a few ways to tell but they're probably using a combination of:
IP Geography (which isn't accurate but it's something.) Even if your IP changes, it'll always resolve that you're in the same general geographic area, usually accurate within a few towns of you, using the same ISP. If it resolves to a different county, you either moved or are sharing.
and the simpler method, just seeing if 2 different IP addresses are watching something at the same time. 99% of homes won't have 2 IP addresses so if the same account is watching on more than 1 IP, it's probably a shared account.
Obviously there's tons of flaws with both of these methods. Like, What defines the home IP/device, what about VPNs, Cell Phones service watching, etc. There's SO many problems that you can run into for legitmate users who ARE willing to pay for the service, even if they aren't sharing to be told that they're trying to cheat their (poorly thought up) anti-sharing system.
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u/st1tchy Jan 31 '23
I have TMobile Home Internet. I'm curious to see how this will work for me. My IP has been all over since it is cell based and from my understanding, I share a public IP with everyone else in the area. I had to install custom firmware on a second router and run install a VPN on it on order to get a good NAT to play games online because of the sharing IP address.
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u/Inspectorbeaver Jan 31 '23
My brother in Christ are you telling me there's a way of getting good nat type on cellular home internet? I've tried searching for a way but never found anything. Could you please point me in the direction of where I could learn how to do it as well
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u/Hastur_Hastur_Hastur Jan 31 '23
Id like to know as well because cgnat ducked up my wireguard VPN and I haven't been able to get it to work since
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u/Offbeatalchemy Jan 31 '23
Probably some sort of VPS or a tunnel like cloudflare. You can probably get a year worth of VPS compute and bandwidth pretty cheap. I pay like $10 a year for 3TB a month of proxy traffic.
Then you route that through a custom firmware router like OpenWRT or something, hook wireguard going out to your VPS and route all your traffic through that.
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u/My-Left-Plate Jan 31 '23
I travel about 30 times a year. My kids are watching Netflix at home, I’m watching in the hotel. I’m not paying twice.
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u/MotivatingElectrons Feb 01 '23
Then you might as well cancel and pay zero times.
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u/east_van_dan Feb 01 '23
Well if you're watching Netflix, you will be. That or one of you won't be watching.
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u/badDuckThrowPillow Jan 31 '23
Except some plans have multiple screens, its completely plausible for one spouse to be watching at home, while the other is watching traveling. Or simply using their phone instead of home internet.
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u/i_write_bugz Feb 01 '23 edited Feb 01 '23
Which would have been fine under their old definition but now you'll be forced to pay
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u/PopcornBag Jan 31 '23
If it resolves to a different county, you either moved or are sharing.
Oh boy, is this a wrong assumption. Sat internet will quite often read as a state and town across the country, but not always. This could look as if you're sharing with a specific location (near the ground station most likely).
But of course, since this is probably one of the worst solutions to use because of how IP Geography is even maintained, they'll probably use this as part of the method.
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u/Offbeatalchemy Jan 31 '23
I'm saying from their perspective, it's probably how it'll be used. Like i said, i know it's often VERY VERY wrong. ISPs often fuck this up big time. But hey, if they want to slap on a heavy handed solution to this problem, they have to use what little information they have, even if it is usually inaccurate.
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u/colbymg Jan 31 '23
IP Geography (which isn't accurate but it's something.)
Just wanted to share this oldish story of a house at the geographic center of US being set as the default physical location of all unknown IP addresses
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u/visionsofvader Jan 31 '23
Wait, then why do they have a mobile app if they are going to confine us to a specific location? My daughter can’t watch on her cell phone while out of the house? Get the fug outta here!
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u/ExtremeGayMidgetPorn Feb 01 '23
Hey hey let's not go overboard here. They never said you can't, just that you will have to pay a fee.
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u/jlreyess Jan 31 '23
Wait wait wait. I pay for the 4k package. It’s 15.99 pretax here in Costa Rica. I’ve been avoiding traveling outside the country for the last 3 years due to covid but we are finally going to the US in 2 weeks. We normally use our streaming services outside our country in the hotel we stay in withou5 any problems. We just get the expected “traveling? Your catalogue in this country will be a little different. Enjoy!” Message. You’re saying this is now not going to be an option? Because if that’s true this is some huge bullshit. Enough that I’m prepared to cancel Netflix because of it. We hardly use as it is now that all the series we watched were cancelled.
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u/stonkDonkolous Jan 31 '23
I am constantly moving since I work remote and I usually stay in an airbnb for a month or so in new locations. Sounds like this is going to be a problem.
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u/Lopsided-Letter1353 Jan 31 '23
I don’t work for Netflix, but from what I’ve read, and the way they rolled out the test program, it seems we’re all going to in our own little personal hell trying to watch Netflix anywhere but on the couch, in the house we reside.
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u/crash41301 Jan 31 '23
I'd imagine lots of us will just cancel if they make it too hard.
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u/l0uisebrooks Feb 01 '23
I’m barely on it already, they shouldn’t test me.
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u/TubaJesus Feb 01 '23
It was quite funny when I was trimming down my streaming services Netflix was the first to go and I kept my Paramount Plus.
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u/tangerineunderground Feb 01 '23
Agreed. Their content is mediocre. If they give me a reason to cancel, bye bye!
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u/JamesR624 Jan 31 '23
Ahh so they're just trying to loose all their viewers on purpose. Got it.
Weird way to go about bankruptcy but shrugs.
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u/Hairasser Jan 31 '23
They've stated they won't be looking out for every single instance where you use your service outside of the home, only when it is a constant thing. You can use your device outside of the home occasionally and use the devices offline if you've downloaded something. How well it is implemented is yet to be seen. They could use both IP and MAC addresses to see that you are using the same device but at a new location to keep you authorized, amongst a bunch of other factors and telltale signals.
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u/IshyMoose Jan 31 '23
Marriott hotels have Netflix built into their tvs. You have to login to your account.
I won’t be able to do that on business trips with my family at home.
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u/drunkpunk138 Jan 31 '23
Just started rolling this out in the hotel chain I work for. I'm actually traveling for work right now so I'm curious how quickly this will impact me.
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u/stephen_1975 Jan 31 '23
whoa whoa whoa
shit, I just realized I use my Netflix on mobile quite a bit, using various Wifi connects that aren't my home router
aw fuck
motherfuckers
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u/Lopsided-Letter1353 Jan 31 '23
Nothing is for sure until the rollout but there’s def rough waters ahead for Netflix and it’s customers.
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u/stephen_1975 Jan 31 '23
So it's deal with ads, or pull out the wallet again, ever since the days when it cost like $7.99 or something
sigh
hey, look at that, torrents are still a thing and TPB is even still online, geez.
this gonna become an easily-solved "problem" if they continue
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u/I_GAVE_YOU_POLIO Feb 01 '23
These days you don't even need to bother with torrents. There are a myriad of free/pirate streaming sites that function the same as Netflix/Prime/HBOMax/Whatever, but with a catalogue that spans services and licenses and includes things that aren't even available to stream legitimately. It's 100x easier to stream something on a pirate service than it is to subscribe to a legit one.
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u/nastynas1991 Feb 01 '23
That's so crazy, what are the names of these sites? I want to be sure I do my utmost to avoid them
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Jan 31 '23 edited Feb 01 '23
[deleted]
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u/MandoAviator Jan 31 '23
That’s so convoluted and impractical.
I pay for a service to be practical. Back to Plex and the High Seas for me.
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u/PandamoniumNO2 Feb 01 '23
The high seas is the way to go until they stop treating us like sheep to be milked. Theres also some reliable streaming sites up as well still
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u/Cub3h Jan 31 '23
What a faff.
What's that quote again? "Piracy is almost always a service problem."
If it's easier to just download a torrent or go on a website to stream pirated shows then why would people keep paying Netflix where they have to generate codes just in case they go to a hotel.
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u/lucyroesslers
Jan 31 '23
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I'm just going to get annoyed if this cracks down on actual members of my household using this:
- my daughter has our Netflix logged in at grandma's house, in the kids play room that my parents never use, and she's over there once or twice a week and I guarantee Netflix is on every time she's there. That's a completely valid use of our Netflix account and she shouldn't have hoops to get through to use it.
- I travel for work. Usually about 7-10 days per month. I use Netflix pretty regularly on my ipad when traveling. Another completely valid use of our Netflix account by a member of our household.
- I know my wife uses Netflix on her ipad when she's on the treadmill at the gym. Same thing
- We were legal guardians of my wife's little brother in high school. He's off at college now this year. He comes home still for winter break, probably will come home in the summer. His legal address is still our house- we get his mail, he just voted in 2022 elections using our address. Does Netflix not consider him a member of our household?
These are just a few examples of I'm sure many other valid uses of an account under their rules that will be inconvenienced by their password sharing crackdown.
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u/azul360 Jan 31 '23
That's the problem. Groups thinking in black and white and not looking at how grey it all is. Guess we'll find out.
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u/eeeBs Jan 31 '23
Been in web development for 20 years. OP just thought of half the top 10 reasons this is going to fuck up everything.
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u/CleanAirIsMyFetish Feb 01 '23
I have a hard time believing Netflix is going to stick to this. It seems like it’s going to cause so many problems that it will end up seriously hurting their bottom line.
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u/lydiakinami Feb 01 '23
I think the make or break moment will come when they have to decide on how to react to all those unaccounted scenarios. When they roll it back, users will be a bit more relaxed again, and investors will be mad. When they double down, users will cancel their subscriptions, Netflix stock will tank and investors will be impacted indirectly.
I just have a feeling they will make their most important decision this year.
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u/MiniDemonic Feb 01 '23
They already made the decision to go through with it. They already know about the problems. This new system has already been tested and it's as bad as everyone fears.
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u/lydiakinami Feb 01 '23
Idk, there's always the global rollout, and then the great media backlash after the fact, no matter how hard you tested it beforehand. I guess we'll if if stuff changes, and I think there's still a possibility for things to change (it also depends on how future earnings will be predicted and how much investors will continue to pressure based on future projections).
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u/masamunecyrus Feb 01 '23
On the contrary, the history of the tech industry is littered with the decaying corpses of once-dominant companies and services.
Yahoo
Blackberry
Nokia
Palm
MySpace
digg
AOL
SGI
3dfx
Kodak
...and so many more. Apple was once nearly on that list.
In a world where Netflix faces Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount Plus, and Apple TV, there is no guarantee that Netflix will still exist 10 years from now.
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u/dukeoftrappington Jan 31 '23
Honestly every societal problem right now can be boiled down to this. It’s like almost no one understands nuance anymore - we’d rather be lazy and “streamline” decision making processes to the point we don’t have to think about them, and that’s just not how any sizable problem works.
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u/NV-6155 Jan 31 '23
Corporate worldview.
Every problem needs to be solved with the least amount of time and resources possible, while also providing the highest return on investment in the short term.
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u/DifficultMinute Jan 31 '23
- We were legal guardians of my wife's little brother in high school. He's off at college now this year. He comes home still for winter break, probably will come home in the summer. His legal address is still our house- we get his mail, he just voted in 2022 elections using our address. Does Netflix not consider him a member of our household?
That's the boat that I'm in.
My daughter is on-campus at college about 60 minutes away. For all legal purposes, she still lives with us.
Are we going to catch crap from Netflix if she tries to log in from Netflix over there?
Depending on how strict they go, I could see her not being able to log in, which would be pretty frustrating.
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u/DataMeister1 Jan 31 '23
You will almost certainly trigger the crap, but what will happen is Netflix will prompt you to pay an extra $3/mo or something to activate the 2nd location.
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u/jonstewartsnotecards Feb 01 '23
Don’t we already pay extra for extra screens?
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u/DataMeister1 Feb 01 '23
Yep. And actually it looks like this might be the help document for this feature.
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/123277/us
Looks like there might not be an extra charge. Instead they may just require constant verification for addresses outside the main home.
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u/hyggety_hyggety Jan 31 '23
If I’m paying for 4-5 profiles, and Netflix doesn’t let my household use those wherever they happen to be, I’ll just cancel Netflix. Their content isn’t compelling enough to bother with if they make it complicated.
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u/luxmesa Jan 31 '23
It sounds like as long a as a device was logged in on your home network and has connected to it in the last 31 days, then it will still work. So that should cover the travel for work and gym cases. But the other two, will probably be problems.
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u/Serinus Jan 31 '23
So I need to make a home VPN and connect my family to it. That way it'll look like they're connecting from my house.
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u/bluelightsonblkgirls Jan 31 '23
I’m curious if this will work in the states. Their pilot in Latin America must have gone well enough to think the same will work here. I hope it doesn’t bc if it does, others will follow.
Currently I have Netflix for free via T-Mobile, but I pay $5/6 extra a month for hd & 2 simultaneous screens for my mom (though all of her shows are gone from Netflix now and on other streamers so she barely uses it). I’d planned to let her be the “home” IP address and just watch shows on my phone or iPad. If things get worse, I’ll stick with the free T-Mobile version and cut back.
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u/Jpato Jan 31 '23
Their pilot in Latin America must have gone well enough to think the same will work here
it didn't, at least on my country, everyone hated it, especially when you take into account that netflix is by far the most expensive service here (you can pay amazon, hbo and disney and its still cheaper than netflix). anyway. the whole thing lasted like 2 months and then they just added the profile transfer and remove everything else
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u/demonicneon Jan 31 '23
If they’d done thie 5/6 years ago, even before the pandemic, it might’ve been different. But everywhere has more choice and better competing services now.
They needed to do this when they were most powerful and had the most content in the most countries.
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u/Drlaughter Jan 31 '23
Heck they don't even have inbuilt watch party. Compared to Prime which has it, and D+ which can even multiple profiles on the same account.
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u/Apprehensive_West956 Jan 31 '23
This was actually a feature on the Xbox 360 for a long time. You party up with your buds. Enter Netflix and you see all your avatars together on the bottom of the screen in a little theater audience when the film starts they become shaded but you still see them moving. Think Mystery Science Theater 3000 but with your Xbox avatars and any movie you want. Was pretty cool. No longer a feature that I know of.
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u/demonicneon Jan 31 '23
Yeah it’s bad. I don’t know why when pandemic started they didn’t buy and integrate watch party. It was initially only available for Netflix and then the other streamers saw the potential and integrated their own versions.
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u/AlphaGoldblum Jan 31 '23
In an era where VPNs are relatively cheap and easier to use than ever, making anti-consumer moves like this should really be met with outright derision.
When streaming services start charging more than their worth (price vs convenience) while becoming less user-friendly, I'll gladly go back to the sailing the high seas full-time.
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u/demonicneon Jan 31 '23
100%. They only succeeded because the chokehold on entertainment by cable and satellite was easily broken because of poor value. People started pirating more because of it. Then streaming came along and brought ease of use and value into the mix and pirating numbers stagnated.
You also had a much more healthy theatre ecosystem - while pricier, it was a lot more affordable than now and there was a larger variety of movies to go see, often on better schedules.
Up until maybe 6 years ago, you were still often better seeing a film in the theatre vs pirating within the first month or so of release because chances were you would have to watch cam footage. Now? Why bother when I know it’s gonna be streaming 4k in my home in the space of a month.
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u/sickhippie Jan 31 '23
"One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue." - Gabe Newell
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u/Cluedo86 Jan 31 '23
Totally agreed! Not to mention piracy. Do streaming and content companies want our money, or not?
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u/Certain-Hat5152 Jan 31 '23
Sailing the high seas in a pirate boat in the bay?
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u/floog Jan 31 '23
Not sure I'm following. Did they back off of the password sharing crackdown? Public hate and lost subscriptions are very different, they don't care about public hate as long as profits don't suffer.
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u/3-DMan Jan 31 '23
Yeah it's all gonna be in the numbers. If they made more than they lost by doing it, it's a win.
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u/floog Jan 31 '23
Yep, they'll worry about year two/three/on effect later.
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u/zooberwask Jan 31 '23
it didn't, at least on my country, everyone hated it,
I mean yeah lmao no one was going to like paying for money for nothing in return. That's not what the test was about. It was to see if they could get enough subscribers to convert compared to the ones they'll lose to see if it'll be worth it on the numbers side. They really never cared about public sentiment.
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u/OnTheMattack Jan 31 '23
People liking it or not isn't how they measure success. All it needs to do is make them more money than they lose from people dropping their subscription.
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u/NavAirComputerSlave Jan 31 '23
Eh I'll just cancel my memberships. I only let others leach on. I don't even watch them my self half the time
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u/fleshie Jan 31 '23
Time to buy another hard drive for my media server lmao
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u/Whatah Jan 31 '23
Yup, I have plex pass but I also subscribe to netflix and disney+
I will try to convince wife that we should cancel netflix sub if this happens.
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u/Desitalia Jan 31 '23
if two of the leachers by a membership. Then it will still be a positive gain for Netflix
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u/Birdy_Cephon_Altera Jan 31 '23
I’m curious if this will work in the states. Their pilot in Latin America must have gone well enough to think the same will work here. I hope it doesn’t bc if it does, others will follow.
That's the thing - I'm sure that Netflix has a whole team of analysts looking at reams of data to determine what to do. I know that this is a particularly touchy issue among redditors, and whenever the topic is brought up there are dozens upon dozens of people throwing in their anecdotal two cents that "we will cancel if they do this!".
But no matter how many people provide their personal responses and what they are going to do, what really matters is the bigger picture on what millions of people will do. They've likely crunched the numbers six ways to Sunday and back again, to determine exactly how much they can crack down before it affects profitability. We don't have access to their analysis, we can only make educated guesses by their actions - and if they are still moving forward with their plans, that indicates to me they're pretty confident that whatever number of subbers they lose will be offset by revenue gains. Or are they miscalculating and making a huge misstep? I guess we'll all watch and find out.
And oh yes, you know very well all the other streaming services are watching this closely, too. If Netflix is able to contain the problem of password sharing, it will become the standard practice in the industry going forward.
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u/Harbinger-Acheron Jan 31 '23
Having been someone who sits in on planning meetings like this, it wouldn’t sunrise me if analysts told them it’s a bad idea statistically, but upper management went ahead with it anyone because there is a 30% chance it boosts profits for the next quarter and they have no ideas as to other ways to hit their growth targeg
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u/bigwig8006 Jan 31 '23
This sounds familiar. A lot of the times a business decision is made and then the data analysis is to support it instead of the other way around. Other times poor assumptions aren't scrutinized.
If salaries are any indicator, Netflix has some of the best data scientists and analysts money can buy. However, at the end of the day, their results are only as good as the organizational structure and decision-making process.
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u/bigwig8006 Jan 31 '23
I get that good analysis lends confidence to a decision. But you can look at Zillow as a recent example of over-confidence in modeling decisions. Their poor choice to purchase homes based primarily on an algorithm was a huge money loser that caused massive layoffs.
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u/darkeststar Jan 31 '23 edited Jan 31 '23
You can reverse engineer the entire thought process into doing this, and it all comes down to needing to find "untapped" avenues for revenue because Netflix is not sustainably profitable and NEEDS to continually increase revenue in order to view themselves as successful.
IMHO it comes off as desperate and a huge misstep, unless the entire plan all along is to convert more users to the ad-supported Netflix Lite, which in that case...I think it'll be pretty successful. It seems like the entire thought process behind the decision was "We all know the majority of subscribers allow people not in their home use their accounts, if we suddenly make all those people choose to become their own subscriber we'll have a huge increase in paid subscribers." And doesn't account for the reality of the situation, which is more along the lines of "We have tarnished our reputation so severely in the last 5 years that most people who don't pay for their access to Netflix will drop down to the Free tier or stop using the service."
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u/Serinus Jan 31 '23
It's sustainably profitable. They don't have enough sustained growth to make investors happy.
We've designed a system where nearly every company has to either become cancer or fail.
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u/jktcat Jan 31 '23
Well, WE didn't, and WE aren't benefiting. But that'd be socialism or some other scary word. Capitalism dictates endless growth and endless profit. Not WE
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u/caverunner17 Jan 31 '23
Simple solution. Stop gating 4k behind the most expensive plan and call it 4 streams. I might be willing to pay the basic one screen plan if it had 4k, but I sure as hell aren't paying the top tier when pretty much every other platform includes it.
To me, it's such a drastic difference between HBO Max or Disney+ and Netflix.
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u/p00ponmyb00p Jan 31 '23
Their 4k sucks anyway. 15mbit is trash for that many pixels, I don’t care how good your encoding is. 1080p blurays are 40mbit+ and look 2x better than Netflix 4k
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u/Joorpunch Feb 01 '23
Yup. Not only does Netflix not support 4K well, the majority of the content available on it isn’t even available in 4K even if you are paying for the highest tier… and even if that same content exists in 4K elsewhere. Trash.
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u/Katorya Jan 31 '23
Real question: If I got a vpn that allows multiple concurrent devices at the same time, shared the vpn with my “Netflix/Hulu/HBO/etc family” and we all connected to the same IP before connecting to these services, would I effectively counteract these password sharing crackdowns?
Asking hypothetically, for a friend, that goes to a different school, in Canada, that you’ve never met.
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u/divisionSpectacle Jan 31 '23
Hey I'm your friend in Canada.
This is a technically sound solution, but practically it can be difficult to implement because running a VPN is a complex way to use the internet.
For lots of the wizards who grew up with it, it's probably no problem but for many folks the primary driver of this is to share Netflix with older parents/grandparents.
So it would work, if everyone sharing is sufficiently nerdy enough. Go for it!
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u/Scirax Jan 31 '23
LOL so yeah it'll work, but so will torrenting shows/movies or streaming them off the sites that have them up day after release.
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u/opsecpanda Jan 31 '23
You might need to do research on what VPN and what other settings you'd have to enable. Netflix and other sites (mostly streaming ones) have ways of detecting that you're using a VPN and will just disallow any streaming til it thinks you've disconnected
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u/nyaaaa Jan 31 '23
Set up a VPN at your home and have everyone connect through it.
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u/Ejigantor Jan 31 '23
Like the article points out, there's already an additional cost for multiple users, and it doesn't actually make a difference to Netflix from a tech perspective whether those multiple streams are on the same local network or not.
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Jan 31 '23 edited Feb 01 '23
[deleted]
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u/defensive_language Jan 31 '23
It's absolutely wild. Isn't the whole reason Netflix is even a thing a result of cable television companies trying for decades to force people into buying more expensive packages?
Like, next thing you know, Netflix will get some national sports coverage deal, and they'll force you to sign up for dvd deliveries again just to get access to it.
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u/Mithridates12 Jan 31 '23
Netflix has by far the least consumer-friendly subscription model. I don’t care too much (for now) since I’m sharing it with other people, but to tie quality (even Full HD) to number of screens is inexcusable.
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u/OakFern Jan 31 '23 •
They should really just segregate it out into individually priced add-ons, then you mix and match based on your needs.
Base price
+ 4K add-on
+ extra screens add-on
+ multiple locations add-on
Want 4K on one screen in a single house? Cool, just get the 4K add-on.
Want multiple screens in multiple locations but don't need 4K? Cool, get the multiple screens and multiple locations add-on.
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u/happyscrappy Jan 31 '23
4K shouldn't cost extra. No other direct content outlet charges extra for 4K (cable typically does, including Youtube TV).
Also Netflix bundles HDR with 4K. I don't know if you want to keep them together to break those out separately.
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u/sweetmorty Jan 31 '23
$20 extra for 4K on YouTube TV. Not worth it.
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u/happyscrappy Jan 31 '23
I agree. But Youtube TV doesn't make their own content. They have to pay the content providers for the 4K content. Netflix already has their shows in 4K, it doesn't cost them anything, or maybe just a little more internet data to send you their content in 4K.
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u/Decimation4x Jan 31 '23
Only one TV in our household and Netflix isn’t used on any other devices. But then that’s why I password share. Not going to miss Netflix as we barely use it.
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u/floog Jan 31 '23
Can't even stream all four seasons of a Netflix show simultaneously because they get cancelled so quickly they don't make it that far.
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u/AuthorNathanHGreen Jan 31 '23 edited Jan 31 '23
I think what bothers me is the collective basket of actions they've taken. They've raised prices, reduced the quality and breadth of their content, introduced advertisements, had a bunch of competitors rise up (meaning I need to subscribe to several services to watch the shows I want), and now they're pulling away another degree of utility of the service.
Every few months they become a worse and worse value proposition. And I think for consumers it has been even more stark because of what a crazy good value a Netflix subscription was seven or eight years ago.
Honestly them cutting off password sharing is probably the least bothersome of every step they've taken to boost profits. But on top of everything else they're just very obviously trying to find the point at which consumers tell them their service isn't worth the costs.
Edit: I'm just re-reading this comment and think I should give Netflix credit for one thing - the rise of Korean dramas. They've been remarkably successful in bringing a ton of Korean shows onto the service that are, frankly, spectacular. Crash Landing On You, Extraordinary Attorney Woo, etc. If I'm going to hit Netflix for its failures, I should give them props for their wins. More wins like this, fewer service cuts.
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u/Industrialqueue Jan 31 '23
The sharing may be that point as it’s in the same hostage range as Facebook: your friends.
If you’re not allowed to share with your friends, then no one is dependent on your subscription. It’s your choice alone to cancel, and all those other factors are more prominent. In the past, if you canceled, then that would be confrontation with your mom and your sister, half of whom don’t pay, but that’s fine.
Now it’s just you. Don’t like $15? Screw that. Cancelling. Tired of all your shows getting canceled? How’s about Netflix tastes their own medicine. Cancelled.
Personally, I’ve already started cycling services every few months.
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u/AuthorNathanHGreen Jan 31 '23
I'm doing the same: cycling services. I don't think these platforms realize how obvious it is to customers when you're looking for something to watch and night after night after night after night you can't find anything on Disney+, and you always end up on Netflix or HBO, or whatever it is. Most natural thing in the world to cancel and come back once they've had a chance to swap up their content selection.
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u/smokinbbq Jan 31 '23
The interface on Disney+ is horrible. I just got 6 months free from my cable/internet package, and it's so hard to find a show on it. When you first select it, it doesn't give a good enough description about the show, so you click into it, but now it's on Episodes, so you click over twice to get to "details" and now you can see the details, but it looks shitty, so you now have to go "back" twice to get to the main list again.
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u/BetterCallSal Jan 31 '23
The second this impacts me any way at all; the second I have to take even 1 extra step to use my account; that's the second I'm cancelling.
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u/poopoopoopiedoopie Feb 01 '23
I predict they will be back tracking on this decision.
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I’m excited to cancel my subscription in March
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u/whitepageskardashian Jan 31 '23 edited Feb 01 '23
Just so everyone knows, Proton has a $5, $8, and free package for ProtonVPN (I don’t think the free version allows peer-to peer traffic.) There’s also Popcorntime for streaming.
For just about anything, you can use qBittorrent. When you set it up, change your network settings within the program to use the VPN. Instead of using a torrent search engine’s website, you can go to this link for a walkthrough on how to add search engine plugins to qBittorrent. Now, within the program, you can search for your torrents and sort by seeders. An easy one to try after adding your search engines is to search for “2023 1080p”
Edit: I want to stress that the VPN is absolutely necessary when torrenting. If you were to accidentally download a pirated torrent (illegal), your ISP will definitely send you a letter in the mail, and they will know exactly which torrents you have downloaded.
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u/viroxd Jan 31 '23
Cancel now lol
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u/supergrendell Jan 31 '23
I’m more curious to see if they actually go through with it more than anything. Besides, I want to be part of the “wave” of disconnects.
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u/GhostofAugustWest Jan 31 '23
If you factor in the fact the quality of their original content has declined, this could be a disaster for them.
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u/jesuswasagamblingman Jan 31 '23
Let's hope. Their attitude to the customer needs a hard reset.
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u/joeyb92 Jan 31 '23
I find myself floating between Netflix, HBO and Disney because none can give enough quality on its own. Hell no I am going to pay for Netflix with the current quality.
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u/Leto2AndTheCrew Jan 31 '23
Do one service for a month then on to the next one - that’s what I do. Every 4 months, each service has enough content to justify a month subscription
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u/SpectralEntity Jan 31 '23 edited Jan 31 '23
It's such a shame, too. This was supposed to be the future of TV. The last five years was looking great, then over the last year quality seems to have fallen off a cliff.
We have almost all of the main streamers: Apple TV, Disney, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, Paramount, Peacock and Prime (thanks to T-mobile, Xfinity and Amex playing for four of them!). A year ago, HBO Max was our most watched service, now we struggle to find something truly captivating across all of them.
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u/aideya Jan 31 '23
I get Disney and Hulu through my verizon plan and it's the only reason I keep them consistently. Prime is a byproduct of paying for prime for delivery (we get most things overnight, so it's actually worth it for us). Peacock is included in our xfinity plan. Everything else we rotate through because there is no way in hell they have enough content to justify staying subbed all the time.
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u/demonicneon Jan 31 '23
The problem is these other companies have existing IP they can fall back on to deliver hits and content for streaming.
Netflix is having to develop ip from scratch and try and make it stick, in a far shorter space of time than these other companies (decades of building brands) in a far more competitive environment (nobody is at home with the whole country watching the same 5/6 channels anymore - I know cable obv broke this up but even then it still worked in the studio system).
It’s far riskier. Way more expensive. And much harder to extract profit from an IP that is one part of thousands of titles for one monthly price - they don’t sell dvds etc. it’s not like scooby doo where they can syndicate old episodes and take in some cash in hand.
The shows they make are essentially marketing, not product.
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u/ickarous Jan 31 '23
Yep, I was already a couple heartbeats away to just dropping it and just downloading the 1-2 shows we watch on it anyway.
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u/Quinnmesh Jan 31 '23
That's what I've done, got my always sunny and community and now I'm just waiting for it to come into effect in the UK for me to cancel.
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u/Sage_Planter Jan 31 '23
For me, it's not so much the quality as the "oh, we canceled X show after one season." I love some trash TV, but I'm getting tired of everything getting scrapped after eight episodes.
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u/fullup72 Jan 31 '23
I don't think quality of their original content has actually gone down, it's the "cancel after one season" tactic that's killing their overall proposition as it's very mentally taxing to invest into a new show instead of going back to the same story and characters from time to time.
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u/aideya Jan 31 '23
I don't mind investing in a new show at all. The problem is the massive letdown once you're invested only for them to cancel it with no proper ending. Makes me want to not watch a show until it's complete as a form of risk aversion. TV should never be about risk aversion lol
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u/Suolucidir Jan 31 '23
The day I see this on my account, I am immediately terminating the service.
Everybody should, so that they get strong feedback immediately.
This article makes a great point - Netflix became popular precisely because, among other factors, they encouraged password sharing.
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u/Ed_the_time_traveler Jan 31 '23
I canceled my service after they made the announcement. More of a quality issue, most of the new shows are crap. If they make something I like, it gets canceled after a season.
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u/Nanoro615 Jan 31 '23 edited Jan 31 '23
I'm still upset about Inside Job. That show was JUST my flavor of humor. But no. Have like 12 seasons of Big Mouth. Yeah okay.
Edit: Said Velma had 2 seasons before. Forgot that that was an HBO show and not Netflix. When there's like 40 streaming services you get them confused sometimes... Right?
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u/william1134 Jan 31 '23
They cancelled inside job? :( damnit, im just getting into it
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u/Nanoro615 Jan 31 '23
I know... Sorry you had to find out this way. The main plot line for season one wraps up fairly nicely, few things are left hanging. Just another major plot path is implied at the end. Still a great experience though.
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u/DoodlingDaughter Jan 31 '23
I’m still incredibly pissed off over Santa Clarita Diet! That was such an amazing show, and Netflix totally fucked over the showrunners on that one. They were assured they’d have a final season… then Netflix aired the show suddenly (with no marketing whatsoever,) and used the lack of viewers as an excuse to cancel it!
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u/GearboxTheGrey Jan 31 '23
Yep I don't even bother with their shows now most of the time even if it looks interesting, I known it'll l get cancelled in a week because not enough people binged the whole season in a weekend.
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u/Caleth Jan 31 '23
My wife keeps making fun of me because I keep saying I won't watch anything new from them. "Yes Honey, I know, it'll just get cancelled."
But it fucking does every time. I was just about to watch 1899 becuase I'd heard amazing things at Christmas. Monday after getting back from work, I found out it was cancelled. Stopped after the second episode.
So SO many shows with promise get fucking axed for no good reason over there.
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u/Lavender_Daedra Jan 31 '23
My husband has made fun of me for years because I refuse to invest my time into a show until it’s second season is released. There are exceptions of course, mostly HBO & Showtime shows, as they tend to either wrap them up nicely and listen to their audience. Of course now those have both been shoved under other companies so I don’t even know anymore.
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u/sarcasticbaldguy Jan 31 '23
Remind them that you've never cancelled a successful streaming service.
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u/golemsheppard2 Jan 31 '23
Not just that, but every other streaming service is watching closely. If consumers just roll over and eat a significant price hike per screen per month, fully expect that by the end of the year Disney plus, Hulu, Amazon prime, paramount plus, every other streaming service will do the same. They are businesses. They want to squeeze as much money out of you as they can get away with.
When Netflix imposes this price hike/password sharing ban, send a clear market signal that you won't stand for this shit. Cancel Netflix. Explicitly tell them the reason that you are canceling Netflix. Hit up their social media accounts drawing attention to why so many people are suddenly ditching Netflix.
Make this such a financially disastrous outcome for them that no other streaming service dares to try this shit.
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u/Odysseyan Jan 31 '23
Just curious: how many other people do you share your account with?
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u/Walking_Ruin Jan 31 '23 •
Speaking for myself, I share my Netflix with my mom, who lives a few doors down the road.
She is not incredibly mobile, and I end up going over there often to clean, make dinner, and do things for her when she’s not feeling up to it. I tend to watch shows in the background when I do this.
If Netflix does this shit, I’m going to drop them faster than my mom dropped me on my head as a baby.
I said what I said
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u/PlatypiSpy Jan 31 '23
My roommate, and my kids, who I have split custody with. And I'm in the same boat. My kids watch it at my house and their mom's house. I'm already paying for multiple devices, it shouldn't matter who's using those devices.
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u/fubarbob Jan 31 '23
Same - I do not share the password, and it's only ever accessed from the same handful of devices - 99% of usage from the same location. I have zero tolerance for being locked out of a paid service for nothing.
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u/Zinxe Jan 31 '23
Yeah, not to mention their plans are based on screens. I should be able to use the service anywhere, anytime, with anyone, as long as I don't hit the screen limit.
Anyway, I already canceled the moment they announced this. I haven't missed it.
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u/TheWilrus Jan 31 '23
Anyone have a good source for purchasing content electonrically so you own it. Or are we still stuck with buying physical copies?
I've started crunching the numbers and Netflix along with other streamers are basically only a rewatch machine now for our family and buying the shows is looking like a more reasonable option at this point.
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u/GooseyGhost Jan 31 '23
If you purchase electronically, unless it's an actual download that doesn't require an internet connection to play, you don't own it and it can be removed from your purchases when licensing changes.
The only surefire way to own is to purchase physical discs and make digital copies to upload to your personal server. That's what I do. And anything not available as a physical (or digital) purchase, I obtain anyway.
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u/jessiescar Jan 31 '23
I think there are services like Google Play and Prime that allow you to own stuff, but they will still remove it from your library if that show gets owned by some other service.
Amazon Argues Users Don’t Actually Own Purchased Prime Video Content
Your best bet is to always get hold of a physical copy.
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u/youwantitwhen Feb 01 '23
If they can remove it, you don't own it.
Having the physical media or physical file is the only way to own it.
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u/midgethepuff Jan 31 '23
Physical copy is always your best bet. My fiancé has really upped his blu ray collection since so many things are being removed from streaming services.
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u/hgs25 Jan 31 '23
What’s the point of the extra screens in the higher tiers then? I pay double for their 4 continuous streams so I can share with family.
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u/calvarez Jan 31 '23
They say that's for the same household. But what's a "household?" Kids off to college...?
In my case I pay for the highest tier for 4K, and that includes more screens. There are two of us in the house, and we share our login with her parents who have limited income. If Netflix wants to stop this, then bye, we can pirate.
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u/HanaBothWays Jan 31 '23
Part of the reason most people who were doing stuff like torrenting and pirating shows stopped doing that was because you could easily stream stuff you wanted at a reasonable price. But if Netflix and other streaming services keep doing stuff like this lots of folks may say “screw it” and go back to piracy again.
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u/supergrendell Jan 31 '23
Yup that’s exactly why people went to streaming to begin with. Mostly because of the inexpensive convenience. And the fact that cable and satellite companies prices were astronomical since they had a monopoly on the market. You want Bay Area sports? Well fuck you, you have to get 32 more channels that you’ll never watch in different and more expensive package. I remember when Netflix was $5 a month now I pay over $20. And the ONLY reason I have it now is to share with my in-laws. I watch maybe an hour of tv a day and half of that is spent trying to find something I want to watch anyhow. We have come full circle with the exact reason we “cut the cord” to begin with. Corporate greed always wins in the end.
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u/MetaverseLiz Jan 31 '23
I had stopped pirating for this exact reason- getting content from streaming services was easier than free. Now it's not... again.
The only reason I have Amazon Video is because I have Prime. Easier than free because it came with something else I already use a bunch. If Prime Video ever became something I had to pay extra for I wouldn't have it.
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u/IwasBnnedFromThisSub Jan 31 '23
Plex has made it super easy to make your own streaming service. I'd much rather pay for plex pass and beef up my NAS than pay for multiple streaming services
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u/emo_skewer Jan 31 '23
Mass cancellation in their largest market should be good for them. Can’t wait, greedy fuckers
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u/MightyEvilDoom Jan 31 '23
So what IS the cost going to be? I don’t think I’ve actually seen a number in all this time.
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u/redditingatwork23 Feb 01 '23
I love how we have come full fucking circle on this shit.
First people pirated shit to avoid the huge prices of cable TV and movies.
Then came streaming platforms to save us for a small once a month cost under $8.
Streaming platforms up their prices while reducing their catalogs due to competition. Now here we are in 2023 with a dozen fucking platforms and basically back to exclusivity of cable networks.
They want everyone to pay separately because I mean you wouldn't share you cable TV package rightttt? So now were back to the nickel and dime tactics of late 1990's payperview and other BS charges.
Everyone goes back to pirating everything because a single VPN charge is much easier to stomach than paying $100 a month for 8 different services because they all have a single show that you want to watch.
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u/danivus Jan 31 '23
If they don't want me to share my account just give me the option of paying for a single screen and also getting the highest quality.
The only plan that currently caters for a single person only has 720p quality, which is shit. If I want to be able to stream in 4K for some reason I also have to pay for 4 screens, which I do not want.
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u/holamiamor421 Jan 31 '23
They do realize that I've not forget torrent exists right? Ill go back, Try me.
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u/blue60007 Jan 31 '23
Sure, but 99% of the population doesn't know how (or how 'safely' do it) or doesn't have the time/energy or interest in it.
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u/-FullBlue- Jan 31 '23
Websites like fmovies and attackertv also exist and its just like any other streaming service but free....
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u/ux3l Jan 31 '23
And if they don’t like it, they’re going to shift over to a growing number of alternative streaming services (including free ones like TikTok)
What? Are there complete movies or episodes of series on Tiktok?
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u/R34ct0rX99 Jan 31 '23
Just what the users want! Less content, canceled shows and nag screens to verify clients. Glad I’m not an investor.
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u/GooseyGhost Jan 31 '23 edited Jan 31 '23
My personal media library is about to get a bunch of Netflix shows and films
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u/mechbuy Jan 31 '23
I genuinely think that netflix is not accounting for the large portion of customers who only keep netflix as a full-time subscription because their child/parent/friend is also using their account. I will gladly cancel my decade+ long subscription and instead sign-up for a once or twice a year binge month.