[HN Gopher] Update on Sharing
___________________________________________________________________
Update on Sharing
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 118 points
Date : 2023-05-23 18:56 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (about.netflix.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (about.netflix.com)
| jakebasile wrote:
| I think it's pretty ridiculous for Netflix to define what is and
| isn't my "household".
| tinglymintyfrsh wrote:
| What if you have 5 homes (with 5 different ISPs)? Is each a
| household or are the collection of people households?
|
| What if you have friends who are basically family who more-or-
| less live with you? Are they not part of the "household"? _"
| Sorry, Bob, while you maybe my daughter's godfather and donated
| a kidney to me, you're now going to need your own Netflix
| account because Netflix wants to mash the 'pump corporate
| profits' button that has been a primary contributing factor of
| both embarrassing wealth transfer from the poor to the rich and
| inflation post-pandemic."_
| KomoD wrote:
| Who has 5 homes?
| s1k3s wrote:
| Glad they're actually pushing this. The fact that people think
| it's somehow their right to use stuff for free, that others had
| to put in work for, is mindblowing for me.
| kstrauser wrote:
| It would be more understandable if their founding CEO wasn't on
| record saying that they were happy to have people share their
| accounts, especially with their kids.
| autoexec wrote:
| > The fact that people think it's somehow their right to use
| stuff for free, that others had to put in work for, is
| mindblowing for me.
|
| People aren't pissed because they can't "use stuff for free"
| anymore. You can already pirate every show that's on netflix.
| People are upset because they were sold one thing, and now will
| not be getting what they paid for. I paid for x number of
| simultaneous devices/streams. I paid for a service which told
| me sharing passwords was perfectly fine. That's what I signed
| up for.
|
| Now netflix changes the rules, which after multiple price
| increases, a library that has declined in quantity and quality,
| and an interface that is still terrible and increasingly
| stuffed with ads there is nothing mindblowing about the hate
| they're getting. They absolutely deserve to lose customers.
| notatoad wrote:
| i see the thread is full of people predicting that this is going
| to be a bad decision for netflix, because they personally
| cancelled their accounts or are going to. and i cancelled my
| netflix account too - recent changes to pricing and policies made
| me re-assess whether it was worth it for me, and i decided it
| wasnt'.
|
| but it's always good to remember that our own actions aren't
| necessarily the same as everybody else's. netflix has been
| rolling this out in a slow and cautious way across their
| territories, surely monitoring the impact, and decided to
| continue. and earnings are up, they've beaten or at least met
| projections the last couple quarters. whatever they're doing
| seems to be working.
| greatgib wrote:
| I really hate them for this move for them being fuckin
| hypocrites.
|
| In theory it would be ok to have such a rule. But for years they
| have used the sharing of account as a marketing trick to get new
| users. Imagine that they have 3 offers, with the most expensive
| one not far from 2x times the entry level price. The main
| difference was the ability to have 2 or 4 person's watching at
| the same time. Normally you would not have a real need for taking
| more than basic plans, but they pushed people to take the highest
| plan and share.
|
| Now that they reached a peak in term of users, they switch their
| speech and pretend that they have to do a change because people
| are abusing of something that was not allowed to them in the
| first place.
|
| So they need to get a good lesson with mass cancellation and
| downsizing subscriptions.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Honestly, I wouldn't have minded something like "buy an extra
| member" if it were introduced years ago. Introducing it now just
| seems to be a trigger to re-evaluate "is Netflix really worth
| that much" at a time their content selection doesn't look as
| amazing as it once did. I'm coming from a background of having
| recently cancelled my account though, and may be biased in
| thinking along those lines as a result.
|
| Overall it'll be interesting to see how much impact this actually
| has or doesn't have for subscription volume. My guess is maybe
| not as much as the usual uproared comments would have you think.
| joemi wrote:
| > Overall it'll be interesting to see how much impact this
| actually has or doesn't have for subscription volume. My guess
| is maybe not as much as the usual uproared comments would have
| you think.
|
| I suspect you're right about this. This change has no effect on
| the people who aren't sharing their account, so those people
| have very little incentive to comment except perhaps out of
| sympathy for those who it will affect. So most of the uproar
| will understandably be negative, even if a majority of users do
| not share their account.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I'm not sure.
|
| These services only have new good content like 50% of the
| time. So it makes more sense to cycle subscriptions on and
| off. This is harder if you've given someone your password
| (I'd definitely not be subscribed to Disney+ right now if my
| sibling wasn't using it).
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > at a time their content selection doesn't look as amazing as
| it once did
|
| I feel like Netflix is seasonal. Just like Disney+ and HBO.
|
| Come fall Netflix will debut a bunch of viral bangers, and by
| February you'll be questioning if Netflix is worth it again.
| joemi wrote:
| That's how I treat all streaming services nowadays. With the
| fractured landscape it's kind of the only way to handle it
| now.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I was probably ~3 years delayed in cancelling Netflix based
| on actually using it. I started maintaining a watchlist of
| what I actually want to watch instead of constantly
| searching/cross-referencing through what is new or currently
| available on these interfaces designed to hide how little
| good new content is actually there. Eventually I found out
| there wasn't really that much I was actually interested in on
| the services anymore and, for what there was, I came the
| conclusion pirating was once again the better option in terms
| of availability, quality, and user experience.
|
| Barring returning to piracy, I think I'd still have cancelled
| but sometimes subscribed for a month on the rare occasion
| something like The Queen's Gambit (2020) came out then cancel
| for a few years again.
| ghaff wrote:
| Netflix is the one that's probably the most marginal for me
| these days. I don't really binge watch or drop in and out
| much but I should probably look with summer coming up to
| see if I really want it given I have other services and I
| watch a fairly modest amount of video.
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| I used to subscribe ALL of the streaming services (Netflix, HBO
| Max, tv+, Paramount+, Disney+, Hulu etc.) but cancelled all of
| them because it was getting too much choices on too shallow
| content. Now I rely on PBS (Passport that comes with my monthly
| donation), YouTube and Peacock (comes free with Xfinity wifi)
| and if I like a movie I could just rent it. This is working out
| well for me.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| I wish they had done this from the get go. My family has never
| shared a password with anybody, and I'm pretty confident that
| some of their price hikes reflected the reality that they had
| to deal with password sharers.
|
| All I know is that with the fracturing of the streaming
| landscape, where everything requires a separate
| $8.99/$11.99/$15.99 (or whatever) monthly fee, downloading
| Linux ISOs starts to look more and more attractive.
| p1mrx wrote:
| I only use Debian in theaters.
| joemi wrote:
| > downloading Linux ISOs starts to look more and more
| attractive
|
| Is that a veiled reference to piracy? If so, why not just say
| piracy?
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Been code for piracy from at least 2008.
|
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Linux+ISO&a
| m...
| deltarholamda wrote:
| For one, it's funnier. Secondly, declaring an intention to
| commit a crime on the Internet doesn't have a great track
| record.
| smith7018 wrote:
| I think they were making a thinly-veiled reference to
| torrenting (because for a long time the only legit use case
| for torrenting was Linux images?) but I'm not sure
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| It's a joke as that is one of the few significant non-
| piracy uses of torrents.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Should have shared passwords, at least you could trade a
| Netflix for a Hulu or whatever.
|
| Apple TV is $6.99 a month. Netflix looks to be $9.99
| (ignoring the ad-subsidized offering which isn't really
| comparable). It is kind of hard to share an Apple TV login
| (at least I wasn't able to figure out how to share it without
| also sharing my whole Apple account), so I guess that extra
| $3 must be the price of all the sharing going on.
|
| Although, Apple TV seems to have much better in-house shows,
| so who knows?
| deltarholamda wrote:
| >Should have shared passwords, at least you could trade a
| Netflix for a Hulu or whatever.
|
| Yeah, I fell into the "do the right thing, it will be
| better" trap.
|
| The modern solution is to sign up for a service, binge
| watch everything on it, and then cancel. But I don't really
| binge watch, and we have enough people in the house with
| different tastes it doesn't really work that well.
|
| What really killed me is I pay for PBS Passport. But there
| are some shows with different licenses (I guess) that are
| only available on other services.
| zamadatix wrote:
| It gets a bit more complicated than that, e.g. Apple TV+
| doesn't have tiers and the $9.99 Netflix plan won't get you
| 4k. That said, it's also more complicated than assuming the
| cost difference is all due to password sharing. Who has the
| better media agreements? Is a particular player trying to
| buy market share or focusing on maximizing margin of the
| share they have? How does having an integrated hardware
| ecosystem vs partners play into the cost structure? These,
| and more, can all factor into the subscription price,
| beyond password sharing.
| DeRock wrote:
| > $9.99 Netflix plan won't get you 4k
|
| It doesn't even get you 1080p (for that you need the
| $15.49 "standard" plan, and 4k comes on the $20 a month
| plan)
| gjulianm wrote:
| This is a US rollout of a restriction that they have already
| deployed in Latin America and Spain among other countries [1],
| that they restrict your account to a single household. So, no
| password sharing with friends.
|
| I am honestly surprised they keep pushing this. In Spain, Netflix
| is among the most expensive options, and the most expensive if
| you consider the features you get (the 7,99 euro option just
| gives you HD, not full HD, and only one concurrent device); and
| the content quality has been going downhill and has lost a lot of
| staple shows. Most people I know that had Netflix just canceled
| their subscription once the deadline hit, because the price for
| extra members is ridiculous (basically a full subscription cost)
| and without password sharing it's not worth it compared to the
| other options.
|
| I guess that the move didn't have as much effect as people
| thought it did, and that's why they're continuing the rollout.
|
| 1: https://about.netflix.com/en/news/update-on-sharing-may-us
| autoexec wrote:
| > I guess that the move didn't have as much effect as people
| thought it did, and that's why they're continuing the rollout.
|
| 1 million people canceled their netflix accounts in Spain over
| the change. The new policy has already cost them several
| million dollars. That's a pretty major effect. Maybe they think
| people sharing passwords costs them more over time, or maybe
| they're just willing to hemorrhage users now hoping that
| they'll somehow win some back later under tighter restrictions,
| and at higher prices. It still seems like a gamble to me,
| considering they have a ton of competition with better
| libraries.
|
| I think cracking down on the worst offenders (hundreds of
| people all over the globe using the same account) and keeping
| accounts to a reasonable number of simultaneous streams would
| have been a much better option.
| mdasen wrote:
| > I am honestly surprised they keep pushing this
|
| I'm not surprised. One of the big problems that faces Netflix
| is market saturation. Lots of companies like Google or Facebook
| can grow profits by getting you to use their service more. The
| more you use, the more they earn. Netflix can only get more
| revenue by getting more paying users or raising prices on
| existing users.
|
| In the United States and Canada, Netflix has 74.4M subscribers.
| The US has 124M households and Canada has 15M (139M total). 54%
| of US/Canadian households already subscribe to Netflix. If each
| of those paying subscriptions is also being used by a second
| non-paying household, that means that 100% of US/Canada has
| Netflix. If that's true, the only way for Netflix to gain
| revenue would be by raising prices or eliminating the account-
| sharing and hoping that more people will be paying customers.
|
| I'm sure Netflix has run the numbers based on their internal
| data. They already know who is sharing accounts. If 50% of
| accounts are sharing, that means that the 74.4M subscribers
| becomes 111.8M households and 80% of US/Canada. Basically,
| Netflix should know how close to the total number of households
| already use Netflix (even if they aren't paying for it).
|
| If 80% of households already have access, you've basically hit
| your growth limit. You can't expect 100% - only 87% of
| households have broadband internet in the US and some people
| just won't be interested. It seems reasonably likely that
| Netflix is pretty close to their growth limit in the US/Canada
| without going after account sharing. If 50% of accounts are
| sharing, they've probably hit 90-95% penetration in the
| US/Canada given that 13% of households don't have the internet
| required for Netflix.
|
| I'm not surprised simply because it seems like the only avenue
| of growth for Netflix in many markets. Netflix doesn't charge
| you per show. They don't have add-on packages for sports or
| whatever. If you love your local take-out place, you might
| order from there more. If you love Facebook, you watch more of
| their ads. If you love Netflix, you don't buy a new account
| each day. To keep growing in many areas, Netflix needs to break
| up account sharing.
| autoexec wrote:
| > To keep growing in many areas, Netflix needs to break up
| account sharing.
|
| That trick only works once and then they're right back to
| where they were with zero growth because everyone already has
| a netflix account or they've been so pissed off at netflix
| changing the rules of their service and with price hikes, and
| the decline in content, that they've already canceled and
| moved on to the many many competitors with bigger/better
| libraries.
|
| Netflix (and most companies really) shouldn't expect or aim
| for endless growth. They should just strive to make a healthy
| profit and sustain that over time. Their profits will
| increase as their costs go down and global population grows,
| as well as by moving into new markets.
|
| That said, netflix still has some opportunities to make more
| money. They can sell their shows on physical media (I have
| season one of Stranger Things on DVD), and sell merch for
| their popular shows. Now that netflix is heavily invested in
| production they have even more opportunities to sell things
| to fans. Their challenge now is creating content that people
| want to spend money on, and not pissing off the customers
| they have.
| mdasen wrote:
| > That trick only works once and then they're right back to
| where they were with zero growth
|
| Yep, it just kicks the can down the road, but it might kick
| it ten years down the road.
|
| One of Netflix's big problems is that they're really just
| HBO, but with more subscribers. As we're both talking
| about, they have some limits on their growth. At the same
| time, people have generally thought of them like a tech
| company.
|
| > Netflix (and most companies really) shouldn't expect or
| aim for endless growth. They should just strive to make a
| healthy profit and sustain that over time.
|
| The problem is that's extremely hard to actually do. People
| say this all the time, but often don't think about what it
| means. The problem is that if you're not trying to grow and
| change, usually someone comes along and pulls the rug out
| from under you. 1990s/early-2000s HBO could be described as
| happy with its premium-cable position and not needing to go
| for big growth. They would grow as the population grew.
| Except then Netflix decides to make a huge play: invest in
| tons of content and a big new streaming platform. Now
| Netflix starts taking over that space and taking a bigger
| share of the dollars being spent on video entertainment.
|
| The problem is that customers aren't going to be loyal to a
| zero-growth, steady-profit company. Someone is going to
| come along and offer something that might be better - and
| if you aren't growing and investing, it's easy to get left
| behind. There's often a bear behind you and you need to
| keep running.
|
| In fact, when Netflix launched its streaming service, it
| knew that it had to grow into a content producer and not
| simply a streaming service. Netflix could have said "we're
| so happy you love our streaming service, we'll just keep
| licensing whatever content we can for your subscription
| fees minus a cut for us." The company would have died.
| Licensing costs would go up, content producers would launch
| their own services like Disney+ and HBO Max, and customers
| that loved Netflix at the start would have left the
| service.
|
| In fact, Netflix had to grow. Netflix had 7.5M subscribers
| when streaming started. 3 years later that was 20M. If
| Netflix didn't grow a lot more, they wouldn't be able to
| produce the amount of content that would keep customers
| around. 20M subscribers at $8/mo (the 2010 price and
| subscriber count) would be $1.9B in revenue per year.
| Netflix is spending $17B on content per year to keep their
| subscribers.
|
| Maybe you argue that yes Netflix had to grow back then, but
| when you're Netflix's size now they could go zero-growth
| and allow sharing. But what happens when another company
| sees an opening to eat short-term losses building up a
| large content catalog on a non-sharing platform? Let's say
| I can get as much VC as I need and I build up an amazing
| catalog of content spending $40B per year on content and
| $8/mo service, but no account sharing on my service. I have
| way more and better new content than Netflix. I've seen the
| weakness in Netflix's business model (account sharing) and
| I've "solved" that issue by disallowing it from the start.
| Netflix subscribers start canceling (so they're now
| negative growth) and when my service feels established I
| can start raising prices to $10, $12, and $15 as time goes
| on and I've achieved 120M US/Canada subscribers instead of
| just 74M. Yes!
|
| Zero-growth can certainly work for a while. At some point,
| it's hard because someone will attack that weakness and
| you'll end up with negative growth. Maybe what you were
| originally known for becomes just a feature. How many
| pieces of software have just become features of your OS? ht
| tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_(software)#Sherlocked.
| ... If Netflix hadn't pursued growth and invested heavily
| in content to fuel growth, their product (the streaming
| platform) would simply be copied by competitors who would
| then have better economics over the content. Heck, all the
| content companies that didn't invest in streaming saw
| Netflix eat their lunch for a time.
|
| I think too many people have this idea that you can easily
| run a stable business with stable healthy profits, but that
| there's this insane compulsion toward growth. The problem
| is that there's always others coming to eat your lunch and
| customers aren't going to be loyal to you as a company. If
| Netflix hadn't invested in growth, someone else would have
| and then offered more and better content and then everyone
| would scream "why isn't Netflix offering as much good stuff
| as OtherFlix?" Well, you wanted Netflix to be focused on
| zero-growth stable profits and so another company came
| along and got better economics so they could offer more to
| customers than Netflix could.
|
| Right now, Netflix has the most subscribers and that gives
| them the best economies of scale in the industry. Others
| are starting to catch up and could become larger if Netflix
| doesn't keep growing. At that point, it will be harder for
| Netflix to retain customers since they'll have less money
| to spend on content than competitors. Yes, we can complain
| all day about Netflix's content, but they still have the
| best subscriber count to create content with. That's a huge
| advantage in retaining subscribers - and an advantage they
| might lose if they go for zero-growth.
| bombcar wrote:
| You can sidestep the "growth trap" if you can become a
| utility.
|
| Disney+ could do that, they have a huge backlog of
| children's content and people will pay for "the digital
| babysitter". All they need to do is buy cocomelon and
| pinkfong and they'd rule the upcoming generation.
|
| But if your content sucks, then a competitor can eat your
| lunch by having good content.
| kossTKR wrote:
| This seems like a weirdly public rollout.
|
| I've always had the intuition that bigcorps with relaxed anti
| piracy enforcement were better off because of networks effects
| and goodwill.
|
| This honestly makes me want to cancel my subscription.
|
| Why not just silently do this? What's the actual deal here?
| librish wrote:
| I feel like the moral outrage over this is a little overblown.
| Reading the terms it seems clear that Netflix is targeting people
| who are blatantly account sharing. It makes sense to worry that
| this will inconvenience people who have non-typical lifestyles
| though.
|
| Similarly, saying this is a bad business move seems without any
| evidence seems rash. I don't think anyone at Netflix particularly
| _wants_ to implement this so my guess is that they have some
| pretty compelling evidence for why this makes sense.
|
| Anecdotally, most people I know are sharing the majority of
| streaming accounts with multiple people.
| paxys wrote:
| I don't think there's any possible check for "blatantly account
| sharing". Whether there is a single account being passed around
| among a dozen friends, a parent sharing an account with their
| kid in college, a husband and wife using an account on their
| different business trips or whatever else, it's all the same to
| Netflix.
| batiudrami wrote:
| I think companies can charge what they want for content and
| people are able to not use the service if they don't like the
| price. So I think the moral outrage is ridiculous.
|
| But, like you suggested, my house has access to 6 steaming
| services, all shared with other people, which leaves our
| monthly outlay at about $25. That's a reasonable price to pay
| for me, and if I stop being able to share I will start to make
| some choices about my subscriptions. I wonder how this ends for
| Netflix, cashflow wise. They definitely aren't worth the $20/m
| they're asking, especially because by comparison that's what I
| pay for the rest combined. In terms of content I actually want
| to watch they're probably only about 4th best.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Most of the backlash is because:
|
| - one of the things you pay for in your netflix tier is the
| number of "screens" - 4 screens = 4 simaltaneous streams. Many
| people think the screens are theirs to use how they see fit
|
| - netflix used to _encourage_ password sharing[0]
|
| - and of course, the number one rule of the internet: never
| charge for what you used to offer for free
|
| [0]: https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712
| xbmcuser wrote:
| I still have a Netflix account as my family in another country
| use it. If get this letter I will probably close the account
| nomel wrote:
| These types of comments completely justify Netflix's actions,
| in my mind.
| xur17 wrote:
| Are they actually blocking extra users, or is this just the
| precursor?
| gumby wrote:
| I don't understand their logic.
|
| First: you can subscribe to _n_ simultaneous streams /downloads.
| Ours is 2, and sometimes the kids complain, and end up sorting it
| out somehow.*
|
| Second: if you have a kid at college, they "live at home" for
| various other mechanisms (count as a dependent for taxation;
| qualify for parents' health insurance, can vote in their home
| district regardless of where they live; can be part of a family
| phone plan, family apple plan, etc etc...)
|
| * And third: they don't seem to argue about netflix much any
| more; I think if I dropped the sub to a single session everybody
| would still be fine. Netflix seems to have an increasing density
| of junk content, losing its distinguished position.
| crazygringo wrote:
| The logic seems pretty clear to me, both in terms of financial
| necessity (keeping Netflix in business) and in terms of policy
| for households.
|
| And Netflix is a private company, so however dependents or
| health insurance or voting or phone plans are defined is
| irrelevant. Also, all of those definitions are different from
| each other _anyways_ , so it's not like there's any consistency
| in the first place.
| mikeortman wrote:
| This isn't about keeping Netflix in business, they are doing
| just fine. This is about squeezing out every last drop of
| exponential growth expected by shareholders.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Their stock plummeted 75% between Oct 2021 and June 2022.
| That's not "doing just fine" by _any_ standard.
|
| So no, this isn't about squeezing out every last drop, this
| is about making necessary structural changes to remain
| viable in the long-term.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| So in which countries have they rolled out this policy so far? I
| remember enough from some prior announcement to know that the US
| is not the first or only such country, and that it's not yet
| worldwide, but I don't remember where else it's in place.
| kylemh wrote:
| If I'm nomadic and live in a different "household" every 1-3
| months... Do I have any options?!
| crazygringo wrote:
| Yes it works fine -- their policy and this e-mail are explicit
| that it works "on the go". Your option is a regular
| subscription.
|
| As long as you pay for a single subscription and you're not
| sharing it with others who try to keep accessing it after
| you've moved on to a new location, there's no problem.
|
| Just make sure you log out of your account on the living room
| TV when you leave a home, that's all you need to do.
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| _That_ is actually a very good question. I know people who
| literally do this, though not only moving "households" every
| few months, but moving _countries._
|
| TBH, my guess is NFLX's solution is going to be "Yeah, fuck
| those 12 people who do that. We've got bigg^H^H^H^H more
| lucrative problems."
| kylemh wrote:
| I do this. It's why I asked
| hn92726819 wrote:
| Netflix should invest in learning about ^w :D
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| What LeetCode problem is that one?
|
| (Yes, yes, is joke.)
| tristor wrote:
| I pay for the maximum subscription for Netflix, and we are heavy
| Netflix users. We also share the account with my elderly parents
| who occasionally watch something because we tell them to do so.
| If the fact that this is the case causes Netflix to take action
| with my account, I'm happy to take my $21.74 ($19.99+tax)/mo and
| tell them to shove it.
| dangerboysteve wrote:
| In Canada, I had the full pickle 4K account and my girls in
| another city used my account. When the new rules kicked in, I cut
| my plan and pay half now. And I'll cancel it this month. The
| service is just not worth it with all the crappy content.
| ChikkaChiChi wrote:
| This is the most mind-blowing aspect of this. Kids away at
| college use their parents' accounts for entertainment. Those
| kids graduate, then get their own accounts.
|
| Netflix is shooting themselves in the foot. These kids will
| just adopt content from other providers.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| > Those kids graduate, then get their own accounts.
|
| Pretty sure those kids graduate and keep using their parents
| accounts (source: I graduated >10 years ago, still use my
| parents account). Unless they have kids of their own and need
| their own account.
|
| But most gen Z and millennials are pretty broke (half living
| paycheck to paycheck: https://fortune.com/2023/05/19/quiet-
| quitting-side-hustle-se... -> https://archive.is/u415s ), so
| many wouldn't be able to pay for netflix on their own
|
| Shared netflix has been a nice way for boomers and gen X to
| do something nice for their struggling kids. Really curious
| if Netflix will even make more money from this. Even if
| revenue doesn't change or decreases, they might also benefit
| by paying less in bandwidth per paying user.
| MikeBVaughn wrote:
| If there's one thing I know from experience, it's that
| college students definitely won't turn to explicit piracy.
| Never happens, don't worry about it.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Kids away at college will just get their own accounts now.
| Compared to the cost of college with room and board, a
| monthly Netflix subscription is nothing, especially with the
| cheap ad-supported tier. Kids away at college do things like
| eat at restaurants and buy clothes which require money too,
| and if that money's coming from parents then so will a
| separate Netflix account.
|
| It's not like it's some great American tradition that kids at
| college use their parents' streaming account. Nor did kids
| ever start getting their own Netflix subscription after
| graduating. If they were using it during college, they would
| continue after college, because why wouldn't they?
|
| In other words, being at college doesn't have much of
| anything to do with anything.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Kids away at college will just get their own accounts
| now.
|
| Or they won't and they'll just watch literally any other
| service which doesn't harass them about their precise
| location day to day, or worse they'll just go back to
| downloading all their shows like starving college kids used
| to until netflix showed up and was actually affordable and
| more convenient than piracy.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Or all services will do this, and students will just pay.
|
| Sure, there will be college students who are more
| technical and comfortable paying for a VPN and who will
| invest in an external hard drive and will download
| torrents in advance of watching, as there always has
| been.
|
| But that's way too complicated for most folks. And
| between the price of a monthly torrenting-friendly VPN
| and enough storage, the ad-supported tier of Netflix
| probably winds up being cheaper anyways.
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| With kids and parents, what may very well happen is that the
| parents start subsidizing kids' individual accounts while
| they're already in school. It's not like the few extra bucks
| a month is meaningful compared to the low 5 figure sum it
| takes to send a kid away to college.
| nashashmi wrote:
| They are helping kids study now. when my cousin asked for the
| password on her first day in college, i said no.
| kstrauser wrote:
| From https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/netflix-
| is-c... :
|
| > "We love people sharing Netflix," CEO Reed Hastings said
| Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show here in Las Vegas.
| "That's a positive thing, not a negative thing."
|
| > Hastings, who earlier in the day also revealed Netflix was now
| in 130 countries, didn't address broad password swapping, but did
| say a household sharing an account was fine. A lot of the time,
| he said, household sharing leads to new customers because kids
| subscribe on their own as they start to earn income.
|
| I mention this lest anyone wrongly think Netflix has the moral
| high ground on this. Their CEO explicitly said it was OK to share
| your account, especially with your kids. It's not like those of
| us who did so were trying to be sneaky and steal service.
|
| If Netflix wants to change the rules, that's their right. I
| loathe that this is sometimes being portrayed as a crackdown on
| piracy, though.
| autoexec wrote:
| They also advertised their plans as allowing a certain number
| of active screens at once. If I pay for something that allows
| three people to watch at the same time on different devices I
| don't care which house or what building those three people are
| sitting in.
| suddenclarity wrote:
| Am I missing something? You quote the CEO saying it's fine to
| share account within the household and eventually the kids will
| grow up and get their own accounts when making money and
| moving. How does it differ from Netflix now saying that you're
| not allowed to share your account with people OUTSIDE of a
| household unless paying for it?
| kstrauser wrote:
| Yes, you're missing something: the CEO said, quote, "we love
| people sharing Netflix". There's no plausible interpretation
| where they're referring to people living under one roof,
| because of course those people can share the account. That's
| why they have profiles in the first place. Additionally,
| their premium plan includes "download on 6 devices". They
| didn't intend that for the average person who has 6 Netflix-
| capable devices themselves, as most people have far fewer.
|
| No, the only viable interpretation of their account setup is
| that it's explicitly designed for several people to use a
| single account. That means the "several family members in one
| house" setup is the baseline, and "people sharing Netflix"
| couldn't reasonably mean "...with their spouse and kids
| living with them.
| suddenclarity wrote:
| You're making assumptions with no context. This is how
| TechCrunch cites it:
|
| > "We love people sharing Netflix whether they're two
| people on a couch or 10 people on a couch,," Hastings said.
| "That's a positive thing, not a negative thing." To
| illustrate this example, he spoke of how a parent may share
| their login with their child. And when that child grows up,
| they will usually subscribe to Netflix, too.
|
| Unless the couch is spanning multiple households, I don't
| see evidence for the claim. His keynote makes no mention of
| this so I assume it's mentioned somewhere else but I can't
| find the source. The CNET site is truly garbage.
|
| Regarding 6 devices, that's nothing today, even considering
| an average family with two kids. Everyone will have their
| own phone so that's four. Then you'll have multiple TVs,
| computers, and possibly one or two tablets. My family of
| three (one kid), have 10 devices and I don't see that as
| out of the norm.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/11/netflix-ceo-says-
| account-s...
| nickthegreek wrote:
| That is silly though. There was never an expectation that
| only 1 set of eyeballs would watch a stream.
|
| Netflix tweeted in 2017 that "Love is sharing a
| password". There is no other way to read that statement
| other than being pro sharing. Which makes sense, I pay
| for X concurrent streams. Let me use my streams, period.
|
| https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712
| kstrauser wrote:
| Regarding your last paragraph: I agree, and that bolsters
| my point. Intra-household sharing is baked into their
| account design, so of course Netflix supports and
| encourages that. There'd be no need for anyone to ask
| their CEO if they support intra-household sharing, or him
| to state that they do. It's a given. That strengthens the
| argument that he _must_ have been referring to sharing
| _between_ households when he said "we love people
| sharing Netflix". Otherwise the question, and his
| response, would be vacuously true.
| tinglymintyfrsh wrote:
| My first thought: How is this going to block me from Netflixing
| on a United flight or in a hotel? It seems problematic.
|
| Also, there are nontraditional families with multiple homes. How
| many accounts do they need?
| deepzn wrote:
| Netflix once had an advantage, mostly tech and UI based, as well
| as network effects. I feel all of it has subsided. They did well
| to weather the studios and networks pulling their content into
| their own services. While deciding to invest in original content
| early, they built a pretty decent library, but they're still way
| behind with other networks who have 50+ years of content.
|
| While their focus now to cover the breadth of programming like
| cable as opposed to quality content, means they will likely stay
| where they are (lose selective subs, and gain cable subs) but
| just not as an emerging tech co. with new ideas that was once the
| N in FANG, but just as a legacy media network, while their
| consumers have a wealth of choices fighting for their time
| including social, gaming, real world events, etc.
| nocoiner wrote:
| I really dislike how every corporate communication regarding an
| "update" now means "here's how we're making things worse for
| you."
|
| I know honesty has never really been the fundamental value of
| public relations initiatives, but it would be refreshing to
| occasionally see a company saying that they're putting the
| squeeze on customers because they need to protect their margins
| or even just because they can. The formerly-neutral "update" is
| starting to rankle.
| jader201 wrote:
| Reading this one, though, this seems like a rare case where
| they're _not_ trying to spin it as a positive for the customer.
|
| They pretty much just state what they're doing, and even ack at
| the bottom that there are other options.
|
| FWIW, I'm not (currently) a subscriber, and only subscribe
| seasonally as shows get released that I'm interested in (e.g.
| Stranger Things), which isn't often.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Somehow I find "clarifications" which rescind an obviously
| boneheaded move to be more annoying. At least the bad-update
| isn't an attempt to totally gaslight us.
| koyote wrote:
| I received an e-mail update several weeks ago from a company
| that actually improved and made things cheaper in every way.
|
| I had to read it 5 times to be sure that there was absolutely
| nothing being cut/made worse because they used the same
| corporate speak as one usually does for bad news (i.e. there
| was no "GOOD NEWS YOU NOW PAY $10 LESS", you had to dig through
| the details...).
| ryanseys wrote:
| There was an internal joke / meme at Google that any
| announcement starting with "An update on X" == we are killing
| X, to the point that if someone was sending their resignation
| email the subject line of the email would be "An update on
| <name>"
|
| - https://blog.chromium.org/2023/05/an-update-on-lock-
| icon.htm...
|
| - https://blogger.googleblog.com/2019/01/an-update-on-
| google-a...
|
| - https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2015/06/an-
| update-...
|
| The rest:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=%22an+update+on%22+site%3Ago...
| pimlottc wrote:
| It's also comically broad, as if they're talking about the
| concept of sharing in general.
|
| "An update on sharing: it's bad now"
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| > ... " _To better serve our customers,_ here 's how we're
| making things worse for you.
|
| FTFY.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| Corey Doctrow has a good term for this, or at least it's him
| i heard say it: enshitification. I think it just captures the
| dynamics beautifully, it's almost poetic.
| hadlock wrote:
| Doctrow's relevance faded in the early 2010s lets just
| leave sleeping dogs lie
| bsder wrote:
| Oy, _double T_. It 's "enshittification". And that's even
| the way Doctorow spelled it.
|
| The root word is "shitty". Double T.
|
| I've seen this a couple of times now without the double T,
| and it pains me.
| latexr wrote:
| Original post was on the enshittification of TikTok.
|
| https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| Ah, yes. Cory Doctrow. One of those people everybody hoped
| was full of shit and/or irrelevant 20 years ago, who,
| sadly, turned out not only to be right, but completely
| relevant ( _c.f._ https://StallmanWasRight.reddit.com)
|
| That's a great word, but wouldn't just plain
| "shittification" be better?
| ncallaway wrote:
| I think it's better as "enshitification". Where
| "shitification" would probably be a noun (like
| "relocation"), "enshitification" then becomes a verb to
| carry out that process (like "endanger" to "danger").
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| "To clarify our financial position, we're firing everyone and
| shutting down".
| csours wrote:
| To better serve some of our customers, here's how we're
| screwing the other ones.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't see anything to dislike here. It _is_ an update, and
| this particular notice is _avoiding_ any of the usual nonsense
| like "to better serve our customers" or "to improve your
| experience".
|
| It seems straightforward and to the point. And they're a for-
| profit corporation, of course they need to protect their
| profitability. That goes without saying. If they go out of
| business, then no Netflix programming for anybody, and no
| subscriber wants that or they wouldn't be subscribing in the
| first place.
| beerpls wrote:
| They're not struggling to keep the lights on. They're making
| a calculated bet they can extract more profit this way.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Their stock went from $690 in Oct 2021 to $175 in June
| 2022.
|
| That's a 75% plummet, which is _definitely_ approaching the
| equivalent of struggling-to-keep-the-lights-on for a modern
| corporation. That 's three quarters of the way to
| bankruptcy, big red flashing danger lights.
|
| So of course this is a calculated bet to improve
| profitability. Virtually everything a for-profit
| corporation does is to improve profitability -- that's the
| whole point of being a business in the first place. What
| else would you expect?
| thfuran wrote:
| >That's three quarters of the way to bankruptcy, big red
| flashing danger lights.
|
| Is it though? Were they funding operations by selling
| shares?
| lxgr wrote:
| If their employees are paid in stock, yes.
| m00x wrote:
| ?? They're profitable and they made 4.5B in net income in
| 2022. 2023Q1 they made 1.3B net income.
|
| Your analysis makes no sense. Please learn more about
| finances before commenting on financial matters.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Please don't be insulting by telling other people what to
| learn.
|
| And if you look at the quarter before -- 2022Q4 -- they
| made just $55 million net income, which on revenue of
| 7.85B is below 1% profit.
|
| The overall point is that Netflix is in an extremely
| volatile and risky industry where it's not in a position
| to leisurely "extract" more profit because it's a bad guy
| or something, but rather it's very much been forced into
| doing things like cracking down on password sharing and
| introducing an ad-supporter tier simply to stay healthy
| as a business. Fortunately both of those things seem to
| be going well, but they easily might not have.
|
| If a company's market cap drops 75% in a short period of
| time, it's making big changes out of necessity, not as a
| comfortable choice.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Companies share price matters to shareholders and implies
| an ability to raise additional capital. It doesn't have
| anything to do with solvency unless they borrowed money
| to buy back shares (which some companies did do when
| interest rates were low and share prices were depressed).
| Employees on stock incentive plans probably are eating
| the burden more than anyone.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _It doesn't have anything to do with solvency_
|
| Of course it does. If a stock goes to $0, the company is
| essentially insolvent. Sure there are details of timing
| -- insolvency isn't _exactly_ the same as bankruptcy isn
| 't _exactly_ the same as a stock price of $0 -- but in
| practice they all tend to go together and the company as
| a going concern owned by present investors is effed.
| dudeinjapan wrote:
| I worked for Lehman Brothers. When our shareprice went to
| pennies, it had a lot do with solvency at that point.
| syrrim wrote:
| Or they were supremely overvalued as of oct '21, as were
| many other stocks and securities, and the decline
| represents a return to sanity.
| crazygringo wrote:
| No. It was specifically due to not meeting expected
| subscriber numbers, prompting a widespread negative
| reevaluation of Netflix's entire business model. The
| decrease was _way_ beyond anything affecting the stock
| market or tech stocks generally. A simple glance at the
| numbers, and the dramatic plummets directly after
| earnings reports, makes that clear.
| [deleted]
| remus wrote:
| > It was specifically due to not meeting expected
| subscriber numbers, prompting a widespread negative
| reevaluation of Netflix's entire business model.
|
| I'd speculate that those expected subscriber numbers may
| have been inflated by the covid pandemic.
| lxgr wrote:
| "Under the assumption that the growth of 1 billion
| subscribers per month will continue linearly, we expect
| that in just two years..."
| crazygringo wrote:
| Well, their stock price fell to levels not seen since
| ~Aug 2017, and obviously COVID-19 didn't happen until,
| well, 2019.
|
| So while Covid might have been part of it, it's nowhere
| near the full story.
| rektide wrote:
| What else should they say about their enshittification?
|
| The idea that many updates are now hostile is a disturbing but
| real hallmark of the cloudified age, in particular. Users used
| to have more choice, to have the power to decide to update.
|
| Now they cannot manage the software; that than being a user,
| they are now merely a client.
| cprecioso wrote:
| Moreover I don't see how this is really an update on anything,
| they're not saying "this is how it was done and how it will be
| done now", they're just stating things as matter of fact, which
| makes it difficult to know exactly what they're changing.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Not always: https://tailscale.com/blog/pricing-v3/
|
| Also, a free tailscale account might be a good solution to the
| household restrictions
| mynegation wrote:
| I do not see anything dishonest here. No lies, no broken
| promises. If anything it is a bit passive-aggressive, but
| essentially the message is: "many of you are breaking terms or
| service and we are going to le you know we know who you are, as
| a warning".
| anonu wrote:
| Do they define household? Same IP?
| questime wrote:
| Ahoy there, mateys! I be here to say that I be leaving Netflix.
| They be raising their prices too high, and they be taking away
| all the good shows. I be sailin' the high seas for my
| entertainment now. Arrrr!
| 867-5309 wrote:
| I should think so too on a farmer's wages
| joemi wrote:
| Why be coy and simply (heavily) imply pirating? Just say
| outright that you're going to pirate stuff because you for some
| reason believe you have a right to view their content and not
| pay for it?
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Pirating is seizing a ship for material goods. People get
| hurt or killed when this happens. And the economics of
| material goods are literally otherworldly from those of
| digital goods. (You can't download a car -- copying a car for
| practically free.)
|
| Torrenting is just choosing the most convenient distribution
| mechanism for data that you own. You can buy DRM-free music,
| but not DRM-free shows or movies unless they're bound to
| physical media. The reasons why have to do with backdoor
| meetings and lobbying by the MPAA, and I don't care much
| about them. And Netflix expects me to own nothing and be
| happy while leasing tenuous network access to compressed
| streams of content by paying indefinitely. Cute.
|
| I think it's funny they got us to implicitly condemn solving
| their greed-based distribution problem with a term as
| hyperbolic as "pirating" though. They want to remain in
| meatspace, where the old economic model makes sense --
| scarcity, wear and tear, manufacturing costs per unit, so
| they try pretending we're all still there in cyberspace by
| guilt tripping us with meatspace vocabulary.
| shapefrog wrote:
| If I could download a car, I would.
| jrflowers wrote:
| It's possible that is meant to be read somewhat sarcastically
| or humorously.
|
| Explaining a painfully obvious joke destroys the joke, even
| when it was painfully obvious in the first place.
| questime wrote:
| Thanks for paying for the content that I can access for free,
| I'm sure Netflix shareholders thank you for your service.
| Netflix is effectively doing a massive price hike with no
| corresponding value given.
| zwieback wrote:
| My daughters have been freeloading on our Netflix even though WE
| TOLD THEM NOT TO DO THAT. So now they'll get booted off without
| us having to be the bad parents texting them that we want to use
| it now. No complaints from me.
| deeviant wrote:
| Nice, solved that very serious problem there.
| brokensegue wrote:
| change your password?
| KoftaBob wrote:
| The idea of Netflix executives helping your parenting by
| letting you avoid the terrifying possibility of...saying no to
| your children...is hilarious to me.
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| I'm really curious what management/accounting at Netflix
| estimated free-riding costs the company every year and what the
| savings will be for the second half of this year by pruning.
| [deleted]
| someotherperson wrote:
| I installed an app on my Chromecast/Google TV a couple of days
| ago called Cloudstream. Some of the providers segment the
| different shows/movies by Netflix/HBO/Disney+/Paramount etc. Some
| of the providers give you 4K streams. Has subtitles, "watch
| later" lists and the ability to continue from where you left off.
| The interface is pretty nice too. It's really straight forward to
| add on any Android device -- phone, Fire stick, whatever.
|
| It took a couple of minutes to install and about a half hour to
| fully configure.
|
| If they want us to go back to piracy, it's now easier than ever
| before. And I'm wholly prepared for it.
| cj wrote:
| This sounds similar to Popcorn Time (now defunct). I think they
| open sourced and then got taken down a while back.
|
| One major difference (I think?) is it appears Cloudstream
| doesn't include the "sources" by default in the core app. Maybe
| that will help them subvert copyright for a while if the client
| GUI is decoupled from the source of the pirated content.
| tikkun wrote:
| It would've been smart for them to do this transition during the
| COVID stimulus era - lockdowns, work from home, stimulus checks,
| low interest rates.
| ChikkaChiChi wrote:
| No matter how they are accomplishing this, it's going to trigger
| a lot of false positives and cause plenty of headaches for the
| consumer.
| rektide wrote:
| There should definitely be like 1 or 2 days a month where
| accounts get a free exemption. So people who bring their rarely
| used tablet with them traveling aren't screwed.
| dvt wrote:
| It's kind of strange how Netflix has the gall to raise prices
| while they are objectively the worst original content platform
| out there (last show I watched was Squid Games almost 2 years
| ago). Will gladly cancel my Netflix sub and keep Hulu (huge back
| catalog), HBO (House of the Dragon, The Last of Us), and AppleTV
| (Ted Lasso, For all Mankind, Severance).
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| I'm gonna cancel my subscription, i hope all people here do the
| same.
| nomel wrote:
| This only affects password sharers.
| autoexec wrote:
| password sharers and possibly anyone at all who travels or
| regularly watches netflix on multiple devices or from
| multiple locations. How annoying they make this will
| determine how long I keep paying them.
| toxik wrote:
| I like how they never even say why they send this e-mail. It's so
| incredibly passive aggressive. They don't want to say "the gravy
| train is over, cough up" but that's what they actually are
| saying.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| nvr219 wrote:
| Here's an update: I'm canceling my account.
|
| The amount of entertainment I and the three people I share with
| get out of Netflix isn't worth the 4x cost increase. Maybe the
| other guys will get accounts, I don't know. I'm sure for some
| people it's worth it.
| xyst wrote:
| I am only keeping my account because of cellular carrier
| subsidies. If my account gets subject to this notice, then I am
| definitely canceling. I pay for 4K streaming and simultaneous
| streams. Viewing should not be constricted to a single IP or
| address.
| 2023throwawayy wrote:
| Yup. Especially given their propensity to cancel shows on a
| whim.
| [deleted]
| wlesieutre wrote:
| It's become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, like how
| people didn't trust Google to keep Stadia running so why
| would they buy full price games on it? Why would I pay for
| Netflix and get excited about their shows when so many get
| canned with no conclusion?
|
| But as more people say that and don't bother watching until
| there's a whole finished story, then even more shows get
| canceled earlier because nobody watched the first season.
|
| Aggressively launching lots of shows and canceling the lower
| performing ones might be a sound financial strategy in the
| short term, but I don't think it's doing great things for
| customer goodwill.
| autoexec wrote:
| > But as more people say that and don't bother watching
| until there's a whole finished story, then even more shows
| get canceled earlier because nobody watched the first
| season.
|
| That's still netflix's fault. They need to stop expecting
| the world to flock to their newest shows the moment they
| are released, there's too much competing for our attention,
| and instead invest in stories and creators they believe in,
| and make sure that they're always funding and releasing a
| complete and quality product. It doesn't matter if a show
| is only one season, so long as that one season has a
| satisfying conclusion.
|
| Stories written to span multiple seasons are fine too, but
| they need to commit to seeing that show to its conclusion.
| Even if a show doesn't perform very well, some percentage
| of Netflix subscribers will enjoy it making it an asset for
| their library and on a long enough timescale it'll be worth
| it, but if they really want to cancel a show before the
| story has a chance to reasonably end, they'd be better off
| removing it entirely from their library. Right now their
| library is filled with shows that will entice new watchers
| only to piss them off when they learn the plug was pulled
| early, or which will sit unwatched by the people who have
| already heard that netflix screwed the show and its fans
| over and that's a liability.
| km3r wrote:
| I don't get why they can't just film a finale for the
| cancelled shows. One last episode to wrap up the plot
| lines.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Totally agree that it's Netflix's fault. I was a Netflix
| subscriber and bailed when they announced the account
| sharing restrictions because frankly they don't have the
| catalog to back up their ever increasing prices. They
| want $20/month for 4K. If I were going to subscribe to
| one of the big streaming services again, that's a tough
| sell against Apple's TV+ at $8/month for 4K and a better
| track record on show cancellations. Maybe for people who
| watch a lot more TV than I do it's worth the expense.
|
| The only streaming I'm paying for now is dropout.tv, the
| little niche service descended from College Humor that
| only has like 3 shows producing new seasons. But it's
| consistently great, I'm not worried they're going to
| cancel after every season, and I'm supporting a small
| group of creators who all seem like nice people. Win-win-
| win.
| pdimitar wrote:
| That's self-inflicted. They're the ones who turned
| themselves into a worldwide known meme. Now they're
| suffering the consequences of their lack of dedication.
|
| It's not on customers to respect the corporation's whims.
| Customers vote with their wallets.
| crazygringo wrote:
| If just one of the other three gets an account (which seems
| statistically likely), it's the same for Netflix.
|
| If two of them get an account, or you change your mind later,
| it's a huge win for Netflix.
|
| Netflix has done the math and already tested this policy in
| several countries. They would never be rolling this out in
| their home market of the US if they weren't extremely confident
| that new subscriptions will outweigh cancellations.
| cma wrote:
| > If just one of the other three gets an account (which seems
| statistically likely), it's the same for Netflix.
|
| Not 100%; with less viewers there will be less word of mouth
| about Netflix shows. Maybe that will be offset by paying less
| to license third party stuff with less viewers though.
| paxys wrote:
| Time to finally see whether the "this will make everyone cancel
| their subscriptions and kill Netflix" crowd knows the business
| better than Netflix's data analysts.
| smeej wrote:
| I have tried to sign up for my own Netflix account repeatedly
| over the last three years. For some reason, they don't like my
| phone number. It's just a regular phone number, on an American
| SIM card, when I'm solidly (and always) in America. It's the only
| one I have.
|
| But they don't like it, so I can't use Netflix at all unless I
| sign into someone else's account (with that person's consent),
| usually my mom, who lives in the next town over but is not in my
| household, or my brother who lives farther away.
|
| I'm only willing to make so many attempts to convince a company
| to let me give them money before I decide their service isn't
| worth the hassle.
| rektide wrote:
| Anyone have a writeup on using TailScale to bypass these sorts of
| limits?
|
| Some folks have said it includes SSID as a check which is
| definitely a wrinkle. I would have assumed it was mostly just
| using IP address.
|
| This is one of those cases where the War Against General Purpose
| Computing is going to own society, score points against users. I
| assume if you can root & run Magisk you could fake a geolocation
| for example. But Google & Apple have done everything in their
| power to make rooted/jailbroken devices practically unusable, to
| build attestation frameworks & SafetyNet & other systems to make
| sure corporate payloads run safe from user-agency on devices.
| What a shitty future!
| marinhero wrote:
| We are back to the cable days. We know the likely outcome for
| this: increase in piracy. I do not advocate for this (not even a
| Netflix user myself) but they have forgotten about one of the
| motivations that allowed the streaming business to flourish,
| "cable cutting" for minimizing costs.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| I have 3 houses. Am I gonna be expected to pay extra Netflix
| fees? I can't afford that!
| Dowwie wrote:
| I am really curious about how the engineering team took on the
| challenge of identifying and tracking households within the
| constraints defined by Apple related to tracking users
| ML_Comp_Sci_Guy wrote:
| It's right here:
|
| https://netflixtechblog.com/machine-learning-for-fraud-detec...
|
| They define any type of sharing as "Account Fraud and abuse of
| Terms of Service"
|
| <-- However, some restrictions are in place, such as the number
| of active devices, the number of streams, and the number of
| downloaded titles. Many users across many platforms make for a
| uniquely large attack surface that includes content fraud,
| account fraud, and abuse of terms of service. Detection of
| fraud and abuse at scale and in real-time is highly
| challenging. -->
| JohnMakin wrote:
| So if they are allowing you to use on devices and networks
| outside of your home or ones you don't normally use, how are they
| identifying unique individuals or "households?"
| michaelmior wrote:
| > To verify accounts within the same household, Netflix said
| they will use information including IP addresses, device IDs
| and account activity from devices already signed into the
| Netflix account.
|
| Source: https://www.today.com/popculture/netflix-guide-
| password-shar...
| [deleted]
| tristanb wrote:
| Previously i read that the device must connect to your home
| WIFI connection every N days.
| autoexec wrote:
| Not all of the devices I watch netflix on are connected to
| wifi at all. I've got DVD and bluray players that don't even
| have wireless cards in them.
| bonzini wrote:
| The idea that was floated was that they identify a device that
| defines the household (e.g. a TV), for example based on being
| always on the same SSID, or being on a wired connection, or the
| IP address. Then other devices need to be in the same network
| as that stable device at least say once a month.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| Can I have my other households VPN to my local network to
| bypass this?
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| I was going to write "Why not have them ssh directly into
| your tv instead?" as a joke, but now I kind of wonder if
| that would actually work...
| altairprime wrote:
| Possibly, unless they're also monitoring latency to player.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Yeah.
| mdasen wrote:
| Possibly, but it seems like this this would be pretty easy
| to detect.
|
| First, they should already know who has been sharing
| accounts. You haven't been having other households VPN to
| your local network for the past 5 years for Netflix. That
| gives them a great starting point.
|
| They can look at SSIDs and not just your SSID, but all the
| SSIDs that your device is seeing. Even within a household,
| not all the SSIDs will be the same from room to room. For
| most people, there will be some overlap. Sure, maybe you
| live in a rural area and you're the only SSID around. For
| most people, it'll be hard to fake this.
|
| Even if you make all the SSIDs look similar, have you dealt
| with your BSSIDs? BSSIDs can be used to geolocate most
| people pretty well. Almost no one has opted out of the big
| WiFi geolocation databases (or even knows they can).
|
| Maybe you could have them VPN into your local network, but
| they could still use WiFi and other information to see that
| the connection is actually in a different location. Plus,
| as I noted, they should already know who has been
| connecting from multiple locations for years.
| bombcar wrote:
| I'm surprised that Apple allows apps on its devices to
| spy on SSIDs. Kinda not very privacy.
|
| Maybe we all should change our SSIDs to "FBI Surveillance
| Van#1".
| brookst wrote:
| Not if they're looking at SSID.
|
| But if that's really the case you can just use the same
| SSID on both places, and maybe use the same IP address
| space and router MAC. If they're fingerprinting the home
| network that should do pretty good?
| willcipriano wrote:
| I don't think they have SSID on most devices.
| brookst wrote:
| Fair point. Maybe the client and server can identify the
| last hop on the internal network and call that the local
| network's gateway.
| phantom784 wrote:
| If you're using Netflix through a browser, they wouldn't
| have access to the SSID.
| autoexec wrote:
| I still watch netflix over wired devices.
| swsieber wrote:
| Ha! We used to live with my in-laws and when moving out I
| setup my SSID to be the same as theirs because who wants
| to re-authenticate an unreasonably large number of
| wireless devices?
| mminer237 wrote:
| So I would not be allowed to watch Netflix on my work
| computer during my lunch break?
| justin_oaks wrote:
| Maybe, maybe not. I would think Netflix would have some
| distance threshold. They may be able to identify that the
| location you're watching from isn't far from your home.
| It's not like most people will commute across the country
| for work, so if you're within a reasonable commute distance
| they not view that as a problem.
|
| But if you're using a device that's always 4+ hours drive
| away, I think it's fair game for Netflix to look at that
| with suspicion.
|
| Also, Netflix could look at viewing habits from different
| devices. If you watch something from a device at home, and
| then watch the next episode of that show at work, that's a
| good indicator that you're the same person using two
| different devices.
| bonzini wrote:
| You might be able to but you'd have to reauthenticate every
| now and then, basically as if you were in a vacation home.
| The details aren't clear.
| mdasen wrote:
| It might depend. If you regularly take your work computer
| home and connect from your home network, it should be fine.
| Otherwise, Netflix might challenge you and you might be
| able to verify the device.
| godshatter wrote:
| I pay for 2 devices so a friend can use my subscription,
| though he does not live with me. I watch Netflix once a week
| for an hour or two, maybe, unless I'm actually binging
| something. He watches it non-stop pretty much as background
| noise. I wonder if they will assume he is the main user, even
| though I pay for it. Will they compare my IP address location
| with my billing address?
|
| I guess I should have just kept it at 1 device and not tried
| to pay for my friend's usage.
| [deleted]
| mdasen wrote:
| It shouldn't be that hard to figure this out using a variety of
| metrics - and remember, they can be pretty cautious in their
| enforcement and the enforcement doesn't have to be real-time.
|
| For example, Netflix can easily notice that a TV is connecting
| from AT&T Fiber with one IP and another TV is connecting from
| Spectrum with a different IP. Many times they're watching at
| the same time so it's not someone on vacation.
|
| It's relatively easy to note mobile devices like
| iPhones/Android and they have device IDs. Maybe you could hook
| your phone up to your TV, but most people aren't going to want
| to do that to save $8/mo (and walk up to their phone connected
| to the TV to select a new show or pause it). If the phone is on
| a WiFi connection (rather than cellular), Netflix can easily
| see that it's not the same household. People aren't likely to
| want to pay for a cellular plan (at $25+ per month) to avoid an
| $8 charge from Netflix.
|
| If you're looking to catch 99% of people and you don't need it
| to be real-time, this should be pretty easy. Maybe some people
| will set up home VPNs, but that's going to be a small number of
| people. Even then, Android devices will give access to WiFi
| SSIDs in the area and even iOS has a permission to scan for
| Bluetooth devices which can be used for some amount of
| locating.
|
| I guess the flip side of your question would be: how would you
| make it seem like you were connecting from the same household?
| You'd probably want all devices to be connecting from the same
| IP address. You'd probably want all devices connecting to the
| same SSID - and have neighboring SSIDs be the same. You
| wouldn't want them to see "they're both connecting to XYZ and
| have the same IP address, but they're each seeing a dozen
| additional SSIDs and zero overlap - what are the odds of that?"
| You can control your own SSID, but not all your neighbors'
| SSIDs.
|
| I don't think Netflix is looking for something foolproof. I'm
| guessing they're looking for something that will find most
| instances of sharing while still being cautious enough that
| they don't bother people who aren't sharing. Even if your IP
| address is dynamic or CG-NAT, it'll still be the same for all
| your devices at a given time. Most people have internet from a
| handful of companies and it isn't that hard to figure out how
| those ISPs are handling things and accommodate it.
|
| In fact, Netflix doesn't really need to do this blindly. They
| have logs from years of our usage. They have probably already
| detected who is using it in multiple locations and that makes
| it easy to put a flag on the account for the future. This
| account has been used in multiple locations for the past 3
| years, if something looks suspicious, throw up the validation
| challenge. On other accounts without such a history, they could
| be more cautious. Netflix probably isn't worried about one
| month of sharing compared to the ongoing decade-long sharing
| that they believe is eating into their revenue. They can bide
| their time.
| autoexec wrote:
| > It's relatively easy to note mobile devices like
| iPhones/Android and they have device IDs.
|
| Are those IDs separate from the advertising IDs that users
| can constantly change?
| BXlnt2EachOther wrote:
| edit to add: following is totally US-centric! Like the blog post
| I think?
|
| I was not familiar with how much Netflix costs these days, either
| the subscription or extra sharing slots. Pasted here in case it's
| helpful. Sorry if this is redundant, didn't find with ctrl-f.
| Standard with ads: $6.99 / month Basic: $9.99 / month
| Standard: $15.49 / month (extra member slots\* can be added for
| $7.99 each / month) Premium: $19.99 / month (extra
| member slots\* can be added for $7.99 each / month)
|
| Note that on Standard, when they say "extra member slots" it's
| really "extra member slot" because there's a limit of 1 there and
| a limit of 2 on Premium.
| autoexec wrote:
| "standard with ads" is fine, but I wish Netflix would stop
| filling the other plans with ads too then. I have premium at
| the moment (how long that lasts depends on how annoying they
| become when they start cracking down on what they think my
| "household" is) and the ads are still getting out of hand.
| tric wrote:
| > I have premium at the moment ...and the ads are still
| getting out of hand.
|
| Do you mean promos for other Netflix shows? Or are these ads
| for products/services unrelated to Netflix?
| autoexec wrote:
| So far it's been mostly ads for other netflix shows, but
| they are everywhere. Full screen ads you have to click
| through to even get to the catalogue, a giant ad at the top
| you have to scroll past, ads taking up multiple rows as you
| scroll through their options, the ads that play in the
| middle of a show if you pause the screen for more than a
| few seconds, the ads that play as soon as the credits start
| rolling (even when there's still content), etc.
| KomoD wrote:
| $7.99?? They're doing $4,60 here, and yes, that article is for
| US based, however they've done more for other countries.
|
| Example, Sweden: https://about.netflix.com/en/news/update-on-
| sharing-may-se
| nashashmi wrote:
| I remember them increasing prices for those who were sharing
| accounts. The limit was the number of streams you can have (at
| different locations).
|
| what are they doing now that is different? and how does that
| affect me with 4 streams?
| MikeBVaughn wrote:
| Does their US pricing model still couple streaming quality to the
| number of concurrent streams? It drives me batty that I can't get
| a "4k, but only one stream" plan.
|
| Between that and the "is the thing I really want to watch
| available or not?" queue lottery, I got fed up a few years ago
| and ditched them completely. The general streaming experience has
| become so awful that I'll just go to Youtube or Amazon and pay $4
| to get precisely what I want for 48 hours, instead of googling to
| figure out who the hell currently has 'Heat' or whatever on their
| streaming platform.
|
| It's amazing, we've looped around to 1999. You have to surf
| around to see where and if what you want is even available -
| people even make aggregate guides to tell you what's on where (a
| TV Guide, if you will). A decent amount of the time, depending on
| your tastes, the thing you want probably isn't available on a
| platform you're currently paying for.
|
| Tragically, though, you don't get the irreplaceable experience of
| talking in person with a full-bore, unfiltered Video Store Guy.
| joshe wrote:
| One tip I use is to not waste money is never be subscribed to any
| streaming platform.
|
| So sign up for 1 month, cancel immediately and then watch what
| you wish for the month. Netflix used to be a pretty good deal
| because they had a depth of great old content from the major
| studios. But now it's scattered all over the other services, and
| we've all seen most of their decent original content.
|
| Doing it this way I'm subscribed to Netflix 2 months a year.
| Apple for 1 month. Disney for 1 month. That's a difference of
| ~$40 a year vs ~$500 a year.
|
| Don't stress that you'll want to watch it and can't. You can just
| sign up again. Even if you do it 5 months a year, you'll be way
| ahead. Just use the psychology that if you sign up you cancel
| immediately. Now the default is to save money.
|
| Don't get drawn into the idea that this is a luxury that you can
| afford. Wasting money is not luxury.
| [deleted]
| hahajk wrote:
| I think this strategy will only work a little longer. The
| crackdown on sharing is only start. As the pressure increases
| on streaming services to turn more profits I'd expect longer
| contract lengths. I wouldn't be surprised to see Adobe-style
| "reduced price monthly payment" contracts from the more
| corporate services.
| bombcar wrote:
| "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star
| systems will slip through your fingers."
|
| As it is right now it's cheaper for me to hit up Disney+ for
| a month rather than rent or buy a new release elsewhere, but
| as that gets harder the less I'll consume.
| esafak wrote:
| Adobe gets squat from me -- a potential customer -- so such
| dark patterns can only explode in their face. Adobe and
| Netflix are not the only game in town.
| pdimitar wrote:
| They're free to try that and much more. However it's not like
| the customers have a gun at their head. You don't need a PhD
| to conclude you're being squeezed. At one point people just
| turn their backs and make do without the service.
|
| Squeezing the customers has soft limits and it's always
| hilarious to watch corporations being oblivious to them.
| michaelmior wrote:
| I'm probably in the minority, but I wish Netflix offered a
| profile transfer function that allowed me to transfer my profile
| to another existing account.
| pinecamp wrote:
| They do. It's mentioned in the link.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| The link mentions a profile transfer to a new membership, not
| to another existing membership.
| pinecamp wrote:
| You're right! I misread. That would be nice to have.
| cglong wrote:
| I really like the Spotify model, where everyone just has their
| own account. Then a Family Plan owner invites others to join
| the plan via their email address.
| deepzn wrote:
| Even if I could purchase it I wouldn't. Haven't watched anything
| on Netflix in 3 or 4 months even with a sharing membership.
| Youtube Premium is where I spend most of my time, and get the
| most out of.
| brianjking wrote:
| Will they give any of the revenue to the writers?
| siliconc0w wrote:
| Without sharing its pretty hard to justify, every now and then
| there is a show that is a decent watch but then it's an eternity
| until the next season. I feeling a meta service that tracks your
| favorite shows and automatically subscribes/unsubscribes when
| they're new eps.
| mgrund wrote:
| Would feel like less of a money grab if they rolled this out with
| price reductions, given the increase in subscriptions I assume
| they expect as a consequence. They might even be able to sell it
| as a way to bring justice to those that do not share accounts and
| who are currently covering the cost of other people doing it.
| gathersnow wrote:
| I was a member of Netflix from 90s to about 2021. The beginning
| of the streaming era was great. But since then Netflix has a long
| history of being user-hostile that I said goodbye to them many
| years ago. I got sick of their stupid auto-play feature that
| couldn't be disabled.
|
| They used to seemingly care helping you find new movies you like
| based on a star rating. Remember the Netflix challenge? Now I
| suppose there's a thumbs up, but really they probably just gauge
| based on if you watch or not.
|
| Instead of adding tools to help people find a life-altering
| hidden gem of a movie they took them away. When their catalogue
| got exposed for being mostly garbage they just made it harder to
| stray from the most popular movies on the service. They had a
| social component I liked but they got rid of it a decade ago.
| Imagine if it were like letterboxd and you could have people you
| follow whose taste you liked and could trust to recommend movies?
| A company the size of Netflix would find this trivial to
| implement and yet they haven't because they want to make their
| service as stupid as possible. What about something like a faux-
| cable experience for people that don't want to pick from a list
| of 30k things? They refused to do that so now Pluto exists.
|
| There are tons of ways that I think you could add community
| value-add but Netflix never did because they take their users for
| granted. I am sure this is literally a play to boost subscriber
| numbers based on how it went down in other countries. We'll see
| how it works but I for one have zero loyalty based on the
| contempt they show for the people that consume their product.
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