Netflix considers crackdown on password sharing | Hacker News Reader

Netflix considers crackdown on password sharing

bbc.com

35 pointsmikesabbagh43 comments

“Netflix is trying to crack down on ineligible users, though it is unclear how many people use the platform against their terms of service.”

It’s soooo many people. Sometimes it’s pseudo-household sharing, such as my parents and my sister’s family that lives five miles away. Sometimes it’s folks that have agreed to share the cost of multiple streaming services (you pay for Hulu, I’ll pay for Netflix, Bob will pay for Disney). Sometimes it’s folks that bought an account login from a shady website. But the activity is pervasive. I’d be willing to bet that over half of Netflix accounts have given access to someone outside their household. And when you consider that sharing your account increases the number of users, I’d say that most of Netflix’s users are in violation of the ToS.

This would be a smart move if their content library was half as interesting as it once was. But people coasting on their parents' account aren't going to pony up for what they have to offer today.

I feel the same. I'm also sharing with family and none of us hardly watches anything on it, just once in a while is there something interesting to watch. Thought about continuing it only to support the company but might reconsider that decision unless they do something about that poor content library. I'm using Mubi for great cinema and honestly I find a lot more interesting movies/documentaries to watch there.

> continuing it only to support the company

there's no need to do that - a company would be supported if their products/services are worthy of paying for. To "support" by deliberately paying money, but not use their service is just folly. They aren't a charity, and they certainly don't think of you as highly as you would of them by doing so.

Yup, I cancelled Netflix when they started pruning their cataglogue and pushing their own shows, which I didn't think were as good as the shows they had retired. They also started pushing their own commercials and made it harder and harder to avoid the annoying trailers. If they want to become a tv channel that's fine, but the value isn't there for me.

I have never seen a promo for another show on netflix. Unless you are talking about the autoplay while scrolling feature? Now Amazon Prime, they are always sticking promos at the beginning and end of everything.

I have an account for us, my parents and in-laws. It's barely worth it when split three ways, we're definitely not paying for three accounts for Netflix. I might as well set up a Plex installation and torrent a bunch of shows for them.

Wanna go halvsies on a seedbox? I'll send you an(other!) email if so, haha

Hmm, interesting proposal, though I think I'll pass for now because I have a NAS and a good connection at home, I think I'll use that for now.

Did you already send me an email? Did I reply?

Not about this topic!

This works with VPN's as well: I thought about finding 5 people to split a VPN sub with, because I only would ever use one device at a time. That brings it down to ~$1.19/mo which is a great deal.

problem is coordinating that with everyone lol, probably best for each person to pay $15 up front to one person to essentially prepay for a year.

Netflix is quite good at detecting VPNs.

I'm referring to sharing a similar service to a seedbox, which is what OP was referring to. You don't really need a VPN for netflix anyway, unless you want a different country's library.

I already do both. Netflix has barely anything worth watching: it's mostly third-rate junk and only occasionally releases anything half-way interesting. Putting the squeeze on people for short-term profits just makes their service less cool for some spare change signals that they've given-up producing quality content fast enough.

It depends on what you are watching. I like Asian and European cinema and shows. For me most of American/Hollywood stuff is third rate junk, including Marvel and american Comics stuff and in seldom occasions I want to watch it, I get it easier from VPN/P*bay than to subscribe to a lot of different services. If they will make me jump through hoops, I will return to the VPN/P. method.

I've seen pretty much every good foreign film and series on Netflix. I use third-party apps that can filter by category and sort by ranking.

Netflix has a ton of content for only 17 bucks a month.

It’s only not worth it when you contrast it against piracy, which obviously isn’t a fair comparison.

I've already seen all the content that I like, their catalog doesn't seem to refresh that often or have that much stuff relevant to me. It's reached the point where, if I want to watch something, I don't even open Netflix any more.

I'm mostly keeping the subscription in case my parents are watching anything.

I am shocked. There are so many things to watch that I regret not being able to watch more.

Just in the last 2 weeks we have watched: Inception Prospect Batman begins and dark knight Moonlight That one about fake art Invictus Case 39 Icarus

And probably a few more.

Oh I've seen those years ago. I don't think they're available on our Netflix, though.

There are too many streaming services nowadays to pay for every single one. One option is sharing, the other is unsubscribing

1 friend pays for netflix, the next for amazon, the next for spotify. I mean do what you want, but if streaming gets worse than now (it's almost like pay TV again) people are just going to pirate again.

Yeah, I pay for a few streaming services, but sometimes I find myself pirating content that is actually available on one of those streaming services, because it's just easier. That's generally not a great sign I would think.

Man, I’ve done the same. There are too many streaming devices. It’s ridiculous.

The third is rotating subscriptions, get Netflix for one month and watch the things you like on there, Hulu the next and then Amazon Prime.

This is what I did with Disney Plus. I really love the first eight seasons of The Simpsons, and the original Star wars trilogy, plus the Last Jedi are pretty good movies.

Nothing else in their library really appeals to me as a single guy. I tried the Hulu bundle, and I found Hulu's original content to be very much hit or miss. Monsterland was fairly interesting, and I'm glad I watched it, but I don't have any real interest in rewatching the same series over and over again.

There's a better option yet.

The worst part is that as a European or god forbid Eastern European you simply do not have access to all the content you have in USA. I pay for available streaming services and am forced to get the rest of the content by other means

This is from January 2020 in India: [1]

> Still, we can joke. So, apparently can Netflix.

> Because when a Twitter user in India posted a clearly fake offer--a "free Netflix subscription for six months" if you'd just be one of the first 10,000 people to call a certain telephone number--Netflix (actually Netflix India) replied: "This is absolutely fake. If you want free Netflix please use someone else's account like the rest of us." [2]

Netflix knows that many users share their accounts. Since Netflix is also the lone streaming service in India where the pricing is very close to the US prices (compared to Amazon, Disney and Apple whose India prices are substantially lower than the US prices), anecdotally, there is a lot of account sharing happening. It's a tough question whether Netflix would prefer account sharing or piracy, since it has many great original shows and has also increased the amount of local/regional high quality content (in India) that's talked about or shared around.

Netflix has also been experimenting with mobile-only lower priced plans in India (still costlier than its competitors mentioned above). If account sharing is banned or made very inconvenient, people would get the content through other means.

[1]: https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/netflix-already-has-best-...

[2]: https://twitter.com/NetflixIndia/status/1213422409576927232

Good time to reconsider if you really should continue subscribing, I'd say. Money to them means money to the copyright holders, and they are destroying our equipment with their DRM. Perhaps better to do something else with that money and time and do something productive instead of being passively fed content for consumption.

You had a good point until the end.

There is nothing inherently wrong about passively consuming content. There is no need for us to be productive all the time.

Fair enough. I agree, that last part wasn't really necessary. You don't need to be productive and it's okay to passively consume content. If you can control that balance, that's great. I would guess though many of us can get caught in consuming a little too much, which is nice to avoid, but that's outside the point.

Netflix's selection is ever-shifting, ever-shrinking and constrained. There is no way that people will subscribe to multiple accounts within the same close friend/family group before switching to alternatives.

I always figured Netflix didn't crack down on this because they knew the risk they run by pursuing it and had weighted out the risk vs reward and concluded that the value of having a larger market out-weighted what they might be able to squeeze out of their current customers. I guess this might mean Netflix is looking forwards and are expecting less from a growing market as the competitive pressure from Disney, Amazon etc. and are thinking that they'd better try to claw in some profit expecting not to grow their market?

Many are saying how they won’t pay for a subscription themselves if Netflix does this, but this move can be worth it even if the vast majority of freeloaders don’t sign up for new accounts. It seems like an obvious win to me bc the cancellation rate of the actual paying accounts will be small and less than the accretive freeloader signups.

With the competitive landscape transformed in the past few years, user growth is going to be much harder to come by for Netflix. Monetizing existing users is going to be much more important than it was five years ago. This is a signal that the digital streaming gold rush is officially over. Next stop: advertising.

The problem is: if I only need 1 screen, no downloads or anything, but 4k, I need to pay the premium package, that has 4 simultaneous screens.

They’re welcome to it. I cancelled recently after they notified me of yet another price increase. I was a subscriber for years and the price constantly went up while the quality went down. Disney+ is cheaper and surprisingly has more content I’m interested in watching.

Canceled Netflix when I read about the content of the Cuties movie. The 3 other people who used my Netflix account were a bit bummed, but nobody paid for Netflix for themselves after I canceled. Plex + Sonarr/Radarr & a VPN is the way to go.

I will drop netflix soooo fast. The content is terrible and I have not been happy with the last 2 price increases. Don't forget I have 5 other subscriptions I have to pay for now too. This is all ridiculous, I want cable back

If they lock me out of the account I share with my friend (i'm using his account for years, before that he used mine for years) I'm done subbing to them. There are other ways to watch content.

Why would do this? Each subscription already limits the number of "screens"

Of course you need to pay top whack to get 4K

Seems like Netflix is doing too much of those wokeism genre.

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