Netflix Cracking Down on Password Sharing in Four More Countries, Including Canada

[Killerbob]

From Netflix T&Cs: The Netflix service and any content accessed through the service are for your personal and non-commercial use only and may not be shared with individuals beyond your household unless otherwise allowed by your subscription plan

Source: https://help.netflix.com/en/legal/termsofuse

I stand corrected - you are right! It depends on the difinition of household vs. location.

Still though, it is certainly against their T&Cs to share with friends and family that are not explicitely part of your household. Kids away at college may be a part of your household for tax purposes, but the are residing outside it, and obviously Netflix need to tighten up that wording/explanation, if that is what they want to prevent...

 

[BeerDrinkerDan]

They are probably getting their entertainment from "other" cheaper sources by now...if you know what i mean

HBO Max?

 

[ZipZilla]

This is a Netflix PR disaster that will result in them backpedaling.

If you pay for 4 streams at a time, you pay for anybody to use anywhere. Tailor the product to your customers' needs.

A lot of people can live without Netflix and they will get $0. Mass cancellations are coming. This is a self-created disaster.

 

[Rogifan]

I don’t really care because the majority will still pay for their account.

Everyone else will jump on the bandwagon because streaming is a money losing business. Ill keep enjoying mine for free thanks to T-MOBILE

And if T-Mobile wasn’t subsidizing your subscription you’d pay for one?

 

[Michael Scrip]

Why does it have to be immediate family members? Right now I’m sharing my Netflix with my mom and sister (who don’t live with me). If I can no longer share they won’t get their own Netflix account they’ll just stop watching it.

You can share... it'll just cost an extra $8/month.

And that's what I was saying. Netflix knows people do exactly what you're doing.

But Netflix now wants to cash-in on it. In essence they are raising prices on some of their users.

 

[citysnaps]

Even more bizarre that people think you should pay for four simultaneous streams, but not actually get to use them in many cases. A lot of people's kids are away at school, for example. You think it's okay for them to have to pay $7.99 on top of the $14.99, just because they're not home? Because that's the way it's looking like Netflix is going.

Not bizzarre at all. You may not know the service is for a single address.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Hey everybody, lets watch Netflix commit suicide.

 

[polaris20]

Not bizzarre at all. You may not know the service is for a single address.

Right, and they live at that address. That's where their mail is sent. They're away at school.

 

[citysnaps]

Why does it have to be immediate family members? Right now I’m sharing my Netflix with my mom and sister (who don’t live with me). If I can no longer share they won’t get their own Netflix account they’ll just stop watching it.

Because it's for a single address.

 

[compwiz1202]

Not bizzarre at all. You may not know the service is for a single address.

But it is still their household address. Their mailing address is just different while at college or in the military.

 

[GizmoDVD]

So if you’re married with two kids living in your house and you have one netflix account that’s fine if they all use the same account but if you’re single and, say, share your account with a couple siblings who don’t live with you that’s bad? I have an Apple One account. I’m sharing it with my mom and sister. Apple doesn’t care that they don’t live in my house and share my ip address. Netflix should just have a family plan and allow up to x number of people on the plan and then not care where those people are accessing it from.

Apple might not care today, but they probably will in the future just like all the other streaming services and monthly charges people try and "group up" together on. Can't complain netflix cancels your favorite stuff when you split a $15 bill with 5 people all heavily using the service across the Country. That $180 a year ain't gonna help Netflix make/get new content when an episode of a show costs $3-5 million.

By the end of 2023 I fully expect 2 other streamers to inact similar strategies. HBO/Discovery is an easy pick and probably Hulu and/Disney once they are forced to buy comcast out of the 30% Hulu share.

 

[GizmoDVD]

Why does it have to be immediate family members? Right now I’m sharing my Netflix with my mom and sister (who don’t live with me). If I can no longer share they won’t get their own Netflix account they’ll just stop watching it.

That's the point.

Not only does Netflix pay to produce content they have to pay per watch for other content they license (see HBO removing tons of content no one watched to say on residuals). Your mom and sister are leeching off of you. If they want to watch content, they can pay or sail the high seas.

 

[Rogifan]

Which is completely legitimate, and I know if I had been sharing an account (rather than getting one free with my cell plan), that's what I'd do.

But then from Netflix's perspective, as long as you don't cancel your plan, they still come out somewhat ahead, because they now have to serve one third the streams for the same amount of income.

The question from Netflix's perspective is how many people in your situation will say "forget it, I don't watch it that much and/or will switch to another service that lets me share" versus how many of your sister/mom equivalents will decide to pay for their own account.

But if they have fewer eyeballs will it be more difficult to get good content? I guess what I don’t get is why does it matter whether the content is streaming from the same ip address or not? A stream is a stream right?

 

[citysnaps]

But it is still their household address. Their mailing address is just different while at college or in the military.

If they come home at night from college or the military that's fine. If they are living at a different address that's fraud.

Read Netflix's terms and conditions. It's pretty clear.

 

[boss.king]

Good.

You can't share your Theater tickets and you can't share traditional cable. Bizarre people think its OK to share a $15 netflix account with their entire family all over the US and complain when their favorite show gets cancelled.

You don’t pay for two concurrent movie tickets that you can use in different theatres simultaneously either. Physical theatres aren’t the best analogy for digital content.

 

[GizmoDVD]

Disney just announced they lost $1.1 billion on its streaming business in a single quarter.

The free ride is over (unless you sail the high seas)

 

[Rogifan]

I'm not affected (unless they decide to be so draconian that my significant other being temporarily in another country makes us evil password-sharers, which wouldn't shock me), but I'm curious whether this is going to be a net gain or a net loss for Netflix.

As far as I know, generally speaking when a company's strategy for increasing revenue is to try to extract more money out of its existing customer base without providing any additional services to them, it doesn't turn out so well, especially when your competition is increasing.

It doesn't matter whether this qualifies as "ripping off customers who are paying for 4 simultaneous streams" or "making freeloading thieves pay their fair share" or anything between. The simplified version is that some percent of their customers were paying for a service with the expectation they could use it a certain way, and now they can't use it that way but the price isn't going down. Some of them will stop using it, some will pay more. And some number of additional users were semi-surreptitiously using the service someone else is paying for and now are being told to pay or stop using it; some will, some will give up.

At the same time, there's also way more competition than there used to be.

I'm curious what the net of the above ends up being.

Seems likely it mostly comes down to whether Netflix is as indispensable a service now as it once was, when there's Disney+ and Paramount+ and HBO-whatever and Hulu and AppleTV as appealing alternatives.

You bring up a good point. Netflix was allowing sharing. If they now cut that off but the price stays the same basically what they’re saying is you were being undercharged. Not sure if the consumer will feel that way.

 

[Rogifan]

You can share... it'll just cost an extra $8/month.

And that's what I was saying. Netflix knows people do exactly what you're doing.

But Netflix now wants to cash-in on it. In essence they are raising prices on some of their users.

But if 4 people stream from the same ip address it won’t cost anything extra? Where is the logic in that? Like I said earlier, I have an Apple One subscription. My mom and sister are family members on it. Neither one lives with me. Apple doesn’t care.

 

[Canyda]

What the implications for Family Sharing? Will Apple follow suit?

Apple explicitly allows family sharing under their Family and Premium Apple One subscriptions.

 

[Rogifan]

Because it's for a single address.

So what? What does it matter whether the streams are coming from a single address or not? Because Netflix now thinks if my mom and sister weren’t using my login they’d pay for the service themselves? Haha, not quite. They just won’t watch.

 

[polaris20]

If they come home at night from college or the military that's fine. If they are living at a different address that's fraud.

Read Netflix's terms and conditions. It's pretty clear.

That really isn't fraud. Their mailing address is the same household. My daughter's income tax stuff got mailed to my home. It didn't get mailed to her dorm. Not sure why this is so difficult to understand.

 

[compwiz1202]

That really isn't fraud. Their mailing address is the same household. My daughter's income tax stuff got mailed to my home. It didn't get mailed to her dorm. Not sure why this is so difficult to understand.

True they could just have things they need right away at school sent to the college but keep the others going home.

 

[compwiz1202]

The one issue is streaming is so oversaturated now. Just like all the articles I see about gas stations canceling projects. We don't need anymore in our area.

 

[polaris20]

True they could just have things they need right away at school sent to the college but keep the others going home.

That's exactly what happens. And generally nothing is sent there, because so much is digital.

 

[Rogifan]

That's the point.

Not only does Netflix pay to produce content they have to pay per watch for other content they license (see HBO removing tons of content no one watched to say on residuals). Your mom and sister are leeching off of you. If they want to watch content, they can pay or sail the high seas.

How is that any different than if they were living with me and we were all using the same Netflix account? Netflix’s website says: Watch on 4 different devices at the same time with Premium. What does it matter to Netflix if those 4 devices are using the same IP address or not? They’re still only getting $20/mo from me. And I’m not talking about the T&C. It was Netflix’s choice not to enforce it.