I lost my wife at 42 to cancer two years ago and me and my two teenager boys use it on an off. My mum who is in her 80's has my password and uses it. I have an account with two streams at a time and never have an issue watching it at the same time as her. I received a email from them regarding sharing. I've cancelled it, I've been looking for ways to save a few pennies here in the UK and my mum can't afford it either. So they have ended up losing me as a customer even though I don't really use it myself.
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Netflix Password Sharing Crackdown Works, U.S. Subscriber Numbers Soar
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Maybe they didn’t have the technological means to stop this sharing? As I said my kids used it when they lived at home, when they moved out they still used my account. And now they have their own accounts.
Did Netflix tolerate this or were they unable to prevent it?
Years ago, I had to contact support for something and mentioned that we were doing this, even in the context of not being sure it was allowed. The person on the phone said it was acceptable and that many customers did it.
Sounds like tolerating to me. 🤷♂️
BTW, I'm not saying Netflix doesn't have a right to change their policy, but the idea that the customers are to blame or are a bunch of thieves if they're unhappy with the change is ridiculous and sounds like corporate apologist garbage to me. Netflix tolerated it for a very long time and have now reversed course. Nobody gets to blame the customer for that.
Customer service reps have been known to give incorrect information or overlook certain things in the interest of getting a better outcome. That doesn’t speak to Netflix policy only the policy of the service rep at that point in time.
For all you know that rep could have been fired for violating company policy when and if Netflix reviewed the transcript.
For Netflix being a corporation that offers a service that depends on discretionary income us customers evaluate value for price.
Netflix may have “tolerated” this because they didn’t have the technology to enforce their tos. Now they do.
While I don't agree with the term "theft" I do agree it is against the Terms of Service and Netflix is in their right to set the rules.
When a student goes away to college, there is a lot of things that may not be available to student anymore. For example, if the student takes a car to college in another state, the insurance company may refuse to insure it on the same policy or significantly raise the cost. Would you expect the insurance company to keep the same price?
You don't like the new policy? Go ahead and cancel. But, you don't get to re-define the TOS to your liking.
Darn, I was considering signing back up but I don't want to if they are "in dire straits" closing up shop tomorrow. /s
Can you provide some proof of your claims? We have enough people claiming doom around here.
Seems to me like Netflix is playing the short game. How do they get the most $ for this quarter. What’s the long game, move everyone to 4K + ads for $50+ a month? 🤷
Some of us have memories longer than a 24-hour cable news cycle and recall Netflix's "sharing is caring" ad campaign. I personally pay $19.99/month for Netflix's mediocre "premium" bitrate*, which includes four simultaneous streams. Why should it matter where those streams are located?
*Apple and even HBO have higher quality streams at this point.
You're really equating breach of an unenforceable contract very few people read with crime?
Did the marketing slogan “sharing is caring” mean your password should be shared with the entirety of NYC? If it didn’t mean that, did it mean you should share your password with the residents of your household?
To Netflix the device locations do matter.
I have no reason to care what matters to Netflix. It's their job to make me like them enough to continue paying for their increasingly overpriced service.
I agree. Netflix is a for profit corporation offering services that are discretionary based. As such some people evaluate the price to value ratio. If it isn’t there don’t subscribe to the service.
There is a difference but whoever said anything about petit or grand larceny, which is what you describe in your store example? I certainly didn’t. As written into law, there are many different ways you can take something that you didn’t pay for or doesn’t belong to you, whether it be by force, digitally, without the other party knowing, entering an establishment/residence for the purpose of committing a crime, etc...
Petit larceny, grand larceny, grand larceny auto, burglary, robbery, theft of service, etc…
I get all that but I have personally seen over the many years, for example, one person would sign up for a subscription and say, four others chip in to pay the bill. Then they all share that same password. I’m pretty sure this huge crackdown stemmed from my example, not honest families sharing the same subscription. I’m not mad at Netflix though. From a business standpoint, I agree with them wanting to crackdown. It hurt their bottom line and whether people like it or not, businesses are in the business of making money… I am, however, mad at those who took advantage which ended up affecting the honest folks.
I am not sure if it's just me. At home, my mom is pretty much the only person in the household who uses Netflix to watch Chinese and Korean content, and of late, we have been getting this "too many concurrent devices" error message. So I am on the 4k plan, only 1 person is using it at any one time, and the service still gets confused?
The problem I find with these anti-piracy / sharing measures is that they tend to penalise or inconvenience the honest users more. Meanwhile, the real pirates simply torrent them and and don't have to contend with any of this nonsense. The whole allure of streaming was predicated on convenience, and they are starting to fail at even that, IMO.
Correct. Then they’ll say that it sucks anyway and move onto the next service while encouraging others to cancel it.
If this is happening to you then go into 'account' and then under 'security and privacy' > 'manage access and devices'.
There you can see who's signed in and it maybe you have devices still signed in that you haven't used for a long time or possibly, someone is using your account you don't know about
Sign everything out you don't want or don't recognise and this should stop.
...Also they are still legally part of your household and that's the word Netflix have used. For tax reasons, medical reasons, voting reasons: they still live here.
Besides, the idea that millions of people are giving away passwords and there's masses of theft is ludicrous.
You just can't use more than 4 devices at the same time and as everyone wants to watch in the evening the scope for theft is actually really small.
I really don't understand why they are being defended so strongly for this money grab. They've grown their business very much on sharing with families so it isn't so much them addressing crime as changing their business model and it's petty.
Thanks. I just did that and the devices accessing Netflix all belong to me. (2 Apple TVs, 2 Macs, iPhone, iPad, and a windows work laptop). So far no evidence of unwanted access by other people. I have signed out of all but 4 devices (my iPhone, iPad and both Apple TVs), and will continue to monitor if the error message pops up for my mom. Which is strange, and suggests that even after the browser has been closed, Netflix is somehow still running and counts as one instance?
Weird.
When I had Netflix I could only use 3 devices on my Max payment plan for 23.00 a month. It was then I decided with that, and the lack of good content we watch we cancelled and never looked back.
Apple
Are you aware of any case law where using someone’s online account password with the account holder’s express permission and no profit has been deemed “theft of service?” Who should be criminally liable in your view? The account holder or the account user?
Before I bumped to 4 streams I used to get locked out of the account from watching my content because my kids were watching. So I asked one to close out and it took a few minutes for the stream to free up.
Eventually I paid for 4 streams. But it does seem that when using the browser it takes a few minutes to recognize the stream isn’t active.
But after this new policy went into effect I signed into the website and signed out of all devices and started fresh.