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Netflix Password Sharing Crackdown Works, U.S. Subscriber Numbers Soar

coolfactor said:
What is more concerning is that consumers are given more and more and more and then demand more and more and more. Is that enough mores, or do you need more?

Less than a dollar a day for hours of entertainment is a very good value. To share that for "free" is selfishness.
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Consumers are constantly having more money ground out of them. Services are constantly getting more restrictive and getting more greedy. Youtube has doubled and is now tripling ads, for the same service. Twitter is now trying to charge $8 a month for you to be able to participate in the conversation while STILL showing you copious ads. Reddit wants to charge indie devs that use a fraction of their servers millions of dollars a year instead of a fair price. Facebook is trying to invent an entire alternate reality just to show you as many ads as possible for little in return. You can no longer buy a TV that isn't infested with adware crap, even at the most expensive level. Again, why does it satisfy you to defend a worse world that makes less people happy?

Netflix made content for years with far less subscriptions than they currently have. It's not like they're a penniless person in need of a coin.

I7guy said:
They encouraged sharing with the household, imo, not with 400 of your closest friends.
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If your household contains a child who is in college, they apparently need their own account. Netflix has never supported more than 4 simultaneous streams per account. How many people could realistically share this before they would just get their own account anyways?
 
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It's kinda sad to see subscriptions increased...
I guess in the end we mocked them, but they knew what they were doing (at least financially)
 
MacRumors said:


Netflix in May started cracking down on password sharing in the United States, and the decision has worked in the company's favor, according to subscriber data shared today by analytics company Antenna (via The Wall Street Journal).

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Just after putting an end to multi-household password sharing in the United States, average daily signups to Netflix reached 73k per day, a 102 percent increase from the prior 60-day average. Netflix saw close to 100,000 daily signups on both May 26 and May 27, beating out signups even during COVID lockdown periods.

Netflix did see an increase in subscription cancelation following the policy change, but the number of people canceling did not beat the number of new signups that the company received. Antenna says that the ratio of signups to cancels since May 23 is up 25.6 percent compared to the prior 60-day period.


According to Netflix, more than 100 million households were sharing accounts, impacting its ability to "invest in and improve Netflix" for paying members. The company said that it expected some cancel reaction in the United States, but based on earlier rollouts in other countries, the policy change would result in acceleration in revenue growth and member base.

Netflix is no longer allowing subscribers to share passwords with people who do not live in the same location. Netflix users are required to establish a primary location, and subscribers who live elsewhere are not able to use the account. There are allowances for travel or second homes, but Netflix is now using IP address and other information to restrict multi-household usage.

Netflix users can pay an additional $7.99 per month to allow one extra member to use a Standard or Premium Netflix account outside of the primary location, and up to two additional people can be added (Premium plan only).

The extra fee provides each person with a profile, personalized recommendations, login, and password. Alternatively, there is a profile transfer process that will allow those who were previously using Netflix for free to make their own paid accounts.

Netflix is priced starting at $6.99 per month for the plan with ads. A basic plan with no ads, access on one device at a time, and 720p HD streaming is priced at $9.99 per month. The Standard Plan with 1080p streaming and access on two devices at one time is priced at $15.49 per month, and the 4K Netflix plan with support for watching on four devices at a time is priced at $19.99 per month.

Note that while the Standard and Premium plans allow for watching on two to four devices at a time, Netflix's new policy is that all of those devices need to be in the same household location.

Article Link: Netflix Password Sharing Crackdown Works, U.S. Subscriber Numbers Soar
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Has this been verified in any way or is it just a rumour 🤣
I've just resigned in the UK for a month, does that make me a new sign up because of the crack down?
 
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Cancelled Netflix in January of this year. Haven't missed an ounce of it. It's basically another addiction - and after spending time away from it, the need to have it significantly dropped.

Not worth the money or the headaches. There are many better options out there.
 
zach-coleman said:
[…].


If your household contains a child who is in college, they apparently need their own account. Netflix has never supported more than 4 simultaneous streams per account. How many people could realistically share this before they would just get their own account anyways?
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As long as your child checks in in the primary location WiFi once every 30 days no separate account is needed. As far as the past, there were stories I recall reading of many college students sharing one account.
 
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Choco Taco said:
I've seen it a few times. And I had to help my great aunt set it up on her TV when I was visiting her recently because she was confused when it randomly popped up.
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Okay. I'm not on Netflix a ton, so I guess I'll see it eventually.

Only thing keeping me on the platform is the K-dramas, and the fact that I'm able to share it with my brother and sister. I don't even watch it much myself, so if they force my hand, I really have no reason to keep giving them any money.
 
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trusso said:
Okay. I'm not on Netflix a ton, so I guess I'll see it eventually.

Only thing keeping me on the platform is the K-dramas, and the fact that I'm able to share it with my brother and sister. I don't even watch it much myself, so if they force my hand, I really have no reason to keep giving them any money.
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If you like K-dramas, I highly recommend checking out Viki.com.
 
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zach-coleman said:
It's always so weird to me to see people take these kinds of greedy cooperate moves and defend them for free. Why are you happy that you now have to pay more money for a worse service? Why does this satisfy you? How does this benefit you? Password sharing only became "stealing" when subscriber growth no longer became satisfactory. Before that? Apparently, it was love...
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I'm not paying more money as I never engaged in password "sharing" cheating Netflix and violating Netflix's Terms of Service.

"How does this benefit you?"

That's a no brainer. More revenue for Netflix translates to more/better movies.

The good news is... you have choices. Since you're unhappy about this, simply cancel your Netflix account and find another service. Easy.

Will you do it?
 
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BradWI said:
They haven't started kicking anyone off yet. That's when their numbers will likely drop.

This (small) increase in signups is just the addicts who were scared into signing up for their own accounts instead of being kicked off eventually.

Most won't do that when Netflix finally takes their access away.
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I just used the communication as an excuse to kick out all the freeloaders in my account.
 
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JCCL said:
Brother, parent, parents in law that couldn’t be bothered to get their own. As soon as I got the email about this I sent it to everyone, changed my password and kicked off all devices
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Oh okay, lol. This was probably great news for you then.
 
I cancelled my 8-year 4K account that I was sharing with my mom, and she signed up with the basic plan. I have no plan to resub, so while it's a subscription net neutral it's a net loss in revenue. I'd be genuinely curious about the ratio of 4K accounts cancelling versus basic or ad-supported signups.
 
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GizmoDVD said:
But everyone here assured me they would cancel their (well, their college roommate's second cousins) account and Netflix would lose subscribers and eventually get bought by Disney!
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I did not think people would actually cancel. For most consumers, the thought of doing without TV is mortifying. TV is incredibly addictive. Like a drug, people once hooked will do ANYTHING to get it. Yes, having one less subscription service is not the same as giving up media consumption but it's heading in that same direction. People REALLY don't want to go that way.

Prove me wrong, find someone who is willing to turn off their TV (or "screen") off for a month. That person is rare indeed. They will say something like "Yes, I could do that if I wanted to, but I don't want to."

There is some science to back this. Using your brain actually consumes calories. Millions of years of evolution has made us try to reduce calorie consumption. Media consumption really does reduce calories burned vs doing almost anything else but sleeping.
 
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I’ve been dropping streaming sites one by one for the last few months. There’s just so many streamers that I can’t keep up with them all, and most of them offer lots of mediocre crap. I still have Apple TV+ because it comes with Apple One, and I still have Amazon Prime that comes with streaming. Netflix is the last streamer I flat out pay for because I’m finishing a few shows there. These things are getting easier and easier to sign-up for, watch what I want, then cancel until they offer something worth watching.
 
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When they have a cheaper 4K single stream option I’ll come back. I want 4K and I live by myself. Netflix can fight to get me back. Or they can just continue to milk the masses.

The masses have spoken disposable income and a way to keep the spawns happy. Sure hope there’s no regrets down the line.

Netflix is essentially Starbucks at this point.
 
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I7guy said:
As long as your child checks in in the primary location WiFi once every 30 days no separate account is needed. As far as the past, there were stories I recall reading of many college students sharing one account.
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How many college students return home once a month? That's more of a 4 month affair.

citysnaps said:
I'm not paying more money as I never engaged in password "sharing" cheating Netflix and violating Netflix's Terms of Service.

"How does this benefit you?"

That's a no brainer. More revenue for Netflix translates to more/better movies.
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You are paying more money. The prices have continued to go up over time. Premium was $12 in 2014 and is $20 now. Only adjusted for inflation, you should be paying $15.37, not $20. And I don't think the average person would agree their quality has been particularly high recently. Watchable, but not high. Most discussion of Netflix I ever hear come up offline are people complaining "the only good one" got cancelled prematurely. And, you know, their quality isn't gonna be much if they keep refusing to pay their writers a living wage. (Odd... They're making more and more money, but for some reason they can't afford to give their writers a fair cut...)

Also, you know, if you clicked the link you would see that they only recently started acting like this was a problem. It’s not like their twitter is ran by an intern.
 
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kaiguy said:
I cancelled my 8-year 4K account that I was sharing with my mom, and she signed up with the basic plan. I have no plan to resub, so while it's a subscription net neutral it's a net loss in revenue. I'd be genuinely curious about the ratio of 4K accounts cancelling versus basic or ad-supported signups.
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I won’t pay extra for 4k streaming. I’m perfectly content to watch 1080p. I imagine most feel like I do.
 
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