Netflix Testing Add-On Payment for People Who Share Accounts Outside Their Households

[ikramerica]

Yes, there are some exceptions, depending on the school and the local government. For the most part though, legislative changes after 9/11 require an ID to be based on a physical residence, rather than a mailing box. Similarly, legislative changes after the 2008 financial meltdown has resulted in similar requirements for financial institutions (credit cards/bank accounts) etc.

There definitely are still some exceptions to both, but it is not the current norm.

Well that was before all that nonsense.

My parents moved to a different state and I was 21. How am I, as a “fully vested” adult a resident of a state I never lived in because my parents moved there?

 

[Abazigal]

And this policy doesn't explain why Apple's Family Sharing is so 'generous'? Did Apple suffer a loss because of family sharing? Oh no, the real truth is that Netflix has become even greedier.
Otherwise I'd rather see Cook say: Hey, from now on, Family Sharing customers have to pay extra, in search of a greater purpose.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t it harder to qualify for family sharing? I know I am not going to link Apple IDs with my friend just for this, so the likely answer is that it’s simply harder to abuse the sharing of Apple accounts in such a manner.

 

[btbeme]

Maybe this isn’t obvious to everyone but it would almost certainly be time & location dependent. If an account is streaming in one location and then another an hour later 2 states over and doing it consistently then they would throw a flag.

Except sometimes I’m there alone, or she is there alone, and possibly both locations would be streaming at the same time. Nothing nefarious, except we have to wait to see if Netflix wants to challenge folks with a tiresome money grab.

 

[residentgalah]

Not really sure why it matters to Netflix whether the four or so people who might be using the same account are residing at the same address or not as long as someone's paying for the tier that allows that many screens to be using it at the same time. Why have the ability to institute multiple user profiles under the same account only to arbitrarily decide they have to be residing at the same address (physical or IP)? Why would they think doing so would be popular with anyone?

 

[Mainsail]

Different physical address so Netflix will likely consider that a different "household", though they might make exceptions for such institutions.

So, if I take my iPad to a different physical address, I become another household and need to add a user? No more Netflix at Starbucks.

They may have succeeded in making their streaming service pointless.

I think they should just charge what they need to make 4 concurrent users profitable regardless of their “household”. I would rather pay that price and not have to think about it.

 

[dysamoria]

So, it says Netflix is testing an ad on payment, it doesn’t say that it’s necessarily confirming that’s what will happen indefinitely.

So what’s the point of actually testing that this ‘may’ happen?

They’re trying it in places where they have less risk, and possibly a less reactive populous. If it works there, that suggests it might work to increase their profits elsewhere.

And that’s what this is about: profits. It’s not about losing profit or not being able to fund content.

The streaming world is turning into the exact thing it claimed to be a remedy for: bloated cable packages and consumer abuse.

Laissez-faire capitalism will ALWAYS move toward controlling the markets and eliminating consumer choice.

 

[max2]

So, if I take my iPad to a different physical address, I become another household and need to add a user? No more Netflix at Starbucks.

They may have succeeded in making their streaming service pointless.

I think they should just charge what they need to make 4 concurrent users profitable regardless of their “household”. I would rather pay that price and not have to think about it.

That is not how it works.

 

[Pilot Jones]

…and how does one define a „household“ here?

This, but unironically.

What if I have a sibling or parent who lives in a different country? Didn't know Netflix was such a believer in the traditional nuclear family structure.

 

[rezwits]

Two sentences: Right after the rate increase like less than 6 months ago, now this? Netflix must be struggling!
LOL

 

[Bandaman]

Honestly, I love seeing Netflix doing this, and to see people complaining.

The more people are switching to torrent, the better. Netflix monopoly has to be damaged badly from their choices. I'd rather pay a seedbox 10 bucks a month or purchase the hardware to do it by myself rather than dumping cash into Netflix.

Keep seeding guys!

I’m glad you joined today just to make a piratey username to post a piratey comment.

 

[cycomiko]

I guess they like piracy.

Or I run a VPN for my kids. Pretty easy.

 

[Ruggy]

I think the question here is: will this make them or lose them money?
At the moment you are entitled to 4 screens at any one time and frankly, it doesn't matter a jot who uses those 4 screens.
If you are sharing one or two of them with your parents, college students etc, are those people going to pay for an independent Netflix account or not? Can they?
A lot of people will cancel the subscription as a protest until they change the policy so it will definitely cost in the short term but who is going to pay extra?
Some people will be deprived of the service but I doubt they will get much extra revenue.

It's also going to be very complicated.
Travelling from home? No access from another country?
Using a VPN in an hotel or airport? It's already difficult to use a VPN with Netflix even when you are only using it for security.
Watching on 4G in the car? So is it going to be linked to devices in fact?
Kids at college that come home for the week-end. Still living with you but no longer allowed to watch the service in the week?
What about if you have a holiday home? Are you going to be blocked from using the service with your family in your own holiday home or do they really expect you to pay for another subscription?

 

[maxfromdenmark]

So, it says Netflix is testing an ad on payment, it doesn’t say that it’s necessarily confirming that’s what will happen indefinitely.

So what’s the point of actually testing that this ‘may’ happen?

It looks like Netflix testing it for at figure out how many people having “side account”. Later they may find an excuse for charging regular price those users.

 

[Will Co]

Lots of really good points being made here and some people usefully trying to Play Devils advocate. But on balance it’s hard to argue against this being a money grab. I think plenty of people will cancel their subscription if they do this. But I also think plenty won’t and will pay up. It’s a balancing act. Netflix are trialling it to see what happens and will likely not go ahead if the result is negative for them. Let’s hope those in the trial area vote with their wallets.

What would be interesting is if they are willing and able to lower the price of some tiers after doing this. The argument being that they had to raise prices recently because some users are abusing the system and should have their own full account. And so by correcting this, prices can drop. But that’s just never going to happen. So you know it really is a money grab.

 

[Ruggy]

Honestly, I love seeing Netflix doing this, and to see people complaining.

The more people are switching to torrent, the better. Netflix monopoly has to be damaged badly from their choices. I'd rather pay a seedbox 10 bucks a month or purchase the hardware to do it by myself rather than dumping cash into Netflix.

Keep seeding guys!

But if you follow this to its logical conclusion then everyone downloads from a torrent and no one pays for content.
When no one is paying for content then there is no content and there's nothing to download.

 

[arobert3434]

I can't believe people are giving Netflix grief over this. Sharing a subscription with friends or family who don't live with you has clearly been abusing their service all along. Maybe they could have taken a different approach, like simply only allowing streaming from one IP at a time, but that would've interfered with legitimate use like a family member traveling while others are at home. Either way, though, they'll need some heuristics to detect abuse and quite possibly they'll trigger false positives some of the time.

 

[ddhhddhh2]

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t it harder to qualify for family sharing? I know I am not going to link Apple IDs with my friend just for this, so the likely answer is that it’s simply harder to abuse the sharing of Apple accounts in such a manner.

No, you're right, if you look at it from the point of view of eligibility, Apple's Family Sharing is a little harder to get, after all, the basic requirement is an apple id, but to some extent I think that's a 'relatively reasonable' way to filter it, it's the minimum requirement of the Apple ecosystem.

In addition, my Apple family shares members: my mom, my brother, and my girlfriend. Strictly speaking, my girlfriend should not be considered family, but in fact, she can share, and Apple does not ask.

And Apple's hands-off behavior is perfectly in line with people's perception and expectations of "sharing.

But Netflix currently has a "unique and great" vision of sharing. In fact, I would rather remove the literal meaning of 'family' from Netflix. Like Apple's Family Sharing, we think of it as a resource that is simply paid for by the user and shared with legitimate or designated people, and that's it.

It doesn't matter if those people are family or friends or anyone else, as long as they are allowed by the entity providing the service or the number of people.

What Netflix is doing, obviously, is removing the concept of "free sharing" for others (which is not really free) and adding a policy of "paid sharing" for others. This policy comes from the traditional "breed, bind, harvest" trap.

Apple could have done the same thing, for example, by claiming that people who share must pay a certain amount of money to use apple music or apple tv or apps shared by others... And so on, but Apple doesn't do that, even though Apple could.

But if Apple did, it would face the same criticism that Netflix is facing today, because that's a completely different point of departure than the first, it's pure greed, that's my opinion.

Also, how do abuse sharing? The rules of the game are provided by the service, and as mentioned, my Apple Family Share has my girlfriend on it, is that an abuse?

If someone insists on claiming that a dog is also his family and he insists on adding that dog to the family sharing program, I have no doubt that they will probably file a lawsuit over it.

So, from Apple's point of view, they focus on the act of 'sharing' rather than on 'how to define who to share with', and even though the sharing program has the term 'family' in it, Apple doesn't even ask.

By the same token, if I remove the word 'family' from Netflix's sharing plan, we'll assume that it's just a requirement that several screens can be turned on at the same time, and it'll be much simpler, but apparently Netflix doesn't want to make it that simple, and they seem to think there's room for profit in this 'simple act'.

I wouldn't say Netflix is wrong, they have the right to change their policy, even the definition, but they will conceivably be subject to strong criticism and unsubscribes.

 

[Abazigal]

No, you're right, if you look at it from the point of view of eligibility, Apple's Family Sharing is a little harder to get, after all, the basic requirement is an apple id, but to some extent I think that's a 'relatively reasonable' way to filter it, it's the minimum requirement of the Apple ecosystem.

In addition, my Apple family shares members: my mom, my brother, and my girlfriend. Strictly speaking, my girlfriend should not be considered family, but in fact, she can share, and Apple does not ask.

And Apple's hands-off behavior is perfectly in line with people's perception and expectations of "sharing.

But Netflix currently has a "unique and great" vision of sharing. In fact, I would rather remove the literal meaning of 'family' from Netflix. Like Apple's Family Sharing, we think of it as a resource that is simply paid for by the user and shared with legitimate or designated people, and that's it.

It doesn't matter if those people are family or friends or anyone else, as long as they are allowed by the entity providing the service or the number of people.

What Netflix is doing, obviously, is removing the concept of "free sharing" for others (which is not really free) and adding a policy of "paid sharing" for others. This policy comes from the traditional "breed, bind, harvest" trap.

Apple could have done the same thing, for example, by claiming that people who share must pay a certain amount of money to use apple music or apple tv or apps shared by others... And so on, but Apple doesn't do that, even though Apple could.

But if Apple did, it would face the same criticism that Netflix is facing today, because that's a completely different point of departure than the first, it's pure greed, that's my opinion.

Very good point. I suspect part of this “hands off approach” by Apple is because their services are there to sell more hardware. If sharing Apple One with 3-4 other people mean these people continue using Apple devices (and maybe buy even more in the process), it’s a win for them either way. Obviously, Apple is not going to make it too easy for people to share accounts this way, but they likely aren’t policing it too actively. Yet.

For Netflix however, this is their only revenue stream, so I understand why they are trying to squeeze every last cent they can. If growth is more or less stagnant at this point, the next source of cash would be inwards from its own user base.

 

[827538]

"alienate people for paying for their service" .... They aren't alienating people for paying for their service. That's what they want. People to pay for their service. What they don't want is, Mom and Dad in Florida paying for the service sharing their password to son in Wisconsin and Daughter in California. Daughter in California sharing the password to Grandson in college in North Dakota.

Why not? I really don't understand the issue with sharing a Netflix account. I share my Apple purchases and subscriptions without issue, so is Netflix just special?

My parents would never have Netflix if it was just for them, they really pay for it as they know my wife uses it a lot which helps justify the purchase. If we stopped using their Netflix they'd drop it. Also we share our Disney+ with them and my sister - this works fine even although we are in the US mostly and they are in the UK.

In a time of skyrocketing inflation this sounds like an especially poor idea.

 

[827538]

No, you're right, if you look at it from the point of view of eligibility, Apple's Family Sharing is a little harder to get, after all, the basic requirement is an apple id, but to some extent I think that's a 'relatively reasonable' way to filter it, it's the minimum requirement of the Apple ecosystem.

In addition, my Apple family shares members: my mom, my brother, and my girlfriend. Strictly speaking, my girlfriend should not be considered family, but in fact, she can share, and Apple does not ask.

And Apple's hands-off behavior is perfectly in line with people's perception and expectations of "sharing.

But Netflix currently has a "unique and great" vision of sharing. In fact, I would rather remove the literal meaning of 'family' from Netflix. Like Apple's Family Sharing, we think of it as a resource that is simply paid for by the user and shared with legitimate or designated people, and that's it.

It doesn't matter if those people are family or friends or anyone else, as long as they are allowed by the entity providing the service or the number of people.

What Netflix is doing, obviously, is removing the concept of "free sharing" for others (which is not really free) and adding a policy of "paid sharing" for others. This policy comes from the traditional "breed, bind, harvest" trap.

Apple could have done the same thing, for example, by claiming that people who share must pay a certain amount of money to use apple music or apple tv or apps shared by others... And so on, but Apple doesn't do that, even though Apple could.

But if Apple did, it would face the same criticism that Netflix is facing today, because that's a completely different point of departure than the first, it's pure greed, that's my opinion.

Also, how do abuse sharing? The rules of the game are provided by the service, and as mentioned, my Apple Family Share has my girlfriend on it, is that an abuse?

If someone insists on claiming that a dog is also his family and he insists on adding that dog to the family sharing program, I have no doubt that they will probably file a lawsuit over it.

So, from Apple's point of view, they focus on the act of 'sharing' rather than on 'how to define who to share with', and even though the sharing program has the term 'family' in it, Apple doesn't even ask.

By the same token, if I remove the word 'family' from Netflix's sharing plan, we'll assume that it's just a requirement that several screens can be turned on at the same time, and it'll be much simpler, but apparently Netflix doesn't want to make it that simple, and they seem to think there's room for profit in this 'simple act'.

I wouldn't say Netflix is wrong, they have the right to change their policy, even the definition, but they will conceivably be subject to strong criticism and unsubscribes.

I think Netflix's timing of this is going to be something of a straw that breaks the camels back. With skyrocketing inflation and cost of living the very first thing people are going to start cutting are services like Netflix. I share with my family in the UK while I'm in the US, we justify Netflix by having our family share an account as the service is starting to get a bit, tired. If they bring this in it'll just be the excuse we were needing to cancel. Not that it's a cost issue for us, more a value issue. My parents maybe watch Netflix once a month, so if my wife and I stop using it then they'll just cancel.

I have friends who split the cost with other friends who I'm sure would cancel Netflix if they pull this. The service isn't that great. Beyond Stranger Things Season 4 I really couldn't care less.

 

[laptech]

So is this Netflix way of saying 'we know you are sharing your account with someone outside your household and they are not paying for it'.

 

[dumastudetto]

Consumers want best-of-breed products and services. Apple TV+ delivers. Netflix is now an also-ran.

 

[russell_314]

Two sentences: Right after the rate increase like less than 6 months ago, now this? Netflix must be struggling!
LOL

I think they've priced themselved out of the market. The trick is to keep the price high enough to make money while not too high so you don't lose sales numbers. $20 a month just to watch on 4k and if you're still rocking a 1080P TV from ten years ago it's still $15.49. Even after the recent rate hike Disney+ is only going to be $8. That's $12 a month less than Netflix. People do Netflix because they can share the $20 a month bill but as a single user it's not worth it. Maybe if they went down to $10 a month it would be worth it.

 

[pauloregan]

I assume a certain percentage of a user's use will have to be on the household ip / wifi etc.
If you have students living away for a time, make sure they binge watch a series when they come home for the weekend .
It will be the people who have never been on the 'household' ip that they will be after. ie. the ones that are definitely breaking the terms and conditions.

 

[SoldOnApple]

Netflix is out of control. They used to have all the movies and TV shows, now they basically just have their own content. Price keeps going up. They are one of the only services that charge extra for 4K. Soon you won't be able to share an account on different IP addresses.