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

I only turn it on when I travel and want to binge some movies or tv shows on the flight. So I will download from multiple locations while traveling. Hope I don’t have to do it through my vpn. That will make it annoyingly slow. Anyway, I’m not paying for Netflix right now so it really doesn’t affect me. Though I can see how families with kids in school could be effected.
 
zorinlynx said:
I suspect this decision is going to bite them in the arse.

A lot of people are barely hanging on to having a Netflix subscription. I cancelled mine recently; they keep raising prices and removing old standbys that I loved having access to, like Star Trek: TNG.

This is just going to piss more people off. There is literally no difference between multiple people in the same household watching Netflix and multiple people in different locations.
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Its already ticking me off. I already pay $17.99 for Netfilix (4 Screens) as it is since i share with some of my family.
I sure as heck don't wanna pay more just because i share.
 
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Relentless Power said:
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?
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They want to see what the uptake is on people actually paying the extra amounts to add those out-of-house family members to the plan. I'm sure some will voluntarily sign up to pay the extra out of honour, or the fear that Netflix might block the sharing or whatnot.
 
CWallace said:
I presume they will do it by IP address range of the devices connecting.

So all the devices in one physical address will count as a "household" and if other devices connect with a different IP address range, they will be defined as a separate "household".

Of course, this is going to be an issue for those in a single "household" who use VPNs to access Netflix content not available in their home country.
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It also doesn't account for homes with more than one internet provider. (like, comcast for wired internet, and Verizon phones that may watch Netflix)
 
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In our "gains-driven" business tech world, there is no place for a company that merely continues to make the same spectacularly large amount of money year after year. You need to make more next year to keep those stock prices inflated and keep the investors happy.

When you've eventually captured more or less your entire addressable market, what do you do to increase profits? You start raising the price, and when that doesn't work you find other, more creative ways to charge each user more.

Note that in addition to increasing gross revenue every quarter for the past decade, Netflix's gross and net profit margin have also been increasing steadily, quarter after quarter, for 5 years straight, with the sole exception of last quarter.

Netflix is now netting over $5 billion per quarter. Netflix can say it wants more money for its investors, but cut the crap about how this is necessary to make better shows and movies for us to watch. I can stomach a company being a jerk and greedy, but I hate being lied to. Based on how I use the service (watching things with friends at their house once a week), I'd cancel my subscription if I wasn't getting it with my T-Mobile plan.
 
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Very curious how they're going to define this. My account. I use at home. If I'm at my brother's and want to watch something, why should I be charged? Or I log in on an computer elsewhere.

Seems like there's gonna be a lot of caveats. And maybe something they only push for extensive use of an account at multiple "household"
 
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builder31 said:
This would be a great reason to decrease my Netflix subscription to basic and join the millions of people who turn their memberships on and off throughout the year. In an era of streaming and portable streaming devices, disabling users from sharing access is akin to shooting yourself in the foot because you see a penny on the ground. If I cannot use a streaming service when I travel, why am I paying for it in the first
_OS said:
"sharing accounts between households impacts its ability to "invest in great new TV and films"

But what about sharing an account with 3 members, who all pay their own share but who live away from the main account holder?

I understand if want to charge for the 1 account member charging to share the 1 account, but if it's a 4 person account they're still getting the same payment.
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Well they word it as four screen/devices nothing about persons sharing (although nobody watches on multiple screen same time)or living within a household. I understand their move though as the cost varies region by region and can easily be taken advantage of. It’s better than they locking the service to the region/country where the account holder is payin from.
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mnsportsgeek said:
Are you hung up on the concept that a dorm isn’t called a house?
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A dorm usually isn't a legal residence. For example, most states don't allow you to get an ID with a dorm address. Credit cards and bank accounts usually can't issued with a dorm address. Voting, jury duty, etc. would all be based on your permanent (typically parent's) residence.

I think that is the where the poster is coming from.

So the question becomes, how does Netflix plan to define a household, when many people might not be at their legal residence for much of the year? And how will Netflix enforce this? Will they geo-lock service to a subscribers billing address?

Will business travelers who spend 5 days a week in a hotel not be able to use Netflix outside their home? Will students at boarding schools not be able to use Netflix? etc etc etc


Personally, the main advantage of streaming for me, is to be able to stream content anywhere I am. On a train, waiting for my carpool group to get off work, when traveling for work, etc.
 
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CWallace said:
As I understand it, this program is for people who have one account and one login and are sharing it to others who then use that login to connect to Netflix from another residence.

For example: I live in Seattle and have a Netflix account that allows four devices to connect. My Netflix account is MyNetflix@live.com. I have only two devices in my house, so I give my account information to a friend who lives in Portland and they log in on their two devices using my MyNetflix@live.com account.

Doing the above is what Netflix wants to monetize.
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They are already monetizing it by you paying for the 4 screens at once.
 
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I dropped our house down to a basic account. Hard to justify paying so much when there are cheaper streaming services out there. I also wish they had a yearly payment option. One of the parts of Disney Plus, IMO--I pay once a year and forget it!
 
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Icehawk said:
Very curious how they're going to define this. My account. I use at home. If I'm at my brother's and want to watch something, why should I be charged? Or I log in on an computer elsewhere.

Seems like there's gonna be a lot of caveats. And maybe something they only push for extensive use of an account at multiple "household"
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I don’t know how they would do it. But generally it can be tracked from ip. If 2 households are watching at the same time then it would flag as different IPs. But this thing becomes more complicated for mobile devices then may be it comes down to monitoring over time of the usage and then flagging it
 
Cameront9 said:
I dropped our house down to a basic account. Hard to justify paying so much when there are cheaper streaming services out there. I also wish they had a yearly payment option. One of the parts of Disney Plus, IMO--I pay once a year and forget it!
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Out of interest and also because I myself am fed up with Netflix. What are cheaper options with better content? I think all of them dry up after a while. So generally I rotate my subscription across various services. Binge watch one and move to another service etc
 
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I really don’t see the issue with this, the idea is to get money from the people you share with. Therefore the actual subscriber pays no more, so what is the issue?

If you share with people who live with you that’s allowed, if they don’t why would you pay extra to share your paid subscription. Yes it was nice to share, but it doesn’t benefit you, the subscriber. It was just a bonus for your freeloading friends (joke).

Implementation would be the hard bit, my kids are all living at home, they have phones and iPads, we also use when abroad on holiday. Therefore they’d have to look at patterns of usage. Plus other examples given when kids in a colleage dorm, unless the current T&C’s define that as a separate home.
 
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Relentless Power said:
Subjective.

But, Apple TV+ is getting there, and they’ve expanded a lot in the last two years. But I wouldn’t even call it close to ‘Better’. It’s just some of the Content is different.
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Apple TV+ has consistently good content. I’ve found that I’m watching 3 or 4 shows at once (on the weekly Friday release schedule) & it’s better in terms of price: £5 a month for up to 6 people in 4K. I’ve recently paid for a year
 
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c84216 said:
True this.

Didn't even try my free subscription until Severance came along and started on a whim. Now I'm hooked into Ted Lasso as well. Apple seems to be prioritizing quality over quantity and they have a loyal ATV+ subscriber now.
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Ted Lasso is amazing. I’m enjoying Severance, but not as much as Suspicion. Tehran is great too. Mythic quest, if you’re a gamer.
 
Canceled it last month for the very first time. I will reinstate it when they have something worthy to watch again. Their quality has drastically gone down.
 
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