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Netflix to Begin Cracking Down on Password Sharing in Early 2023

My take…


2010…
Netflix was all for sharing your streaming password when it first arrived, it had all the studios on board and it was the only game in town

2023…
They’re going broke and all the studios abandoned them and created their own services. Gotta squeeze that last penny before the collapse.

When they announce password crackdown, I’m out.
 
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Macintosh Quadra 840av said:
How? Those people aren't paying them anyways. Removing people who aren't paying doesn't cost them anything.

In fact, those people are using bandwidth, which costs Netflix money. Removing them saves them money.
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Folks who pay for multiple streams right now and then share with family will drop their plans down if they don't need those streams anymore, or drop netflix altogether if the fam is sharing the cost. That’s how
 
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1284814 said:
Plus one thing to consider is if you use a vpn they will never know for sure. or if you create a new account every 3 months . And just keep sharing it.
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Irony of this being that Apple TV does not support VPN’s. You would have to Airplay it from your iPhone or iPad to do that.
 
TheYayAreaLiving 🎗 said:
I'm not sure how I feel about Netflix spying through IP addresses, and device IDs. What happens if you use a VPN? How are they going to crack that down?
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Or use it while you travel. or in a coffee shop (I’m considerate, I tether to my phone if I’m streaming and of course use headphones). Or at the office and at home. Or at multiple homes (for ex my own home, my parent’s home, my sister’s home, my in-laws home, etc when I’m there for family reasons, holidays, etc, which is pretty often). Or… etc
 
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seek3r said:
Folks who pay for multiple streams right now and then share with family will drop their plans down if they don't need those streams anymore, or drop netflix altogether if the fam is sharing the cost. That’s how
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I'm guessing that Netflix views this as a cost of doing business. If the only reason there is a subscription is due to family sharing and the entire family drops out, with no one picking up any other subscription, that's just the way it is.
 
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I can see a lot of anger from customers who will be accused of sharing as they watch Netflix on their smartphone on the go then what at home, one household viewing on a different internet connection and some household like my own have more than one internet provider, I have access to a free internet service and one paid then they is the mobile data.

I can see NETFLIX servers making errors.
 
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Kar98 said:
People who are only paying for a service because they’re not properly motivated to cancel. But you knew that, right?
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If I knew, I wouldn't have asked 🙄 I've literally never heard the phrase "paying out of inertia" before. I don't know why someone would cancel just because they're unable to share their password illegitimately anymore if that's what you mean. Are there seriously a ton of people out there paying for Netflix solely to support freeloaders and not using their Netflix account at all themselves? I doubt it.
 
stbrown said:
Im curious to see how this works. My scenario for my account is this

1) I have 2 internet connections, one for business and a personal one. Netflix is used on both depending which floor its watched on
2) My wife travels to teach in another country for 5 months of the year and uses netflix
3) We use cell phones off of wifi sometimes to stream, these will have another IP address

I wonder how this will be treated by netflix as its being used in the same household but its going to show up from various IP addresses
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And those of us with Verizon Fixed Wireless Home Internet have our IP address changing at least once a day and geolocation providers have us bouncing all over the country.
 
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seek3r said:
Or use it while you travel. or in a coffee shop (I’m considerate, I tether to my phone if I’m streaming and of course use headphones). Or at the office and at home. Or at multiple homes (for ex my own home, my parent’s home, my sister’s home, my in-laws home, etc when I’m there for family reasons, holidays, etc, which is pretty often). Or… etc
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I don't know how Netflix is going to do this. Obviously with the netflix app on your phone, your IP is going to be different than your home when you are not in your home network or using Netflix from LTE. However, I guess if netflix sees two simultaneous streams from one netflix user it can flag that.
 
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Dobbs2 said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/840276073040371712

Netflix encouraged this behavior for years.

This is for you and everyone else who doesn't understand.
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They didn't encourage one netflix account across college campuses though, as an example. That may have been the catalyst for this. So don't say I didn't understand...it's the blatant sharing that became the issue.
 
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jjudson said:
The IP address thing is interesting for people like me. I don't have Netflix any longer, but I'm certain that some folks are like me -- I don't watch at home, but watch when I'm traveling in hotel rooms. I'm in hotel rooms all over the world and quite frequently. I wonder how they'll address that...
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yep. posted similar comment earlier. I travel alot and always take a Firestick with me to plug in at hotels or Airbnbs. Occasionally, will even just use the sign in set up at a hotel to sign into Netflix on their device as instructed and then log off and clear cache when departing. Really hoping they've thought that thru or alot of my fellow travelers are going to be cancelling their Netflix accounts. I think they should be able to track alot of this ok if they are also looking at devices. but that won't happen for those situations where one signs in on the host's device.
 
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Right now they have Basic, Standard, and Premium, that allow one, two and four screens at the same time. Just leave it at that. I have the four screen plan, and my wife and I, plus our two kids watch Netflix. I'm paying for four screens, and we have four family members watching. They really need to have family sharing like Apple.
 
I live in Guatemala. I pay for the most expensive Netflix Plan: 4K, 5 users, 4 simultaneous connections. I share the password with my parents and my in-laws. I only watch Netflix occasionally - never more than 2 simultaneous connections at home. A couple of months ago, they started blocking their connections, asking them to pay the extra $3. I cancelled my subscription then, because I thought it was not cost effective. It lasted only a month, and then they backed down, dropping the $3 charge for extra homes in my country. I guess a lot of people cancelled...
 
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I find it so amusing to see people whining over this thing... These people expect everything to be free but they expect their wages to continuously increase each year... how amusing.
 
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