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Sharing Your Netflix Account

help.netflix.com

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Re: Sharing Your Netflix Account

#181
post #177
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem." - Gabe Newell, 10+ years ago Once upon a time, Netflix itself was considered the case in point! Then video streaming splintered into a dozen services and now Netflix has decided to make things even more complicated. People don't learn, I guess.

> "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem." - Gabe Newell, 10+ years ago Yet nearly everyone complaining here today about Netflix is complaining about the price.

The additional context needed is how fragmented the content library has become. Netflix has so much less popular content compared to 10 years ago.

Re: Sharing Your Netflix Account

#182
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a real difference between "didn't strictly enforce their terms of service" and "actively encouraged a behavior". They definitely did the latter.

Not for the last several years, they haven't.

Okay, but I have a memory longer than the last several years. I signed up for Netflix more than several years ago.

It reminds me of the West Wing series where President Bartlett is mad that his wife expects him to hold to the promise of talking to her before he makes the decision to run again. He says: "Damn it Abbey! That was 4 years ago!", as if a promise expires because it's old.

Now, Netflix didn't make a promise, but they did set consumer expectations about their service. And that expectation doesn't expire just because it's old.

I mean, they obviously have every right to change their behavior, but it's totally reasonable to point out that this is a change in their behavior, and a change in the agreement between them and the consumer (maybe not a literal change in the TOS, but a change in the practical agreement that we had).

Re: Sharing Your Netflix Account

#183
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "multi-generational" have to do with anything? My mom doesn't live under my roof, and also I have no business sharing my Netflix account with her.

You literally pay for a number of parallel streams, i.e. screens. It shouldn't matter whether those screens are where I am or on Mars if you paid for a subscription that includes them. E2A: From their own marketing of their subscriptions: >Watch on 4 different devices at the same time with Premium, 2 with Standard and 1 with Basic.

Clearly you do not.

Re: Sharing Your Netflix Account

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You literally pay for a number of parallel streams, i.e. screens. It shouldn't matter whether those screens are where I am or on Mars if you paid for a subscription that includes them. E2A: From their own marketing of their subscriptions: >Watch on 4 different devices at the same time with Premium, 2 with Standard and 1 with Basic.

Clearly you do not.

[deleted]

Re: Sharing Your Netflix Account

#185

My Mom lives on the West Coast while we live on the East. She's almost 70 and on a fixed income, so I pay for Netflix access for all of us and I'm happy to do so. However, if they block her access I can't see any reason to keep my 4k plan. I can get anything we want on a Plex server and give her whatever she wants to watch that way. I was already on the fence with the lack of content on Netflix, but this may just be…

So your thesis is that piracy is cheaper. Ok thanks.

Goodwill was the only argument they had. Burning that up seems like a great way to kill what income streams they had.

Re: Sharing Your Netflix Account

#186

To try to be generous/polite, how am I supposed to read many of these comments other than... rampantly entitled? Regarding concurrent stream plans, I'm afraid you're going to have a very bad not great day if you get mad about every tech-y company over-selling to unsuspecting consumers... Or are we keeping with the feigned-ignorance thing and acting like a company growth-hacking and rug-pulling customers is anything b…

I don't understand, first you describe other users "rampantly entitled" then you explain perfectly legitimate reasons for them to be annoyed with this decision?

Re: Sharing Your Netflix Account

#187

My Mom lives on the West Coast while we live on the East. She's almost 70 and on a fixed income, so I pay for Netflix access for all of us and I'm happy to do so. However, if they block her access I can't see any reason to keep my 4k plan. I can get anything we want on a Plex server and give her whatever she wants to watch that way. I was already on the fence with the lack of content on Netflix, but this may just be…

Your logic seems to conclude that you keep paying for Netflix, but that your mom will be the only one to use it.

The difference is that there's no reason to keep the expensive 4k account.

The Premium plan is 4k streaming, and up to 4 devices. But now they want to keep those two features bundled, while limiting your ability to stream to 4 devices (because now they'll all need to be in the same house). Sharing my account was my reason to suck that up and pay 20 bucks a month for 4k streaming.

Now only I can watch it, or in OP comment's case only his mom can watch it, so there's no reason to not just switch to the basic plan with 720p for 10 bucks a month. Point is, there will be cancellations, but also a ton of people halving their subscription cost. It's going to hurt Netflix on both ends.

Re: Sharing Your Netflix Account

#188
post #177
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem." - Gabe Newell, 10+ years ago Once upon a time, Netflix itself was considered the case in point! Then video streaming splintered into a dozen services and now Netflix has decided to make things even more complicated. People don't learn, I guess.

> "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem." - Gabe Newell, 10+ years ago Yet nearly everyone complaining here today about Netflix is complaining about the price.

[deleted]

Re: Sharing Your Netflix Account

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is not "fair enough". Those aren't the same situations. You need to pay a second ISP bill because that requires physical infrastructure to be laid down and maintained. Same with utilities and the toaster. Once you have the network connection you can access Netflix just fine. Unless they place an arbitrary restriction on it.

By that logic, everyone on earth can share a single account! Perhaps you didn’t know, but Netflix operates one of the biggest CDNs on the planet: https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/

> By that logic, everyone on earth can share a single account!

I suppose we can take turns watching content on their 3 screen(!) plan. My ticket #1,204,394,701 should come up in around 30,000 years.

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