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Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

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Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#141
post #90

I can understand the outrage over content, wokeness, the direction, etc. But being angry over having to pay for services rendered? Come on. Don't use Netflix (or the alternatives) as a comfy Piratebay. Get it together, we're not children.

Many people already pay for the service. They pay for a multi user account, the problem is that they are cutting off people that are not living under the same roof.

Then they require you to pay an additional $8 for each extra member, it that would be the premium cost (approx $19 where I live) and an additional ~$16 if you add two users. That's $35 a month for a service that is filled with woke bs content, 10% of what you get in the US due to geofencing. This is the way it usually goes for me and my gf:

1. We finally find a movie we want to watch, after a lot of time researching

2. We search for the movie name and where we can stream it for money

3. Oh it says its available on Netflix, HBO and some other renting stores.

4. Oh they were all not available to us. Sometimes we can "purchase" the movie for like $20+ but since that is just a ridicolous amount to watch a movie once we usually don't watch anything at all or pirate it for free.

I have a really hard time seeing a bright future for Netflix in the EU if they continue down this path. Honestly that is probably a good thing though, since european alternatives can take that market share.

The problem is that for europeans that want to pay for contnent it's STILL hard. I still have to download stuff from pirate sites since most content is not available to us for reasons unknown.

What do you suggest that I would do when I want to watch a movie that is not available anywhere? I am here ready with my wallet but no one seems interested.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#142
The only reason I still have a Netflix account is that I was sharing it with my parents. Now I'm simply not watching Netflix anymore, and frankly the quality of the shows has been waning enough that I think I can get a subscription for one month once a year and catch up on everything that is worth watching. Ideally shows that were allowed to be completed instead of getting canceled on a cliffhanger.

If my parents decide they had enough as well, there goes that subscription.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#143

It's funny. Right now I have access to around 5 streaming services while I only pay for 2. My girlfriend's friend has access to Netflix, my sis HBO. I provide access to Disney+ and Prime to my family. I used to get YT premium from my sis's boyfriend, but they detected I'm not in the family household and they kicked me out. If it wasn't because other people use my accounts (and I use theirs), I wouldn't be paying for…

I've been a subscriber to basically everything for years. The only reason I haven't cancelled 90% of them is because my retired parents use my accounts. I almost never use the streaming services they use (I use YouTube Premium _a lot_, but I don't share that).

Given our combined minor usage, the day they lock one of us out it's all over, I'm cancelling them all!

I don't invest in streaming produced series any more as they have a tendency to want to eat their cake and have it too. They won't tie up a series but don't commit to producing a second one to tie it up, then arbitrary cancel them. It's like reading The Hobbit and the last two chapters are missing, never to be written, and there are plenty of actually finished books out there!

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#144
post #132
post #90

I can understand the outrage over content, wokeness, the direction, etc. But being angry over having to pay for services rendered? Come on. Don't use Netflix (or the alternatives) as a comfy Piratebay. Get it together, we're not children.

Fascinating to get downvoted for saying: pay for things you use. I hope you're proud of yourselves. My salary comes from people that buy product from my employer. What you're saying is that I should work for free for you guys. (No, I do not work at either of the streaming services.)

Downvote is for using "woke" as a slur.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably geo IP and calculating feasible travel times. E.g. if 2 clients connect that are 50 miles away within 5 minutes creds are obviously being shared.

That would give way WAY too many false positives. If I'm watching on the bus while my wife watches at home it would trigger. Similar if we have 2 homes etc. It would also rule out anyone using VPNs etc. Seems like a complete no-go and would see a huge chunk of paying users go simply because the product is now much worse for people who are not sharing accounts. That just can't be it.

They probably also fingerprint devices as well and correlate those times the devices are in the same area, etc. With user agents/device IDs, IPs and time you can work out quite a few relationships.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#146
post #90

I can understand the outrage over content, wokeness, the direction, etc. But being angry over having to pay for services rendered? Come on. Don't use Netflix (or the alternatives) as a comfy Piratebay. Get it together, we're not children.

Or the value proposition under the new conditions for many users is simply not there? Paying $X per month and allowing family and friends to watch is both convenient and cheap enough so it doesn't bother you. It's like paying for electricity in a family house. But when you are forced to be the only user of your paid account you evaluate if the cost for using a service 5-10 hours a month is truly justified. Degrading…

I understand this and will grant you that. But I'd bet a fair chunk of cash on this password sharing being something other than spouses sharing or running a de facto family account.

I mean: fine, Netflix sux, etc, tt's not worth $X. All fine.

But what's happening here is not that and you all know it. It's easy and cheap to just share passwords. When you do that, you're saying that I should pick up the bill for you. And my answer to you is: tf I'm not! You pay for you, I pay for me.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#147

It's funny. Right now I have access to around 5 streaming services while I only pay for 2. My girlfriend's friend has access to Netflix, my sis HBO. I provide access to Disney+ and Prime to my family. I used to get YT premium from my sis's boyfriend, but they detected I'm not in the family household and they kicked me out. If it wasn't because other people use my accounts (and I use theirs), I wouldn't be paying for…

That sounds complicated, but with today's sponsor - piracy - you can get any content from any subscription service with just a few clicks for the low price of zero dollars. Sharing is caring :)

It's often of poor quality and not in 4k. I rented a movie from YouTube the other day and the stream supported HDR, and if I had a 5.1 surround that would have worked, too!

If you're not watching 4 hours of TV per day it's not that expensive to rent content, but I'm saying this from the point of a westerner. For other parts of the world a $5 USD for a movie for 48 hours doesn't make any sense over straight up piracy.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#148
post #144
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascinating to get downvoted for saying: pay for things you use. I hope you're proud of yourselves. My salary comes from people that buy product from my employer. What you're saying is that I should work for free for you guys. (No, I do not work at either of the streaming services.)

Downvote is for using "woke" as a slur.

No, it is not. It's using woke in its actual definition do describe a set of considerations and changes that lots of people don't appreciate.

Compare with: right-wing, left-wing, christian, etc. Woke.

I don't want HBO Max to become right-wing or christian. Or woke.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#149
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The competition against another media giant, Blockbuster, created Netflix in the first place. It wasn’t a state-owned monopoly.

Yeah, but there was no real competition for Netflix' main business, streaming, for at least 5 years, when everyone was happy with the show selection.

That’s correct, and I’m personally dissatisfied with the content currently available on Netflix, as well as the distribution of content across too many services. But it would be disingenuous to describe it as a market failure when the market was responsible for creating the industry in the first place.

If there’s a critical mass of consumers unhappy with the current streaming landscape, providers will be forced to improve or risk being replaced by superior competitors. That’s what happened to Blockbuster as well, and what I suspect is going to happen to many major providers in the coming years.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#150
post #85
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to see that free market competition actually worsened the customer offering when it comes to streaming services. Back in the days, Netflix was a one-to-see-all service and that was also one of the reasons why it took people from torrenting to paying for movies. Nowadays, if you want to watch a particular movie, you have maybe a 10% chance that it is available on the streaming service that you are cur…

As an old movie kind of guy: I don't get why nobody wants me to have a big economical catalogue of all the movies. If you want to watch stuff from before about 1990 your best bet is pirating it off Youtube, oddly. Or hoping it's part of the 20th Century Fox that ended up on Disney+. The most generous film studio is .. Mosfilm. I suppose it's fitting that the Communist movies are available for free. (Criterion looks p…

> your best bet is pirating it off Youtube

From another old movie kind of guy: it's full of beautiful 1080p Bluray x265 torrents out there. Teams like VXT or RARBG release more old movies than one can watch.

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