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Update on Sharing

about.netflix.com

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Re: Update on Sharing

#301
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should have shared passwords, at least you could trade a Netflix for a Hulu or whatever. Apple TV is $6.99 a month. Netflix looks to be $9.99 (ignoring the ad-subsidized offering which isn’t really comparable). It is kind of hard to share an Apple TV login (at least I wasn’t able to figure out how to share it without also sharing my whole Apple account), so I guess that extra $3 must be the price of all the sharing g…

Apple TV are showing ads now, at least in my country

Ads for products outside the platform, or trailers for other material within the platform?

Re: Update on Sharing

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally cable all over again. How did we let this happen?

Like all the disruptors and reimagineers in tech before, all they really offered was the same thing we already had (but with a few billion lining their pocket).

I did not have the ability to access pretty much any media I wanted at almost anytime on almost any device, almost anywhere, until streaming.

Re: Update on Sharing

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the most mind-blowing aspect of this. Kids away at college use their parents' accounts for entertainment. Those kids graduate, then get their own accounts. Netflix is shooting themselves in the foot. These kids will just adopt content from other providers.

Kids away at college will just get their own accounts now. Compared to the cost of college with room and board, a monthly Netflix subscription is nothing, especially with the cheap ad-supported tier. Kids away at college do things like eat at restaurants and buy clothes which require money too, and if that money's coming from parents then so will a separate Netflix account. It's not like it's some great American trad…

As both a recently cancelled subscriber and as parent with a child in college I can personally attest that my college student has simply moved on from Netflix

Re: Update on Sharing

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t about keeping Netflix in business, they are doing just fine. This is about squeezing out every last drop of exponential growth expected by shareholders.

Their stock plummeted 75% between Oct 2021 and June 2022. That's not "doing just fine" by any standard. So no, this isn't about squeezing out every last drop, this is about making necessary structural changes to remain viable in the long-term.

Wait, when did stock price have anything to do with company health?

Re: Update on Sharing

#305

Seems perfectly reasonable. In fact, I've always thought their terms are quite generous and they've been super patient with people who steal their product by sharing access in violation of their ToS.

Stealing? They're freaking paying for it. If you're paying for 4 streams why the fuck do you care where they are streaming it them from? This is just a money grab for their shareholders pure and simple.

Re: Update on Sharing

#306
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a technical detail here to note though. To management the share price actually does matter because they have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder returns, and the board even more so. So while it’s true equity has no bearing on current operations, current operations does have to consider share price.

This duty does not actually exist, though many us-americans think it does. See https://medium.com/bull-market/there-is-no-effective-fiducia...

Well, it does exist but it’s premise is twisted and unclear. Dodge v Ford established such a duty exists but over time (as discussed in the article you linked) it’s been interpreted as a duty to the long benefit of shareholders. Dodge v Ford hinges on the fact Ford stopped paying dividends to pay his workers and that it was an enrichment of the employees at the expense of the equity holder. That’s been twisted around but never fully dismissed or accepted. But you can see shareholder value lawsuits all the time. However it’s a common law civil duty, not like a financial manager fiduciary responsibility that can bear criminal teeth.

Re: Update on Sharing

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is silly though. There was never an expectation that only 1 set of eyeballs would watch a stream. Netflix tweeted in 2017 that “Love is sharing a password”. There is no other way to read that statement other than being pro sharing. Which makes sense, I pay for X concurrent streams. Let me use my streams, period. https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712

So and then 5 years later they changed their mind. What amuses me in this thread that people who change their mind every 5 minutes accuse a company changing their mind after some years.

I don’t think anyone is saying they can’t change their mind, just that it might have consequences. They leaned on password sharing to grow their base and once they are on top, they shut it down. I’ve paid for the 4 stream 4k since it’s release. I share it my mom and brother. Combine we all watch it less than 10 hrs a month. It’s is not worth its cost for any one of us to have an account. The moment I get that password email, I will cancel.

Re: Update on Sharing

#308

Seems perfectly reasonable. In fact, I've always thought their terms are quite generous and they've been super patient with people who steal their product by sharing access in violation of their ToS.

Stealing? They're freaking paying for it. If you're paying for 4 streams why the fuck do you care where they are streaming it them from? This is just a money grab for their shareholders pure and simple.

Yes, stealing. If you are sharing your login with people the terms you agreed to don't allow you to share it with, you are stealing. As for why I care - because I despise stealing and the entitlement and distespect and ignorance that's usually behind it.

This is not a food, medicine, shelter, human-rights, or access-to-knowledge situation. We're talking about bingeware, no one really needs this in any serious way, it's purely optional junk food for the brain, so there is absolutely no excuse for stealing it. Extra especially not because of how much as-good-or-better entertainment content is available online for free.

Re: Update on Sharing

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or all services will do this, and students will just pay. Sure, there will be college students who are more technical and comfortable paying for a VPN and who will invest in an external hard drive and will download torrents in advance of watching, as there always has been. But that's way too complicated for most folks. And between the price of a monthly torrenting-friendly VPN and enough storage, the ad-supported tie…

I think you've forgotten what the community at college was like. If one person on your floor knew how to pirate, the entire floor knew how to pirate by the end of the first semester. Streaming had begun to fill the niche of being convenient enough to not needing to bother, but broke college students are going to save money in all the places they can.

> If one person on your floor knew how to pirate, the entire floor knew how to pirate by the end of the first semester

This is not how it worked. Some percentage, say 20-30% knew how to pirate, and everyone else on the shared network profited because the 20-30% made public folders.

Re: Update on Sharing

#310
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have weird post-processing/sharpening on your TV (other than "soap opera mode")? There's really no reason to watch 1080p instead of 4K. Your eyes aren't somehow low resolution with 1080p closer to that realism.

>There's really no reason to watch 1080p instead of 4K Yes there is. For one, 90% of non-native 4K is absolute crap. Upscales tend to bludgeon detail even compared to 480p/i sources, and DNR is rather crap, especially on the intense settings companies typically use. Native 4k can be better, but there’s still so many mastering options that it still causes problems. See Star Wars, LotR, Terminator 2 as all rather contr…

I wonder if this is it. I definitely notice artifacts more in higher resolution.

Low resolution video doesn't bother me at all. I can happily watch 480p. But the weird compression artifacts following moving objects absolutely frustrate and distract me.

Maybe streaming services aren't encoding their higher resolution streams with a sufficient bitrate? Or maybe the higher resolution makes the artifacts more noticeable? Either way, the low resolution experience seems consistently superior.

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