fujishig

It is kind of amazing to me how much backlash there is against this. I didn't know that Netflix sharing was that prevalent, but if so it makes sense why they are trying to crack down. Like does everyone but me split their netflix with someone else?

mndtrp

I never shared mine. Once I got rid of Netflix, I had a friend offer to share, but I declined. So there's at least two of us.

Deftones

I do with my in laws. Retired and on a fixed income. I will pay for the extra fee for a sub account for them so they can continue to use it.

Nesbit

Ive had multiple people offer to share their netflix (and other subs) with me. If i wanted to i could get access to at least three accounts within the hour.

RichC2

I don't split my account but I do let my parents use it, if that makes sense.

TheBigDave

I share mine with my brother's family. They live only a few blocks away, so hopefully Netflix doesn't notice.

TheBang

No, if you're regularly using Netflix on a device like a phone or tablet at your home location that you are then taking to your temporary location for 2 weeks, they will work fine (seamlessly) for that period, because they are a "trusted device". If you are logging into a new device at your temporary location (like a TV), then it will be blocked from accessing your account until you enter in a temporary access code that is sent to your email. That code will enable 7 days of access on that new device (and you'll have to reauthorize it again later to get through your full 2 weeks at that location).

What you're saying is that your parents don't have a separate profile for their usage. But they're not part of your household, so that is still account sharing. Under the new policy, you'd need to purchase a sub-account for them.

Unless they're sharing your Internet connection too, Netflix will detect them as a separate household, and you'll need to purchase a sub-account for them.

Noonan

They should really build in some type of exception for adults with either elderly parents or children in college (or both). Those are perfectly reasonable reasons to give out your PW.

RichC2

No, what I'm saying is I definitely share the account with them, but they don't pay me for it so I don't count it as splitting per se

But yes I'm aware of what Netflix will eventually require barring some creative VPN or MAC/BSSID manipulation.

fujishig

I am a little confused by the (now yanked) policies. I swear when they were testing this earlier they had some kind of add on fee if you wanted to share, but I didn't see that mentioned.

RichC2

That was their original pitch but that seems to have fallen off

Decker

I like being able to watch Netflix in my Tesla if I have to wait for a restaurant table or if I arrive too early for a meeting. I am not going to remember to connect my car to my wifi network every single month in order to continue to do that on rare occasions.

TheBang

That might be a case where you have to authorize it via email code when you want to watch it. Or maybe Netflix will waive that hassle for Tesla clients.

DJLinus

So your "home" will be tied to a specific wifi. Will that be affected if I change ISPs? For instance, I currently have Xfiniti cable internet, but am thinking of switching to Verizon 5g home internet. Will I be fine as long as I keep the network names exactly the same? Or is there some unique identifier from each ISP account that Netflix would be tied to? (Pardon my ignorance on this techie stuff.) If the latter, I wonder how many hoops you'll have to jump through to verify a new ISP with Netflix.

I share my account with mom and my sister's family. Guess their days are limited, unless Netflix goes the add-on route and those bums kick in some money.

Josh-da-man

I would assume that they go by your IP address. Your home wifi network is tethered to your IP address. I don't think they would have any way to know what wifi network you're using. So someone visiting your home and using your wifi network could probably view Netflix on their phone, tablet, or laptop without Netflix knowing; might have to authorize the device, though.

(Since you're not "techie," your IP address is like a phone number that your internet service provider assigns you. Your traffic goes through your IP address, and it's how data is shuffled to and from your network. If you have a wifi/router, then your internet cable goes into the router and creates a home network that you can use to log multiple devices onto the internet like computers, phones, tablets, smart tvs, blu-ray players, RINGs, and anything else that goes online or uses your home network.)

Where this could become problematic is if your internet provider doesn't a provide a static IP and changes it from time to time, or you're using a VPN, which would make it appear to Netflix that your account is being logged into from different locations even if it isn't. And, yes, if you switch service providers your IP will change. Probably wouldn't be an issue for Netflix, though, since you won't be going back and forth. The most you'd probably have to do is reauthorize.

New Lurker

So correct me if I'm wrong here, because I'm no tech CEO or executive.

But if the problem is them losing revenue from password sharing, wouldn't a reasonable up charge if they detect password sharing make more sense than this convoluted mess? If the goal is make MORE money, charging $2 a month more if password sharing is detected by we'll say 50% of their user base, is a $230 million dollar revenue increase. (50% of 230 mil users = 115 x $2).

With how many hoops and interruptions and incessant nagging this is going to cause, people aren't going to sign up for their own when getting kicked off. They just will move onto a different streaming provider. You aren't going to grow your user base by much with this move, and you may actually alienate longtime users with legitimate instances of use. If you have unlimited data on your mobile device and use the 5G signal while traveling, they technically consider that password sharing. Logging into your account at your girlfriends house so you can Netflix & chill? Technically password sharing.

This was created by an executive with no semblance of how people consume content. And Netflix deserves to bleed out for this self inflicted wound.

fujishig

I'm sure they have a ton of data on how, where and when people password share, so I'd hope that they use all that data to devise this plan and only go after egregious offenders (and maybe not even that, maybe just the threat is enough, I don't know). If you have one offs, it seems like you'll get a 2FA, so girlfriend's house should be fine. If you're constantly logging in at the same time across multiple states, maybe that's more of a red flag, again I dunno.

I agree that there should be an upcharge, and that was in the original test plans, so maybe this early leak was incomplete? But even then there are a ton of people at least online who feel like it's their inalienable right to split Netflix 5 ways with strangers. I don't really think there's much risk of people going to other platforms instead, I mean if you want the content on Netflix you can't really go to HBO Max, and the trend is going to be for those services to either pare down their offerings or raise prices or both (and if this is successful for Netflix everyone else will follow anyway).

DJLinus

Thanks! I can get around with tech, but didn't know how into the weeds this could be. For some reason, I thought the IP address was unique to each device, not the ISP account. Which makes no sense when talking about a VPN, which I'm familiar with. Durr. Brain fart.

Josh-da-man

Devices have a unique MAC Address (Media Access Control), but those are only used by whatever network you're on and shouldn't be visible to your ISP or websites.

fujishig

There are other factors like a service using a NAT'ed shared IP address for multiple customers, but Netflix has to have a way to deal with dynamic IPs and such. They can also identify which/what kind of device you are using so there's that. Again, if they do implement this I have to assume they're competent enough to ramp this up slowly, go after the very obvious offenders first (ie: people using non mobile devices in vastly separate areas at the same time) and such and go from there. If they just flip a switch it'll be chaos.

dex14

fujishig

8 bucks doesn't seem too bad. Yes that's almost the price of basic by itself but you get up to UHD and I assume Spatial Audio, just on one screen/device at a time.

andicus

Why am I not surprised that they do this to Canada before the US? I guess they want to see what the pushback will be on a smaller but similar demographic.

cultshock

Yeah really. Netflix has been on the bubble for me for the last couple years anyway, if this ends up being a big PITA, I'll have no hesitation dropping it completely. I got plenty of other streamers I can watch.

TheBang

8 CAD is about 6 USD. 8 NZD is about 5 USD. 6 EUR is about 6.50 USD. So, if we were to guess, I would say an extra account in the US will probably be $6.

So, if a Standard Account had an extra account that would be $15.49 + $5.99, or an averaged cost of $10.74 per account.
If a Premium Account had 2 extra accounts, that would be $19.99 + $5.99 + $5.99, or an averaged cost of $10.66 per account.

So, if you can join 2 or 3 people to split evenly, you can get a Standard or Premium account for about the monthly cost of a Basic account.