Netflix hints at password sharing crackdown

[phenomlab]

I saw this article earlier, which piqued my interest

https://news.sky.com/story/netflix-hints-at-crackdown-on-password-sharing-after-fall-in-subscribers-12594439

The streaming giant estimated around 100 million households worldwide are watching its service for free by using the account of a friend or another family member, including 30 million in the US and Canada.

Did they seriously think that password sharing to reduce overall costs amongst friends and family wouldn’t be an issue ?? Like Zoom, Netflix enjoyed a huge uptake in user subscriptions during the COVID pandemic, and now of course, that revenue will be in freefall as people return to their jobs and are spending less time at home.

Surely, they must have realised that such a surge couldn’t last ? Now it seems they are getting greedy - if they decide to start including ads in a paid service, I’ll be cancelling my subscription for sure. The whole point of subscription services is not to receive ads in the first place !

[marusaky]

@phenomlab

I have chosen HBO Max over Netflix, way better in the price and the content they offer!

[phenomlab]

@marusaky Yes, I must admit Netflix has lost it’s appeal. I tend to watch a lot of USA based TV (based in the UK), and in all honesty, there’s rarely anything on there I actually want to watch. Amazon Prime is much the same

[marusaky]

@phenomlab

I hate Amazon Prime to the core because they ruined Lord of the Rings (The rings of power) because they put dIvErSiFiCaTiOn into the Tolkien’s mouth and shytting all over the lotr fan base

[DownPW]

not several choice on Amazon Prime, I prefer Netflix.
Disney + = No comment !

[phenomlab]

@DownPW Disney+ … Don’t get me started !

[JAC]

@phenomlab said in Netflix hints at password sharing crackdown:

Amazon Prime is much the same

I must admit I’ve never been able to find anything on there that I fancied watching, maybe I’m just boring .

[phenomlab]

No longer a “hint” but a rapidly rising reality

https://news.sky.com/story/revealed-how-netflix-plans-to-stop-you-sharing-your-password-12800510

What really annoys me here is that they are choosing to do this during a cost of living crisis, which implies nothing more than greed in my view.

Instead of “you know what, everyone is feeling the pressure of rising energy bills and we realise that people might be struggling” they are simply looking for ways to generate additional revenue at a time when people are looking to effectively scale back on their monthly spend.

Quite honestly, that’s a despicable practice. For the billions that company turns in profits each year, you’d think they would have more empathy.

[DownPW]

@phenomlab

An Total, how many benefits milliards ? Shame

[phenomlab]

And so it seems that the “hint” is now in fact reality

https://news.sky.com/story/netflix-begins-crackdown-on-households-sharing-passwords-12887946

[DownPW]

They decided to make a little more money under the guise of security

[phenomlab]

@DownPW you know what’s interesting? Here in the UK, streaming services periodically log you out so you then have to log back in and they use that as a way of tracking who is using their services.

As if they don’t make enough profit already.

[crazycells]

@phenomlab First, there was live tv and cable, then Netflix decided that you do not need to pay a lot of fees for cable tv channels to get all these unwanted movies, useless programs, and unnecessary shows, and you should cut costs by buying Netflix, with a fraction of what you were spending before for cable tv and you can stream videos on demand anytime you want and watch only what you want.

Netflix started to offer movies from all major studios… Then, major studios realized how juicy this sector was getting, they stopped selling their movies to Netflix and they all created their own streaming platforms disney, HBO, hulu, amazon, paramount, discovery, peacock… and now cable tv is almost dead but thanks to movie studios’ greed, we went back to square one, with many platforms to buy and pay for it. we are actually paying more than what we used to pay for cable tv, and watch only what we want by having many unwanted movies, useless programs, and unnecessary shows

[crazycells]

lol

[phenomlab]

@crazycells absolutely love this response. It’s so accurate, and perfectly sums up the exact scenario we have found ourselves in today.

Back in the 90’s, I was installing cable TV for Cable and Wireless (see here) and even back then, it was being touted as the best thing to ever be created, with access to channels such as RTL, Movies, and much more. We were even offering a “dish down” service where the customer would get a discount on their installation if they allowed us to remove their Sky dish (which at the time was the size of a trash can lid, and weighed a ton).

Back then, pay per view was still huge, and streaming services didn’t even exist. It just seems ironic that cable TV was created to enhance the viewer experience, and then was subsequently replaced with streaming TV services - with Netflix being the pioneer and then others following suit - in fact, some are doing it better.

And yet, as you rightly say, all they have given us is the ability to binge watch shows rather than have to wait a week before the next episode as used to be the case, and despite having access to thousands of titles, there’s never anything to watch 🤬

[phenomlab]

Something of an update - an “ad free” subscription is now available, so that means any standard users (including myself) are likely to be bombed with annoying ads!

https://news.sky.com/story/netflix-raises-uk-price-plans-as-subscribers-grow-at-fastest-rate-since-2020-lockdown-12987335

[phenomlab]

An interesting take on this. I don’t typically agree with Martin Lewis, but it’s hard to ignore the points he makes here - particularly around the “eye watering” top price.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2023/10/netflix-price-rise/

[crazycells]

@phenomlab with many of these platforms economically collapsing and increasing prices… pirating will rise again…

thank god we have put.io

[phenomlab]

@crazycells Thanks for the link. That’s certainly an interesting concept!

[crazycells]

@phenomlab yeah, I think people would find this very useful as a download manager. It uses servers in Netherlands to download, and then you get it from there. As you and I are very decent people, we would never download copyrighted materials or pirate this kind of materials at all… And on top of this, of course we are against that. We love laws, and would pay if we want to watch movies.

But, if someone would want it to downlonad a free, uncopyrighted movie and then delete it after watching, they could do that easily with this put.io I know this app, because Turkish programmers are behind this, but I know it is popular around the world. If someone wants 20% discount code over their yearly rate, they should just reach them before buying and ask for a discount nicely, I have a feeling that they will provide a code.