Netflix PW sharing Crackdown

The Coffee Shop
23

But if I am paying for 4 streams, why should they care where the 4 streams are. If they really want it to be an individual account then only sell single stream accounts and make each person buy there own account.

The four streams are intended for a household, not across households. And Netflix doesn’t really want it to be an individual account. The terms of service is pretty clear, “A Netflix account is for people who live together in a single household.” I don’t know how to phrase that more clearly. It’s interesting to discuss alternative business models, but this is the model that Netflix is using.

So your saying if I dont have a single household I should not get Netflix?

How long do we have to live togeather? if my kid is at college for 4, 6, 8, 10 months of the year?

What if they do a study abroad in the summer?

24

So your saying if I dont have a single household I should not get Netflix?

If there are multiple households you should get one subscription for each household. (Or cancel altogether).

If multiple households merge for some period of time, accounts can be paused, then reactivated when they split again.

It’s not that complicated.

25

But if I am paying for 4 streams, why should they care where the 4 streams are. If they really want it to be an individual account then only sell single stream accounts and make each person buy there own account.

The four streams are intended for a household, not across households. And Netflix doesn’t really want it to be an individual account. The terms of service is pretty clear, “A Netflix account is for people who live together in a single household.” I don’t know how to phrase that more clearly. It’s interesting to discuss alternative business models, but this is the model that Netflix is using.

So your saying if I dont have a single household I should not get Netflix?

How long do we have to live togeather? if my kid is at college for 4, 6, 8, 10 months of the year?

What if they do a study abroad in the summer?

Where is your kids domicile? That really determines it.

I’d say once your kid is out of college and living in their own place that would be outside the household

26

i read the article and i still don’t know if the goal is to stop people like us - 4 adults live in the house (includes 2 adult children), with one spending a lot of time away at college; one password, four user accounts/ids. i thought we were using the service as intended.

i can see why they don’t want anyone giving the neighbors, parents or other relatives who live somewhere else their password to use, but seems like it is going to hard to allow my daughter to use the password when staying at her college digs, but block someone giving the password to a relative who doesn’t live with them.

I’d say you are not the target

27

But don’t they already limit how many streams you can have going… Pretty sure they do. When 2 of my kids are on I have to watch something else or ask one of them to get off.

Why is this not sufficient? Who cares where we are watching those streams from?

Because they make money per account, not per device streamed.

Sorry your wrong here is netflix’s current pricing plan. https://help.netflix.com/en/node/24926

Ok so the point I was making is that they were losing out on entire subscribers if they just let people add more streaming devices per account. They are losing money with each additional decide added vs gaining another individual account.

Another basic account without ads is $10 per month revenue.

However adding another device to an existing acct is only $5.49 per account. That number goes down with more devices added.

So yes their incentive is to add more accounts to increase revenue. And while it is always good to increase revenue from existing customers, the goal should be to add more accounts I’d think and gain new customers.

But if I am paying for 4 streams, why should they care where the 4 streams are. If they really want it to be an individual account then only sell single stream accounts and make each person buy there own account.

I imagine they care bc you’re allowed to have 4 devices streaming at once anywhere, not just 4 individual locations.

So someone can pay an increasingly small amount to allow more devices to be used and that makes it easy to share with family and friends all over the place.

The multiple devices appeal to a family unit.

28

They know your IP addresses you’re logging in through to show your location. They also know your device information because that is captured by the application.

So traveling becomes a non-issue because the device you are on will have the device signature stored by Netflix and know it’s your device regardless of the IP address.

How does this work when I go to a hotel or Airbnb and use their smart tv to log into my account ? Which is increasingly popular.

There is a lot you can get from an IP.

https://db-ip.com/162.130.1.0 For instance. It’ll show that you’re at the Marriott

Also there is no way the system will have the level of sensitivity that if you happen to be at a hotel that it’ll block you. We’re not talking about logging into a bank account here. My guess is they will use a long runway before it flags that it could be someone sharing their password. The goal isn’t to piss everyone off it’s to fix what they’re thinking is the threshold where people are doing it and not giving a shit.

Right but the fear isn’t instantaneous blocking. It’s that Netflix will recognize an account is being used all over and then the account will get flagged. If I’m understanding it correctly.

They have no way of distinguishing between someone who travels a lot for work and logging on in various locations each month or someone sharing their password to someone who lives in different locations.

Right?

29

They have no way of distinguishing between someone who travels a lot for work and logging on in various locations each month or someone sharing their password to someone who lives in different locations.

Right?

I’d say sharing with someone who lives in multiple different locations is pretty rare. But even then I wouldn’t say “no way.” There are very likely cues related to device registration (MAC address, not just IP) , locations of use and content preferences. I’m sure Netflix has applied “AI” just like credit
card vendors do to distinguish between your patterns of use and someone else’s.

What percentage accuracy…I’d bet pretty high, but we’ll see shortly, apparently.

30

They have no way of distinguishing between someone who travels a lot for work and logging on in various locations each month or someone sharing their password to someone who lives in different locations.

Right?

I’d say sharing with someone who lives in multiple different locations is pretty rare. But even then I wouldn’t say “no way.” There are very likely cues related to device registration (MAC address, not just IP) , locations of use and content preferences. I’m sure Netflix has applied “AI” just like credit
card vendors do to distinguish between your patterns of use and someone else’s.

What percentage accuracy…I’d bet pretty high, but we’ll see shortly, apparently.

It’s all Greek to me, but makes sense I think. It is logical to assume they have the ability to distinguish most of the usage. I hadn’t thought about the similarity to credit card patterns.

31

They know your IP addresses you’re logging in through to show your location. They also know your device information because that is captured by the application.

So traveling becomes a non-issue because the device you are on will have the device signature stored by Netflix and know it’s your device regardless of the IP address.

How does this work when I go to a hotel or Airbnb and use their smart tv to log into my account ? Which is increasingly popular.

There is a lot you can get from an IP.

https://db-ip.com/162.130.1.0 For instance. It’ll show that you’re at the Marriott

Also there is no way the system will have the level of sensitivity that if you happen to be at a hotel that it’ll block you. We’re not talking about logging into a bank account here. My guess is they will use a long runway before it flags that it could be someone sharing their password. The goal isn’t to piss everyone off it’s to fix what they’re thinking is the threshold where people are doing it and not giving a shit.

Right but the fear isn’t instantaneous blocking. It’s that Netflix will recognize an account is being used all over and then the account will get flagged. If I’m understanding it correctly.

They have no way of distinguishing between someone who travels a lot for work and logging on in various locations each month or someone sharing their password to someone who lives in different locations.

Right?

The service recognizes when you log in on a different device. So if you log in on your laptop from various locations, it still recognizes it as being from the same laptop. Different from logging on from various computers, streaming devices, or TVs in different locations.

32

They know your IP addresses you’re logging in through to show your location. They also know your device information because that is captured by the application.

So traveling becomes a non-issue because the device you are on will have the device signature stored by Netflix and know it’s your device regardless of the IP address.

How does this work when I go to a hotel or Airbnb and use their smart tv to log into my account ? Which is increasingly popular.

There is a lot you can get from an IP.

https://db-ip.com/162.130.1.0 For instance. It’ll show that you’re at the Marriott

Also there is no way the system will have the level of sensitivity that if you happen to be at a hotel that it’ll block you. We’re not talking about logging into a bank account here. My guess is they will use a long runway before it flags that it could be someone sharing their password. The goal isn’t to piss everyone off it’s to fix what they’re thinking is the threshold where people are doing it and not giving a shit.

Right but the fear isn’t instantaneous blocking. It’s that Netflix will recognize an account is being used all over and then the account will get flagged. If I’m understanding it correctly.

They have no way of distinguishing between someone who travels a lot for work and logging on in various locations each month or someone sharing their password to someone who lives in different locations.

Right?

The service recognizes when you log in on a different device. So if you log in on your laptop from various locations, it still recognizes it as being from the same laptop. Different from logging on from various computers, streaming devices, or TVs in different locations.

Exactly, this is way overblown for all the people that are not sharing passwords. Like I said, this has been on a lot of services for years they know how to do it. They aren’t just going shut off your service because they picked up that logged in somewhere else that isn’t normal.

33

They know your IP addresses you’re logging in through to show your location. They also know your device information because that is captured by the application.

So traveling becomes a non-issue because the device you are on will have the device signature stored by Netflix and know it’s your device regardless of the IP address.

How does this work when I go to a hotel or Airbnb and use their smart tv to log into my account ? Which is increasingly popular.

There is a lot you can get from an IP.

https://db-ip.com/162.130.1.0 For instance. It’ll show that you’re at the Marriott

Also there is no way the system will have the level of sensitivity that if you happen to be at a hotel that it’ll block you. We’re not talking about logging into a bank account here. My guess is they will use a long runway before it flags that it could be someone sharing their password. The goal isn’t to piss everyone off it’s to fix what they’re thinking is the threshold where people are doing it and not giving a shit.

Right but the fear isn’t instantaneous blocking. It’s that Netflix will recognize an account is being used all over and then the account will get flagged. If I’m understanding it correctly.

They have no way of distinguishing between someone who travels a lot for work and logging on in various locations each month or someone sharing their password to someone who lives in different locations.

Right?

The service recognizes when you log in on a different device. So if you log in on your laptop from various locations, it still recognizes it as being from the same laptop. Different from logging on from various computers, streaming devices, or TVs in different locations.

Oh I get that. But many places are now utilizing smart tvs. So if I travel for work and I have the option of logging on from my laptop or the television in the room, I think I know what I’m going to choose. I’d imagine others would do the same.

I’ve been in a few hotels recently and they all had this option.

34

I don’t believe this is overblown. It is obviously happening frequently enough that Netflix created an initial terms of use and has decided the issue is enough to now do something about it.

If they weren’t losing money on this then they wouldn’t be taking action and rocking the boat.

Stop repeating that people are worried that they will suddenly cut off your stream mid episode. They will most likely use the information to affect login and/or add additional charges to your account. As they have alluded to in the past.

35

But if I am paying for 4 streams, why should they care where the 4 streams are. If they really want it to be an individual account then only sell single stream accounts and make each person buy there own account.

The four streams are intended for a household, not across households. And Netflix doesn’t really want it to be an individual account. The terms of service is pretty clear, “A Netflix account is for people who live together in a single household.” I don’t know how to phrase that more clearly. It’s interesting to discuss alternative business models, but this is the model that Netflix is using.

So your saying if I dont have a single household I should not get Netflix?

How long do we have to live togeather? if my kid is at college for 4, 6, 8, 10 months of the year?

What if they do a study abroad in the summer?

Where is your kids domicile? That really determines it.

I’d say once your kid is out of college and living in their own place that would be outside the household

LOL the kid out of college, lives in my house, the 2 in college, one is probably home 2 - 3 weeks at most, the other probably is home 5 - 8 weeks a year? Depends on what she does in the summer.

Again, much simplier… I pay for 2 streams… I get 2 streams. Why should it matter who if anyone is watching the stream?

36

i read the article and i still don’t know if the goal is to stop people like us - 4 adults live in the house (includes 2 adult children), with one spending a lot of time away at college; one password, four user accounts/ids. i thought we were using the service as intended.

i can see why they don’t want anyone giving the neighbors, parents or other relatives who live somewhere else their password to use, but seems like it is going to hard to allow my daughter to use the password when staying at her college digs, but block someone giving the password to a relative who doesn’t live with them.

I’d say you are not the target

Well if they are getting the 4 streams, they are already at max capacity… I would say yes they are the target audience. Its not like someone is out there, with 100 people all using there account.

I mean, most kids who watch with friends, use discord or some other variant, and all watch the same stream re-streamed, together.

37

But don’t they already limit how many streams you can have going… Pretty sure they do. When 2 of my kids are on I have to watch something else or ask one of them to get off.

Why is this not sufficient? Who cares where we are watching those streams from?

Because they make money per account, not per device streamed.

Sorry your wrong here is netflix’s current pricing plan. https://help.netflix.com/en/node/24926

Ok so the point I was making is that they were losing out on entire subscribers if they just let people add more streaming devices per account. They are losing money with each additional decide added vs gaining another individual account.

Another basic account without ads is $10 per month revenue.

However adding another device to an existing acct is only $5.49 per account. That number goes down with more devices added.

So yes their incentive is to add more accounts to increase revenue. And while it is always good to increase revenue from existing customers, the goal should be to add more accounts I’d think and gain new customers.

But if I am paying for 4 streams, why should they care where the 4 streams are. If they really want it to be an individual account then only sell single stream accounts and make each person buy there own account.

I imagine they care bc you’re allowed to have 4 devices streaming at once anywhere, not just 4 individual locations.

So someone can pay an increasingly small amount to allow more devices to be used and that makes it easy to share with family and friends all over the place.

The multiple devices appeal to a family unit.

So if they don’t to only make $4 more per month on the last 2 streams… Charge more… seems like they are making this WAY harder than it needs to be.
I also wonder how much they really are losing / how much will they recover.

This has zero impact on me. But it will be interesting to see how they try to implement this.

I think a much simplier solution would be drop the 4 stream option, you have a 1 stream with ads, or 2 streams no add.

38

They have no way of distinguishing between someone who travels a lot for work and logging on in various locations each month or someone sharing their password to someone who lives in different locations.

Right?

I’d say sharing with someone who lives in multiple different locations is pretty rare. But even then I wouldn’t say “no way.” There are very likely cues related to device registration (MAC address, not just IP) , locations of use and content preferences. I’m sure Netflix has applied “AI” just like credit
card vendors do to distinguish between your patterns of use and someone else’s.

What percentage accuracy…I’d bet pretty high, but we’ll see shortly, apparently.

I think comparing it to banking is a bit flawed. As in one case, a user isn’t trying to hide, and the other the user is.

I mean if someone really wants to hide most of this… they just create a Home VPN, and have everyone use netflix through that so it looks like all usage is from the home IP address.

39

They know your IP addresses you’re logging in through to show your location. They also know your device information because that is captured by the application.

So traveling becomes a non-issue because the device you are on will have the device signature stored by Netflix and know it’s your device regardless of the IP address.

How does this work when I go to a hotel or Airbnb and use their smart tv to log into my account ? Which is increasingly popular.

There is a lot you can get from an IP.

https://db-ip.com/162.130.1.0 For instance. It’ll show that you’re at the Marriott

Also there is no way the system will have the level of sensitivity that if you happen to be at a hotel that it’ll block you. We’re not talking about logging into a bank account here. My guess is they will use a long runway before it flags that it could be someone sharing their password. The goal isn’t to piss everyone off it’s to fix what they’re thinking is the threshold where people are doing it and not giving a shit.

Right but the fear isn’t instantaneous blocking. It’s that Netflix will recognize an account is being used all over and then the account will get flagged. If I’m understanding it correctly.

They have no way of distinguishing between someone who travels a lot for work and logging on in various locations each month or someone sharing their password to someone who lives in different locations.

Right?

The service recognizes when you log in on a different device. So if you log in on your laptop from various locations, it still recognizes it as being from the same laptop. Different from logging on from various computers, streaming devices, or TVs in different locations.

Every rental I have gotten, i just used the smart tv, to log into netflix. Then remove it from my account at the end of the week.

And if the same laptop is used repeatedly at the same location, what does that mean? I guess you just say, college kids away or your 2nd home are different households.

Will be fun to watch.

I think its mostly media hype, like the whole M&M story that was just made up for marketing around their superbowl ad.

40

I think comparing it to banking is a bit flawed. As in one case, a user isn’t trying to hide, and the other the user is.

Yes, it’s a bit flawed because at least password sharers are at some level paying customers. But if you’re calling a dorm room part of your “household” you’re using some level of deception/rationalization. But I’m not judging.

41

I don’t believe this is overblown. It is obviously happening frequently enough that Netflix created an initial terms of use and has decided the issue is enough to now do something about it.

If they weren’t losing money on this then they wouldn’t be taking action and rocking the boat.

Stop repeating that people are worried that they will suddenly cut off your stream mid episode. They will most likely use the information to affect login and/or add additional charges to your account. As they have alluded to in the past.

It’s way over blown. If you don’t think Netflix’s IT department can set up an alogrithm that will be able to have good accuracy from the IP address and device information on if you’re sharing a password versus traveling I don’t know what to tell you. This isn’t complex coding.

42

I think comparing it to banking is a bit flawed. As in one case, a user isn’t trying to hide, and the other the user is.

Yes, it’s a bit flawed because at least password sharers are at some level paying customers. But if you’re calling a dorm room part of your “household” you’re using some level of deception/rationalization. But I’m not judging.

I think if it it’s a kid at college it’s fine…if it’s a roommate from 10 years ago, not so much