Netflix introduces password sharing household controls

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#3035628 12-Feb-2023 20:28

tdgeek:
Is there a difference between buying a hairdryer or buying Netflix? I dont feel so, for what I consider obvious reasons.

tdgeek: Its like an IT based product, which is 0's and 1's, is different from a hairdryer that you can touch. It isnt.

I really can't decide what it is that you are trying to say here.

However, if I buy a hair-dryer, I can use it wherever and whenever I like. I can take it in the car, I can use an inverter and have dry hair at any place that takes my fancy. By comparison, as michaelmurfy has just discovered, the hairdryer that I could once use whenever I wanted, can now only be used at my house. That's it. Even if I don't share it with anyone else, I can't have dry hair anywhere but my house.

Not sure I know of too many other products that work like that.

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#3035632 12-Feb-2023 20:43

Ge0rge:

I really can't decide what it is that you are trying to say here.

However, if I buy a hair-dryer, I can use it wherever and whenever I like. I can take it in the car, I can use an inverter and have dry hair at any place that takes my fancy. By comparison, as michaelmurfy has just discovered, the hairdryer that I could once use whenever I wanted, can now only be used at my house. That's it. Even if I don't share it with anyone else, I can't have dry hair anywhere but my house.

Not sure I know of too many other products that work like that.

A hairdryer isnt limited to 4 people at a certain price. Some hairdryers are used only by one person. Some are used by all in the household, so the manufacturer could lose out by warranty issues, but it all averages out.

But you wont be taking said hair dryer to the mates, then to the mates plumber most nights

I totally get Michael Murphys issue. Its NOT a household, but emotionally it is. How do you police that?

Its a good or service, 0's and 1's arent relevant. If I bought NF for myself and my household, the $8 for a non household person is a very nice discount for the full catalogue.

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#3035655 12-Feb-2023 21:52

I don't think the comparison between a physical item you buy and one you rent which is digital is valid.

4 people can't use the dryer at once (effectively), certainly not all at once in different rooms of the house. If your sister wants it, she has to come and get it, or you need to get to her, and when she has it, you can't use it.

Same with a Burger. There is one burger. You can share it, but that means you get less.

There is zero ongoing cost to the manufacturer to provide the dryer or burger.

Not so the case with digital items.

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#3035664 12-Feb-2023 22:23

Wow what a thread to catch up on.

We have people who think that a 6 year old tweet somehow overrides the Terms and Conditions that they agreed to when they signed up to Netflix and agreed that only people in the same household would share an account.

We have people who object to using the service within it's well published terms.

We have people who are splitting hairs over whether you buy, or rent, Netflix.

(Someone talked about 30 day terms, they were closest).

We have people who seem to forget that streaming content is licensed geographically, so when you change locations (or use a VPN to do so), the content you're allowed to watch under the terms of the content license (which Netflix must comply with to provide services) changes. Whether you agree with or not, this is how the world works. We're not going to solve the problem by b!tching about the fact Netflix enforce the conditions that they're obliged to, regarding the content they supply on a geo-locked basis.

I'm going to have a further rant on a variety of relevant points now:

- Geolocation based on IP address - which is the way most services will operate - will be imperfect at best, and though it may be used to provide helpful information to both Netflix and you as the consumer, it's unlikely to be the decision factor.

- To explain this - whether your IP reflects your geographic region at a level any more specific than country, is kinda up to your ISP to figure out; some IP address pools will be available for customers all over the country. Some may be limited to specific POP's within your ISP's environment. I've had a static IP over the years and i've also moved between major cities and carried it with me.

- (An interesting counter-point; Google now knows where my IP lives down to the suburb level, because phones + location information + on my wifi has related my IP address to my location. Not sure that Netflix would have this level of privilege as it doesn't ask for location information. But I digress..)

- If you're running a Netflix app, your device can probably 'call home' back to Netflix and give over information in the form of Telemetry; this could include the MAC Address (if the app reports it), it could also include things like the SSID you're connected to and it will of course, show the IP address you're using to consume content.

- It's reasonable to assume that Netflix can use a variety of factors to figure out what internet connection is 'home based on the data presented by apps and/or user-agent information combined with profile-in-use, IP address, client fingerprinting and so-on. It's not gonna be simply IP geolocation.

- If you use satellite-based Internet your Geolocation probably pertains to the groundstation, not your end point. Or at least, groups of customers roughly in the same area will be clustered together within the same subnet(s). But that could be a footprint hundreds of kilometers in circumference. Trust me, I have to ignore the city/town detail in the Geolocation stuff I routinely look at all the time...

I don't think I agree with the way they're going about this and I suspect the edge cases are going to piss people off and cause people to leave the service. But let's be honest; letting someone outside of your regular household use your service has been a breach of the T&C for the service forever, and now that they're taking measures to enforce this, we shouldn't be offended. (Until those measures disrupt otherwise legit use-cases. The holiday home examples are a ticking timebomb I think).

No signature to see here, move along...

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#3035666 12-Feb-2023 22:32

Paul1977: Regardless, surely it’s total profit that matters.

Not necessarily. It's better to have 10 customers paying $100 than 100 paying $10.

The benefit of more customers is more people to sell add-ons to though.

NF is far better to have 100m paying customers than 200m where only half are paying

michaelmurfy

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#3035683 13-Feb-2023 01:24

networkn:

NF is far better to have 100m paying customers than 200m where only half are paying

While you do have a point there isn't there another case of content reach?

So, if Netflix lose 100m customers due to this crap let's say (even though they're not paying) the view time of a movie or TV show goes down then they technically become less appealing to the license holders who could quite easily publish on lets say Disney+ or another platform which may have either retained or gained those customers.

I was paying for the 4 stream service despite only really using a single stream at a time (I wanted 4K) but I should be allowed to use that how I want. I think targeting the serious offenders who are coming from multiple IP addresses, apparent locations, devices who are constantly hitting the streaming cap would be the best way to enforce the policy, not go after everyone pissing off their entire customer base all at once.

I get I am paying for a service that I never owned and am bound by T&C's and other legal crap but you have to agree that the entire thing is complete and utter rubbish. They should have seen the backlash at the very start. There are plenty of ways to enforce a policy.

How would you feel if Spotify suddenly enforced a policy that limits where you listen to music? As absurd as it sounds this is what it feels like for many Netflix subscribers right now.

At-least when video shops were a thing you could take a physical disk, insert it in whatever player you wanted wherever you wanted and while you had a "concurrent streaming limit" of 1 and you never owned the disk you at-least were not limited in how you used it as-long as you stuck to the terms and returned it on time.

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#3035703 13-Feb-2023 07:16

How does Apple or Google Maps on my laptop at home know exactly where I am on the map?

jamesrt

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#3035715 13-Feb-2023 08:22

tdgeek: How does Apple or Google Maps on my laptop at home know exactly where I am on the map?

I believe it's through aggregated data-mining and/or data collection.

For example, if you've ever connected to a WiFi point in your house from a mobile phone; the phone manufacturer has the ability to tie together the router MAC/External IP of the ISP/internet connection to the GPS and/or Triangulated Cellphone tower location of the phone. Once they've done that, then anything hitting the internet from that External IP can be assumed to be in that location - hence, your laptop is located.

Google Maps Streetview cars also, I understood, scan for and note the location of WiFi SSIDs as they drive around; so they'll "know" (within an error bar) where the WiFi is located.

A couple of years ago, I purchased 2nd hand from Mauricio a mesh WiFi system; and after replacing my ISP's router with the WiFi Mesh, my phones would appear on Google Maps at Mauricio's house location - despite using my original WiFi SSID and I was still on my ISP with (presumably) a similar IP; clearly the MAC of the WiFi router played a part in the derived location. If I turned WiFi off on the phone; the location on the mapping software would almost immediately return to my "real" location.

It took a couple of weeks for the data mining operations to notice that my phone's GPS data didn't match, and eventually my Wifi and 4G-data-based locations aligned again.

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#3035717 13-Feb-2023 08:27

Thanks, very interesting.

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#3035763 13-Feb-2023 09:49

Just cancelled the billing on mine. Have had an account from before they were in NZ. No longer value for the $$ when comparing to disney+ etc. Also that primary home stuff that now pops up is a pain.

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#3035770 13-Feb-2023 10:04

michaelmurfy:

While you do have a point there isn't there another case of content reach?

So, if Netflix lose 100m customers due to this crap let's say (even though they're not paying) the view time of a movie or TV show goes down then they technically become less appealing to the license holders who could quite easily publish on lets say Disney+ or another platform which may have either retained or gained those customers.

They are unlikely to lose 100M paying customers. And if 100M people were consuming the content but not paying, they haven't lost anything except overhead for providing it.

Finding a way to monetize those non-paying customers is a very valid thing for a business to do. Whether you agree with the methods they use to do it, is a different thing.

If they did lose a significant number of paying customers, it may force them to reconsider their methods. Alternatively, you may just see less content created, as there isn't money to be made in doing so.

Some changes may come by way of pressure from the studios.

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#3035804 13-Feb-2023 10:49

kiwifidget:

I live in 3 houses. That is, there are 3 houses where I have my own bedroom, and clothes permanently in the wardrobe.

As such, each house has it's own permanent Netflixable device, coz carting one around from place to place was annoying, and half the time I forgot to pack it anyway.

I'm guessing this new policy will impact my ability to watch NF at the 2 houses where I spend less of my time?

We're similar: Two houses, with Netflix app on Smart TVs at both locations (one Netflix Premium account).

It would be a regular occurrence for both TVs to be streaming Netflix at the same time. I think we're stuffed under the new T&C.

If this doesn't work any longer, then I'm in favour of ditching Netflix. My SO is in favour of keeping it and just putting up with limitations or paying extra for the other house.

Mike

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#3035814 13-Feb-2023 11:01

MikeAqua: .....if this doesn't work any longer, then I'm in favour of ditching Netflix. My SO is in favour of keeping it and just putting up with limitations or paying extra for the other house.

Score +1 for Netflix then, I think.

networkn

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#3035834 13-Feb-2023 11:31

MikeAqua:

We're similar: Two houses, with Netflix app on Smart TVs at both locations (one Netflix Premium account).

It would be a regular occurrence for both TVs to be streaming Netflix at the same time. I think we're stuffed under the new T&C.

If this doesn't work any longer, then I'm in favour of ditching Netflix. My SO is in favour of keeping it and just putting up with limitations or paying extra for the other house.

Genuinely, I am not sure how common this situation is in their biggest market North America.

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#3035840 13-Feb-2023 11:41

networkn:
Paul1977: Regardless, surely it’s total profit that matters.

Not necessarily. It's better to have 10 customers paying $100 than 100 paying $10.

The benefit of more customers is more people to sell add-ons to though.

NF is far better to have 100m paying customers than 200m where only half are paying

From a risk perspective, I'd far rather have 100 paying $10, than 10 paying $100 as losing even 1 customer paying $100 has a 10% negative impact on revenue, but losing 1 customer paying $10 is only 1%, whats the old saying "many hands make light work".

I would suspect that Netflix have run the numbers. They know they'll lose a small percentage of customers through "how dare they enforce their rules" and a few more through genuine issues (travelling etc), but, the subscriptions or "additional household charges" that they collect will be worth it in the long run. They likely realise that they are nearing the top end of the price / value equation and charging more will lose market share and with the large studios having their own distribution channels (Disney +, HBO & Paramount +), their access to top tier content to compete with is also limited, so they have to make the most out of their existing "customer base", even when some of those customers previously used someone elses credentials.

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