Netflix trialling charging extra for sharing accounts with friends and family

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#2889920 22-Mar-2022 10:45

money grab. you pay for a certain amount of concurrent streams. so not like you can share it with 100 people.

i canceled my Netflix sub a while back. just wasn't using it enough. Too much stuff is not on different streaming services. just a PITA.

Whenever Witcher comes out, I'll resub for a month. Binge everything since last witcher season then cancel again.

Netflix got to expensive for what they have on it. It use to be cheaper with a better selection.

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cruxis

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#2889943 22-Mar-2022 11:51

Yeh this, you pay for concurrent streams, why should it matter if they are in auckland, wellington, chch at the same time. Or in different rooms of the same house.

Oh well theres always a shared plex server to fall back to and the high seas if they do this.

rugrat

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#2889996 22-Mar-2022 12:10

cruxis:

Yeh this, you pay for concurrent streams, why should it matter if they are in auckland, wellington, chch at the same time. Or in different rooms of the same house.

Oh well theres always a shared plex server to fall back to and the high seas if they do this.

Yes. I’m interested in 4K, but have no need for 4 streams. It makes me wonder how much the extra streams add to the price charged.

When I had Netflix I watched it hard out to get through the programs to get moneys worth, with Disney and Prime a lot more relaxed and feel just need to watch when suits to get money’s worth. So I’ve watched all programs I consider gold on Netflix and won’t pay them for anything I consider less.

Netflix seem to be on path of increasing revenue per subscriber, guess it will depend on where they hit inelastic demand to whether it will increase profits.

networkn

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#2890035 22-Mar-2022 13:32

cruxis:

Yeh this, you pay for concurrent streams, why should it matter if they are in auckland, wellington, chch at the same time. Or in different rooms of the same house.

Oh well theres always a shared plex server to fall back to and the high seas if they do this.

Why should it matter? Because it's their terms of service, which they can set to whatever they like, and that you agreed to when you signed up. Read the agreement.

Reverting to stealing because you don't like it, seems unreasonable, especially since they have provided an extremely cheap way to 'upgrade'.

It's exceptionally unlikely to affect you if you are using a device in a different room in the same house.

Proves my earlier comment that no matter how cheap something is, it will always be too much for a small percentage of the population, who amusingly are the ones who say they wouldn't steal if it was cheap enough.

reven

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#2890061 22-Mar-2022 14:17

networkn:

cruxis:

Yeh this, you pay for concurrent streams, why should it matter if they are in auckland, wellington, chch at the same time. Or in different rooms of the same house.

Oh well theres always a shared plex server to fall back to and the high seas if they do this.

Why should it matter? Because it's their terms of service, which they can set to whatever they like, and that you agreed to when you signed up. Read the agreement.

Reverting to stealing because you don't like it, seems unreasonable, especially since they have provided an extremely cheap way to 'upgrade'.

It's exceptionally unlikely to affect you if you are using a device in a different room in the same house.

Proves my earlier comment that no matter how cheap something is, it will always be too much for a small percentage of the population, who amusingly are the ones who say they wouldn't steal if it was cheap enough.

problem though is that its not cheap. It was once, but now with so many streaming services, you can end up paying for netflix, disney+, neon, amazon, apple tv plus the internet connection on top of it. Which some people may only have for streaming service, with no other computer in the house than their phones with they have mobile data on anyway.

Now you can argue, don't sign up if you don't like it. which is a valid argument... but doesn't address the issue of "they're too expensive" and they have gone down in quality due to the increase in number of streaming services there are now.

It use to cost usd$9.99 a month for the best quality netflix and 2 streams. then it went to nzd$13, then it was NZD$18 for 4k and 4 streams. Now its about $23 for that. And you had the most things to watch when it was at its cheapest. Even at the NZ$13 price you had more things worth watching than there is at the current price.

Add the annoyance of "hey you're IP has changed, verify you're new IP in the next 5mins.... tick tick boom". If I paid for 4 concurrent streams I expect 4 concurrent streams regardless of where they are. is this again their terms of service and can they enforce it. Yes. Can i just cancel and say screw you netflix. yes, and that's what I did. Cobra Kai is not that great..... And The Queens Gambit type show is few and far between.

So yes vote with you wallet, netflix doesn't add new stuff that frequently, can it, wait for it to build up a decent amount to watch, then sub for a month or two. rinse and repeat.

networkn

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#2890117 22-Mar-2022 14:33

People wanted a cheaper option than Sky, Sky was too expensive, they wanted competition and choice, now they complain that choice costs just as much (They don't want competition or choice they just want everything for next to nothing, or better still for free) ..It's almost like having lots of content to watch costs a bit or something?

There is no world in which $23 a month is expensive for what amounts to a basically unlimited number of hours of entertainment. Sorry. You might not find new content to your liking, but in a million years I could never keep up with the stuff on Netflix I want to watch and that assumes I don't rewatch a single episode or show ever. I have just binged 8 seasons of Brooklyn Nine Nine with my wife.

Where else could you get more than an hours of entertainment outside your home for $23?, let alone 2 or 10 hours. It's 4 cups of coffee or a decent pitcher of beer, or a moderately priced burger.

Peoples expectations that content should be $10 a month and they should never need to spend on anything supplementary is just obnoxious honestly. How much more do you get paid than you did when Netflix cost $10 a month? Prices rise, it's the way things are.

Like you say, if it isn't value to you, then quit the service and mix and match if that's worth your time and effort, but don't say it's expensive, it's just not.

It's their service, their terms and conditions, and if you aren't breaching it, then it's somewhat unlikely you will get hit in the crossfire, but even if you do, they are wanting to charge an extra $3 a month for an additional account.

reven

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#2890123 22-Mar-2022 14:45

paying $23 a month and not finding anything worth watching. yeah its overpriced. sure there are good stuff on Netflix... but you can easily clock netflix and run out of anything decent to watch. Netflix knows this. that's why they tried the give me something random to watch.

People spend 20 minutes looking for something to watch, then give up. My argument is 6 years ago, this was less likely because they offered more for less.

Now there is more competition so their answer to the problem of "we're losing customers and not making as much money" is "WE HAVE TO CHARGE MORE!". Not we should make it cheaper so people just sign up and don't really care about the $10 we charge them a month.

So if you compare 6 years ago to today. $13 a month for a lot of content. now $23 for netflix $13 for disney+, $8 for prime (ok prime does seem like a good deal), neon $16 a month. so you're paying $60 a month for something that you pretty much got a few years back for $13.

Netflix now basically just make their own content and show bugger all else. Yeah I don't want to rewatch star trek next gen. I want to watch Iron Man 3.

Netflix can do what they like, but for what you actually get, that is actual quality. its no longer a good deal.

networkn

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#2890126 22-Mar-2022 14:47

reven:

Netflix can do what they like, but for what you actually get, that is actual quality. its no longer a good deal.

For you.

jonathan18

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#2890148 22-Mar-2022 15:34

reven:

So if you compare 6 years ago to today. $13 a month for a lot of content. now $23 for netflix $13 for disney+, $8 for prime (ok prime does seem like a good deal), neon $16 a month. so you're paying $60 a month for something that you pretty much got a few years back for $13.

This is just so, so wrong... Netflix has never been able to offer the huge range of context provided by this long list of SVOD services, simply because it's never had the rights for most of it.

Sure, some things come and go (eg, the recent shift of some Marvel content from Netflix to Disney), but this is relatively minor compared to the reality of a fragmented and SVOD-dominated world in which subscriptions to a number of services is required to get all the content one may want to watch.

I think you're confusing your current personal frustration with the current content of Netflix and a belief it was previously able to supply all your needs with the reality of what has always been a highly fragmented market.

bagheera

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#2890150 22-Mar-2022 15:51

and on top of all that, you do not have to pay for all of them at once, you can have one streaming service for a month, watch all the shows you want to for the month, cancel and move onto the next service

reven

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#2890151 22-Mar-2022 15:52

jonathan18:

reven:

So if you compare 6 years ago to today. $13 a month for a lot of content. now $23 for netflix $13 for disney+, $8 for prime (ok prime does seem like a good deal), neon $16 a month. so you're paying $60 a month for something that you pretty much got a few years back for $13.

This is just so, so wrong... Netflix has never been able to offer the huge range of context provided by this long list of SVOD services, simply because it's never had the rights for most of it.

Sure, some things come and go (eg, the recent shift of some Marvel content from Netflix to Disney), but this is relatively minor compared to the reality of a fragmented and SVOD-dominated world in which subscriptions to a number of services is required to get all the content one may want to watch.

I think you're confusing your current personal frustration with the current content of Netflix and a belief it was previously able to supply all your needs with the reality of what has always been a highly fragmented market.

maybe i am remember netflix of old through rose tinted glasses. I'm sure netflix use to offer far more blockbuster content, more Hollywood movies.

Their TV line-up hasn't changed a heck of a lot, but with their movie content I'm pretty confident it has. There may have been less number of things on Netflix, but the quality was much better. Now with Disney owning so many, a lot of movies went to that. Pretty much whenever I search for a movie on Netflix, it's never there. I remember it being there a lot previously. Maybe I'm remembering when there was only US netflix and we could access it. I do remember using it in the Boxee days and their cross platform search showed you where you could stream from, and netflix was listed more often than not.

Recently I searched for Beverly Hills Cop (recently being 6mo ago when i had netflix), wasn't there. Just the most recent thing I remember, but this became a pattern, never what I wanted to watch. Just stuff I had already seen so many times before or zero interest in. There used to be a lot more 80s/90s stuff before these other streaming services popped up.

Can't remember when this happened exactly, it was a gradual thing, but I strongly feel the quality of content has gone down. The quality of netflix made stuff has gone up, but then again also varies greatly.

So they can charge more, go ahead, they will make more money off some people, but they will alienate others as well.

If you think its good value, more power to you, wonder if you still think that way in 5 years though.

If they made more content of higher quality and not just the same old rubbish, it would be a different story. They should do sitcoms, they just buy ones we've already seen. Unbeatable Kimmy Schmitt was meh. But they don't currently make decent content to justify 12months a year sub. Now splitting that sub between family members it maybe worth it, as one family member may watch it one month another a different month.

Disney+ is better value IMO, way less content, but of much higher quality. But I wouldn't pay $23 for disney+ either. I do like the model they tried with $45 for a new movie to watch (should have been to "own" though) or wait 45 days to watch for free.

sen8or

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#2890152 22-Mar-2022 15:53

Bring back the humble DVD store, all the content, no paying over and above for stuff you aren't going to watch:)

I guess most of it comes down to what is your pucker point for losing value. Even at $25/month for 4 streams and some 4k/atmos, I don't think its over-priced, but I'm happy to pay for a couple of services at a time to be able to have a wide enough selection that I can easily kill an hour or 3 at any given time.

reven

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#2890153 22-Mar-2022 15:54

bagheera:

and on top of all that, you do not have to pay for all of them at once, you can have one streaming service for a month, watch all the shows you want to for the month, cancel and move onto the next service

this is basically what happens. But then you release, hey I don't miss it, I wont resub. Which is great for your wallet, not so great for them. Make it cheap and something you wont miss and its too much work to cancel to save $10-$15 a month.

I also hate how they charge extra for 4k...

reven

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#2890154 22-Mar-2022 15:56

sen8or:

Bring back the humble DVD store, all the content, no paying over and above for stuff you aren't going to watch:)

I guess most of it comes down to what is your pucker point for losing value. Even at $25/month for 4 streams and some 4k/atmos, I don't think its over-priced, but I'm happy to pay for a couple of services at a time to be able to have a wide enough selection that I can easily kill an hour or 3 at any given time.

I think I would have been happier paying $23 for the content they had years ago vs the content they have now. I know a lot is out of their control, paramount+, disney+, neon by rights to things. But doesn't change the fact.

Once you binge all your favourite shows of yesteryear it becomes a struggle to find something to watch on it.

networkn

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#2890155 22-Mar-2022 16:01

reven:

I think I would have been happier paying $23 for the content they had years ago vs the content they have now. I know a lot is out of their control, paramount+, disney+, neon by rights to things. But doesn't change the fact.

Once you binge all your favourite shows of yesteryear it becomes a struggle to find something to watch on it.

People wanted convenience, competition and variety. Fragmentation was inevitable (Which is ironic, since this is how you get the flexibility of only paying for what you use). Some people even thought they could save money this way, but have found that actually, there is no free lunch, everyone wants their pound of flesh and with more players in the market, inevitably product rights were going to become a *real* problem.

I am not here to convince you Netflix presents value to you, I have no horse in that race, but I will take a forever exception to the word expensive used of any service costing $23 a month that even conservatively would present at least 5 hours of entertainment to pretty much anyone.

You can complain about it is not easy to find something to watch, that's not an issue I typically have, but I can see why people might find it difficult. I find the recommendations are typically good enough for me.

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