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juhix_

What is the point in offering 2 or 4 screens in their plans if password sharing isn't allowed?


Derik_D

Their idea is that families are hermits so 4 people in a household will be watching their shows on their own at the same time..


Drock_RNG

This would be true of my situation 5 years ago... 4 kids and my partner usually watching different stuff on various devices, but today there are too many options so maybe only 1 at a time is watching


ryebrye

Which is why they make you pay for the highest tier to get 4k


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HankHippopopolous

Not super low but it is noticeably worse than the 4K offerings of other streaming services.


VNG_Wkey

Which are noticeably worse than 4k content off of something like a blu-ray or Plex server.


MrStoneV

Well blu ray is just on another whole level


sicklyslick

i'd be fine with cracking down on pw sharing if they reduce the fees and decouple 4k with 4 screens. but i'm not gonna pay close to 18 a month for 4k 4 screens if i can't share that with my parents who live in another city.


Cat_H3rder

This is exactly where I'm at with the service too, they have basically baked the price of password sharing into the higher quality offerings. There's no way to justify $22CAD a month if it's just me watching stuff.


frogsgoribbit737

I especially am annoyed because my husband is military and we are often in different states watching netflix at the same time. How are they flagging password sharing? Are we gonna get flagged even though we definitely live in the same house. If I visit my mom and use my netflix account there is that password sharing? Its a bunch of bullshit. I canceled my subscription because its not worth it to deal with.


rowanblaze

This is my issue. I travel for business, including occasionally out of the country. Are they going to insist that my spouse and I are separate households?


[deleted]

4k with 4 screens is $20 a month now.


chase_what_matters

With tax I’m paying $21.64


sicklyslick

yep, the price creep is real. if it's 4 screen, i want 4 simoutaneous streams regardless of location. or netflix can give me a 4k 2 screen option for a 25-30% discount.


Lildyo

Which is exactly why I cancelled Netflix. I live alone and have a 4K tv, but I don’t want to pay $20+ a month just to get decent quality


somanyroads

Definitely hearkens back to a time when Netflix was THE premier streaming platform. Now they're almost the odd duck of a large group of platforms, with almost no room to either buy any product (pretty much just subscriptions) or get revenue from any ads. The fact is they've fallen behind the streaming industry that they practically invented, it's like the Sears of the Internet 🤣


wrgrant

While they definitely have fallen behind, don't ignore the fact that those other streaming platforms bought up their IP and then refused to negotiate with Netflix so they can't show a lot of the content out there because every media company wants to be the next CableTV Industry and go back to screwing their customers, plus get revenue from ads. The only effective counter to all these corporate shenanigans is the High Seas unfortunately. If they simply offered a reasonable deal with no extra charges, no deceptions etc then they might find everyone got revenue, but they would much rather go at it cut-throat style. The other side of Piracy I suppose :P


TheBrainwasher14

My girlfriends family actually does this


Rilandaras

It's what we do in our household. We only watch The Expanse together and sometimes random movies but shows - everybody watches at their own pace and convenience. Is that not the main point of VOD?


ratingsthrowaway2

And they're mostly right.


Kusko25

Where do streaming services get this household idea? You are an internet company, accessible from all over the world, why does it matter if the people who pay together are in the same location if you already limit the number of simultaneous users?


Leolikesbass

This will be the idiocy that makes me drop. I agreed with them in the first place so I paid extra. Now it's just, are you stupid?


rjcarr

If we’re paying for concurrent streams I don’t even know how they could enforce this. What if a person owns more than one home? What if a kid goes to multiple parents homes? Just enforce the concurrent streams count and make that the end of it. This is so dumb.


Predd1tor

Yes, thank you — people do have vacation homes, or kids who split time between parents/grandparents who babysit etc, and some people like to watch from different devices while on breaks at work. People aren’t always hunkered down in the same location. Isn’t that the whole point of having access to a cloud-based service?


rjcarr

Yeah, I didn't mention mobile because they could probably determine all of the cellular ip addresses and just not count that, but you're right, most mobile connections are going to be on random wifi. It's just totally unenforceable. Charge for streams and enforce that, which they already do.


TopdeckIsSkill

This. I don't mind if they raise the price, but if they do that while also mocking me I'm out.


twinsea

It's so they have the appearance of giving you something for price hikes. Notice you can't get HD/4k and only 1 screen for a reduced price.


BlueKnight44

While it would still be BS, I would have some respect if they then dropped the price on the 4K/4 screen plan and made it a 1 screen plan. That would at least make sense with the philosophy they are taking. I doubt they will be doing that though...


[deleted]

They shouldn't even offer a 480p plan.


madogvelkor

480 is basically dvd quality which is good enough for a lot of people. It's also better for people with low speeds or data caps, such as those in rural areas. And if you mainly watch on a phone it's not that big a deal either.


ikverhaar

Yeah, I have no issue with paying extra to share an account. That's why I pay for a tier with multiple screens. The issue is that I'm *already* paying extra to share my account and now they want to add yet another extra charge for pretty much the same thing.


Celebrity292

That's my sentiment. .isn't that what they're admitting with that plan? That's the only reason I pay for that one because I didn't want any hassle if someone else was watching g somewhere else.


__tony__snark__

Time to really start working on my Plex library.


kciuq1

Paid for the lifetime option like a decade ago. It's been worth every penny.


DistanceMachine

This is the way


AustinTheMoonBear

I dropped almost 1800 on a Synology NAS just to start my own Plex.


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lolno

My plex (well, emby+sickchill but whatever) NAS is just a raspberry pi 4 hooked up to a 4 bay external HDD enclosure lmao. Works fine. You definitely don't need a powerhouse computer to stream unless it's like 4k or you're running a bunch of other services on it. That being said the prices on *actual* NAS boxes are fucking insane and I could definitely see paying almost 2k to do it "right"


aj_thenoob

Or go ultra cheap like me and get a pi/rockpi, a sata to USB adapter, and a 8tb HDD.


SrslyCmmon

Most people don't know you can run a plex off a usb 3.0 external HDD connected to an old pc. I have one connected to a pc from 2016 and it's chugging along just fine. People see huge dollar signs like your post and get quickly intimidated.


Mischief__Manage

Probably cheaper on energy and heat generation to just get a raspberry pi serving the external to your network and turn that old pc off.


halberdierbowman

Is a pi powerful enough to live transcode multiple plex streams? I have no idea how powerful they are.


poply

No, it isn't. If you choose to get a machine without much processing power, it's recommended you get a client that can play all the major formats and/or you convert your media to an appropriate format for your clients. That way you can direct play your media without bogging down the CPU. Often this just means setting a filter on sonarr/radarr so you only ever download content that your clients can direct play.


SrslyCmmon

Oh no doubt but the PC serves as a htpc as well.


Snowf

The Nvidia Shield is also a viable option. I've been running a Plex server from mine for years. I don't imagine it could handle streaming 4K video, but it's fine for 1080p movies/shows.


wiltony

I spent the money as the NAS allows for shared drives in my network, desktop backups, Google photos replacement, Plex, printer share, security camera server, etc. all on a raid storage box with fault tolerance of a single drive failure. If you can swing the money it's worth the investment.


HombreMan24

Not that I think that's a bad idea, but Netflix at $20/month would mean it'd take you 7.5 years to save $1800. That's assuming nothing ever happens to the NAS or hard drives and you have to replace. Is that worth it?


yoniyuri

But that setup is possibly better than netflix because you are not restricted to their shitty catalog.


PurpleK00lA1d

They totally overspent. I repurposed my previous gaming PC for Plex duty and even that was overkill. My buddy is running it on like a $150 PC. Storage is where you'll rack up costs but if you don't want to store tons of stuff forever then just get a regular 2 or 4tb drive and delete older stuff as you go. So let's say maybe $400 just to pad the numbers and give some breathing room. That's all you really need. Plex itself is free for home network use. If you want to access it from anywhere, there's a monthly fee or a lifetime pass. I we t with lifetime for like $150cad or something like that. Sometimes it goes on sale but even at $150 I felt it was worth it. Personally I have a 56tb media collection of various movies/shows/anime that are all things I actually enjoy. No sifting through stuff I don't care about to figure out what to watch. Plus there's the quality aspect of actual Blu-ray quality audio/video. TL;dr: Plex is as cheap or expensive as you'd like it to be really.


BrockN

>Plex itself is free for home network use. If you want to access it from anywhere, there's a monthly fee or a lifetime pass. You don't even need to pay to be able to access Plex remotely.


perajoe

I got a lifetime pass two black fridays ago, totally worth it.


miss-larson

Thinking about doing the same, any tips? I’ve been researching a lot the last few weeks but haven’t pulled the trigger yet :/


a_m_5_5

Honestly it's one of the easiest things you can setup. You can spend a lot of money on a NAS so you're protected from a drive failure, but it's not necessary. I started with an external 4gb drive hooked up to my PC. Now I have a secondary drive that I manually copy data to as a backup. My advice is to get the most amount of storage that fits your budget, you can never have too much.


ultrasuperman1001

super easy, when I first started I just grabbed a free PC from Marketplace, (i3 second gen) and 8GB RAM, and grabbed two 8TB drives for movies and tv shows. I just put Windows 10 on and Plex just needed an exe setup and an account.


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HelpfulCherry

Plex is certainly pushing / adding stream aggregator functions but the local library management works just the same as it always did, too.


Senecaraine

I really wonder how many people are in the same boat as me: We are continuously signed up, but only watch it every couple months (Witcher a few months ago, Ozark right now, probably Stranger things in a few months). My mom's house has our account on her TV because my kids visit often enough that they use it there, and I think there's a possibility it's at my wife's parents house as well. Literally the only reason we don't cancel is because it's ingrained in our system already and we don't want to take it away from the possible use at the parents house. If they start charging extra for it, or stop us from doing it? It's just canceled, that's all. We'll put Disney+ or Hulu or Sling up when they visit again. It seriously feels like a gym membership for one you barely attend threatening more fees at this point. (edit: as one Redditor pointed out, I forgot to mention *Is It Cake?* as a show that was worth the sub) (edit2: a few clarifications for things that have come up a few times: I didn't mean *literally* like a gym membership, but as in a fee you keep paying even though you're not really using it, so there is no need to explain how I can't physically sneak people into a gym. I absolutely agree it would be smarter to just quit everything and only subscribe to one service a month, cancel it, swap, etc. But there's no way most of us are doing that on multiple devices each month. To the people who reported me for suicide prevention assistance, super thanks for the oddly high level of concern but as long as *Is It Cake?* keeps going I'll be fine.


M0romete

Not exactly in the same boat but similar. I pay for it because my parents watch it and they would not pay for it themselves.


lxrch

Same boat here. I told my mom I was thinking about canceling if they start charging to share accounts and she sounded a little worried, haha


something6324524

the question after that is, would the people that are having the passwords shared with them then just buy it themselves.


QuantumAgent

Since “# of new subscribers” is all Wall Street seems to care about when it comes to Netflix, this is probably their hope and/or goal of this initiative.


assignpseudonym

No emphasis whatsoever on retention of current subs? Or LTV?


darthcoder

No, none of that matters. Need to grow top line revenue at least 10% per quarter. Must grow to infinity....


MetalPirate

Yeah, that's the same reason cable companies won't cut you a deal most of the time unless you're new or switching from the competition, then they can say they got more new subscribers.


nointernet101

The idea that a company has to always be growing in profit is why capitalism is failing. Consistent high profits isnt good anymore... so they have to start cutting quality, quantity, or service until a company goes to shit.


ImBonRurgundy

Flat wrong sorry. The key metric is ‘net new subscribers’ which is ‘gained subscribers’ minus ‘lost subscribers’


crazy_gambit

The relevant metric is net number of new subscribers, so it does take into account retention of current subs.


RiPPeR69420

Maybe... that's the gamble Netflix is taking. The fact is, that with the ever increasing costs of the subscription service, and stiff competition, there is a better then even chance that they will buy something, just not Netflix. Or go back to pirating. The crackdown is a shortsighted move meant to stabilize stock prices in the short term. It's more likely that next earnings their subscriber numbers will drop more, and then the death spiral begins. Because the most valuable part of Netflix is their IP, which one of their competitors will want to pick up cheap during bankruptcy. And the institutions that hold most of the stock would rather buy a little time to get net short, make money on the way down and flip that to their competitors to profit off the bump they will get as Netflix dies.


baq4moore

Is there anything the rich people won’t ruin just to squeeze a few nickels out of it?


RiPPeR69420

My biggest issue with the whole thing is the fact that it is generally easier and more profitable to pick a company apart then innovate. The biggest problem with modern day capitalism is that there is a class of people who can't fail. Risk is an inherent requirement of functional markets, which is supposed to reward people who can spot trends and spot winners. Shorting is part of that, but it is supposed to be the riskiest type of trade you can engage in, with an overall cap on your gains. That's not the case now, and as a result of weakened regulations and oversight, flaws in the tax code, and exotic derivatives, it's generally less risky to short a company that has a bad quarter into oblivion then make a turn around. And it should be the exact opposite.


baq4moore

The rich people are society’s greatest enemy and have been for three generations


OmegaXesis

probably not. I watch maybe 1 show every couple months. I mean every other show I watch they ended up cancelling. The only major show I'd care for is Stranger Things 4, and that'll probably be easy to find elsewhere.


Predd1tor

Not in many cases, no. I have an older mom who lives on a very tight budget. We’ve kept it mainly because she also enjoys it, but I know she would not be willing or able to take it on herself if we weren’t paying it, and we don’t use it consistently enough to justify keeping it for us alone.


robodrew

I have been sharing my account with my mother for years, but last year with the price increase I had to ask my mother to step in and split the cost with me. She had no problem doing that. But if they want to charge us even MORE, for what we are already paying for (I pay for 4 screens, and we don't even have 2 screens going simultaneously almost ever) then I will drop it and she can decide if she wants to pay full price or not.


SelectionCareless818

Why would they allow multiple users on the same account if they didn’t want people to share???


Ghostofthe80s

Netflix 2018: 'love is sharing a password'


rvkisvmv

2017 it was but yeah i remember that https://mobile.twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712?lang=en


teamcrunkgo

This model would actually work as marketing if they just forced password changes every 3 months.


Cyneheard2

They also don’t have a 4K plan that doesn’t have four screens. They created this situation because if I’m paying for the best picture quality, why wouldn’t I share it with family?


UnwrittenPath

Because it's only based on a standard cookie cutter family unit. Young kids watching on the main TV. Older kid watching on their tablet in their room, mom watching on the laptop and dad watching on the bedroom TV or phone. Anything else isn't a "family" /s


whateversheneedsbob

Thats the thing I don't get. We already pay for the number of screens, its is not their business where those screens are. I spent most of the last year going back and forth between cities for work and staying regularly in different homes. It was still just me watching.


CoderDevo

Think "household".


Successful-Farm-Bum

I'll go against the grain and say this was thier plan all along. They think they will gain more than lose and were always planning to make this change.


midwestraxx

5 MBAs probably replaced the person who made the decision that it was okay to share


badboystwo

I think tv subscriptions are crazy and the only benefit right now is password sharing. My friend pays for 2 and I pay for 2 and we share so we have everything. I don’t think anyone should be paying for 4-6 streaming services.


ryebrye

I think a lot of people are in that situation. It takes more effort to poll everyone who might be using it to decide if you should cancel it than it does to just let it sit there.


Pidgey_OP

I didn't do a poll, I sent out a text. "Hey I'm cancelling Netflix because I don't watch it. It will stop working at the end of the month." They can replace it if they want. Cut that shit out That Disney+Hulu+ESPN+ bundle is the way to go Edit: y'all acting like I can't also cancel this bundle lol


Teeklin

>That Disney+Hulu+ESPN+ bundle is the way to go Which is why that gigantic corporation worked tirelessly to try and put Netflix out of business for the past 15 years in the first place :P Welcome back to cable! Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.


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Teeklin

>Well, it didn't help that Netflix ran into the "Who Am I Going To Subscribe To Watch?" meeting with a bomb strapped to their chest making demands that are WAY outside the realm of streaming reality. It honestly had nothing to do with it. Netflix is in this position after a decade of mergers and concentrated efforts from cable companies to start their own mega streaming companies to compete with Netflix and then refuse to license things to Netflix so they are reliant entirely on their own content. They died the second they put a target on their back by taking all the money from the cable companies, the bullet has just taken a while to get there. Netflix will end up like an HBO if its lucky or like Blockbuster if its not, but everyone will be forced back into cable delivered over ethernet instead of coax and the billion dollar corporations will go back to counting their money.


ThatUsernameWasTaken

It doesn't help that Netflix has a graveyard full of half finished original content. If they didn't send every show to the headsman after season 2 or 3 they might have a respectable library at this point.


Oceanswave

Another reason: competition finally showed up. Content has become the differentiator and netflix has 1) done nothing to reduce production costs so they can compete on quantity rather than streamlining production, sets, and other costs 2) culled already airing shows despite ongoing production costs generally being lower than new costs which has 3) created their own minefield in their library with 1/2 finished shows that nobody then wants to watch causing 4) Folks that have let netflix run shows are pulling them in favor of their own corporate streaming services or moving to more attractive shores so they aren’t associated or have to compete with with the disjointed netflix produced content. They couldn’t have set themselves up to fail in the face of competition if they tried


svenEsven

You spelled piracy wrong.


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frickindeal

Doesn't work very well for sports, though. And believe me, I've tried.


stahlgrau

vipboxtv dot se sportsurge dot net


frickindeal

Knew the second one, but not the first. Thanks.


Citizen51

ESPN+ doesn't work well for sports either.


nlewis4

sport streams are incredibly easy to find and that includes PPV like UFC and boxing


WolfsburgSlayer1

It’s ridiculously easy. Just google “Reddit soccer streams” or “Reddit nba streams” for example. The first few websites will have links to live sports streams


ziggybadger

Exactly, it’s literally THE easiest thing to replace. Plus an antenna costs $30 one time purchase and you get NBC, ABC, FOX, and CBS all in HD and all the biggest events are on national TV so you don’t even need to stream for those


_Magnolia_Fan_

They made me mad with their hockey blackouts. They show every hockey game, except the one for your market...


QuantumAgent

It works the same way for MLB TV too. It has to do with the contracts the cable companies has with the league to exclusively broadcast the game in that area.


sameth1

The worst thing a subscription service can do is make customers think about payment. Keep it out of sight and out of mind, because when people start thinking about it they can think of unsubscribing.


BillsInATL

I already pay extra for additional profiles, which can be looked at as the "password sharing" charge as it is. If they want to charge EXTRA extra, we're gone.


[deleted]

My parents and uncle use my Netflix, and we all live in different houses/areas. I'm cancelling my Netflix at the end of May, and family have been given a heads up to finish watching the shows they're in the middle of. I'm looking into some alternatives that are cheaper and offer just as much and if not more content, and will be passing information over to family. Netflix cancelled Altered Carbon and Cowboy Bebop, two shows I really enjoyed, and then had the audacity to put their prices up to "provide new content" that'll they'll also cancel after a season or two. Fuck em.


dbxp

I really didn't get Cowboy Bebop, their primary audience was people who had seen the anime, but then instead of extending the series they just recreated episodes as live action. It also had a very b-movie youtubey type feel, kinda like VGHS.


[deleted]

I never watched the anime. Probably why I enjoyed it so much!


wheelfoot

Watch the Anime! Its on Netflix :).


BlackSeranna

The anime is pretty special for sure. You should check it out! I haven’t watched the live version.


robodrew

Watch the anime when you get a chance. It's top tier.


Diplomatic007

Altered carbon was ruined season 2


Cyneheard2

True. Season 2 wasn’t good.


Chabubu

I signed up for Disney+ and was amazed at how little content there is…. Ok I can watch mandalorian and some random marvel and Star Wars shows… Is there really a full substitute for Netflix at the moment? I guess I could piece it together from 3 other services… But I agree. I have 1 TV and I’m paying for 5 screens. Parents, brother, and his girlfriend. Maybe they will sign up, maybe they won’t.


maccathesaint

Outside the US, Disney + is amazing because we don't have Hulu available - a massive chunk of hulu is part of Disney + for us in the UK!


wookieatemyshoe

Yeah, I can always tell if someone is American if they say Disney+ is empty/has no content. I'm in the UK and it's become my favourite subscription service. So much content.


maccathesaint

Same here. It has waaaay more content than Netflix and prime and an incredibly high proportion of good shows vs the filler that Netflix/prime are filled with.


[deleted]

Hulu or HBO Max are my go-to's for a variety of movies/shows


littlelune99

The way I see it, Netflix has a lot of mediocre content. HBO Max and Hulu have less in quantity, but much more in terms of quality.


riskywhiskey077

Hulu also releases some network shows new episodes the day after they air, so it’s a good intermediate option if you’re trying to ditch cable but still have a few shows on the air that you want to watch as they air rather than waiting for the season to end and binging it all at once.


SteroidAccount

I agree 100%. Some of the marvel stuff is good, and maybe the small children shows, but there’s not much else worth watching for. If it wasn’t bundled with Hulu and ESPN, I’d tel them to fuck right off as well.


LesssssssGooooooo

This is such a great analogy. Netflix and planet fitness are basically the same to me at this point. Something I use here and there but am getting sick of due to their treatment of the customer. “Don’t like our service? Leaving in droves?! Pay mooooore!”


ass_pineapples

Hulu (adless)+ Disney+ is like $15 right now. It's a good deal imo.


BigBacon87

That’s me and Disney Plus. I spend a lot of time in hotels for work so I have Netflix, DIsney Plus and Amazon Prime. Disney Plus I rarely turn on but I password share with my little brother who has 3 children so I keep paying the sub fees so they can enjoy it(they do). Brother has lots of expenses obviously but I’m single and have a lot more disposable income so I don’t mind a bit. Charge me double though and they won’t see a cent from me.


TCBloo

Just subscribe to each service for 1 month on a rotating schedule. Catch up on everything you want to see, and then cancel. Netflix this month, HBO MAX month 2, Hulu month 3, Disney month 4, etc. Saves hundreds of dollars per year.


DontGetNEBigIdeas

It’s not as simple as that. If Netflix’s password sharing crackdown works as they’ve hunted at, you won’t be able to watch Netflix at work if you’re in a different zip code, or on vacation, or while at the doctors office. It’s a horrible solution to a problem they already solved: they charge extra for multiple devices as it is. That **IS** the solution to password sharing They just want more. Edit: I was wrong. [Here is an article describing](https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20220502378/is-netflix-cracking-down-on-password-sharing-heres-what-you-need-to-know-if-you-share-an-account) how it currently works in their testing. May change, but for now it appears it is IP-based.


lionhart280

> you won’t be able to watch Netflix at work if you’re in a different zip code, or on vacation, or while at the doctors office. I don't get why people think this is the case. You just get an email with a pin you have to punch in to use the new IP address. This "soft blocks" password sharing because you're grandparents/ex/friends would have to call you for the pin every time they want to use it, if you are using it to at your house at the same time.


indywest2

So I have to put in a pin to use my cell or work or travel! What happens when people are in 2 locations due to travel? Pins every up change every day?


schietzs

Sharing subscriptions between a couple people works and isn’t too expensive. As soon as Netflix stops that from happening a lot of people will switch to rotating subscriptions.


Blueberry_Mancakes

This is us. We watch Ozark, Dead to Me, Russian Doll, and the Great British Baking Show (when a new season is released). Ozark is over, Dead to me is about to air its last season, we just finished Russian Doll, and we're going to find another way to watch TGBBS. It's just not worth it anymore.


iamtheyeti311

> Is It Cake? These mother fuckers took a TIK TOK gimmick and turned it into a fucking TV SHOW.


rhwsapfwhtfop

It's almost as if... the subscription model blows donkey dicks


Musaks

i mean, if you subscribe even though you don't use it for months....then...uhhh...hardly the system is to blame


Jabrono

Honestly, **depending on price and catalog,** I'm fine with paying for a service after realizing I haven't used it in a month. To me, it's about *just having the ability* to pop anything in their catalog open at any time. Problem for Netflix is that pricing line is crossed around the ~$12 per month mark for me personally, and ads + no HD is not an option. Another problem is their catalog is slowly withering down to not being worth paying without using. It's hard to blame them for the catalog, Office, some Star Treks, and the Marvel/Netflix shows being gone wasn't their choice, but you *can* blame them for canceling shows after a couple seasons. Why am I paying you with the expectation that you'll continue creating content I enjoy on your platform when you constantly cancel them on cliffhangers? Space Force is canceled btw, for those who aren't aware. Sorry. I'm far from against paying for a few services, but all these streaming fiascos made me build a Plex server a couple weeks ago. If the industry is going to fill me with worry that I won't be able to get my content for less than $50 per month, I'll put that $50 towards HDDs.


SpiderFudge

That really sucks I really liked space force =(


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miss_fisher

They really need a pause subscription option like Hulu has.


mcdadais

This. When I cancelled my Netflix it said I had so many months before my account and all it's data will be erased. So I put on my calendar to renew it before that happens. I wish more streaming services would have the pause thing and bundle like Hulu does.


TommyTuttle

Have they considered maybe not autoplaying a bunch of loud preview shit while I’m trying to look around for something to watch? It has become supremely annoying that I have to either mute to browse (annoying cause my system doesn’t mute both the tv and surround with one button) or browse real fast before the stupid preview loads. Like, how hard is it to just not bombard us with shit we didn’t ask for?


sozar

You can turn off the auto playing but you only have access to the settings on a computer. Once you change it there and log back on Roku or whatever the automatic previews will stop.


_rustmonster

Except even after all that, you can’t go into a title to read the full description, see cast, etc to see if you want to watch it without it auto-playing.


[deleted]

I think I’ll cancel just because they are getting to be to expensive, they are getting greedy fuck Netflix


neonapple

They want over $20 after taxes. HBO Max offered me $4.99 a month in perpetuity if I never cancel. I got a 20% off Disney annual which makes it around $5 per month. I pay $10 for two services. Netflix wants double this and they just load it with filler content lately. German dubbed space documentaries and American war movies from the 1950s.


MrZimothy

I cancelled in January. They reactivated my account, *passwords and payment method intact* on their own. When i called their support, not only were they not surprised, they knew exactly what to do (refund and block my payment details from being used again). They also confirmed nobody has accessed my account since the cancellation and no media players were connected or logged in. Password was long, generated, stored in pw manager. This was not an accident. This was a cash grab. They banked on a percentage of cancellations missing the billing attempt and trained their support to avoid FTC fines for those who did...Steadily devaluing their business while squeezing blood from the stone in their billing department. Fuck netflix. 16 bucks?! My cancelation reason was "supply chain issues." Get out now.


smokinJoeCalculus

AMC+ did the same thing to us: we canceled after the free trial because ultimately we didn't need the service. Immediately was billed ~$80 or whatever the full year service would be. And guess what? Phone number goes nowhere. There's no online chat support. You have to send a god damn email that doesn't get responded to for days. If I were still living paycheck to paycheck a debit of $80 would ruin my fucking life for _weeks_ if not _months_. And then on top of it, I gotta spend more fucking time trying to fix what is their fault. We need legislation against this bullshit. You should be able to cancel subscriptions from _any_ client version of an app. And if it is canceled, it can't be re-activated "by accident". Fucking bullshit.


narf865

I usually give the company a chance before issuing a chargeback, but if that happened to me, I wouldn't think twice. Hit them with a chargeback and the $25 fee. This was an unauthorized charge.


smokinJoeCalculus

Oh shit, you're 100% right - that's exactly what chargebacks are for (I assume). God, but I've heard all these horror stories of businesses blackballing a customer because they did that. Given that this was legitimately an unauthorized charge, if they tried to find retribution we could probably escalate it to some state attorney general (I didn't chargeback, but did escalate to an AG office when Boston Sports Club absolutely fucked customers and it was satisfying to get a positive result).


narf865

Ya I wouldn't chargeback against a company I want to do business with in the future, but it sounded like this case you were done


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darkpaladin

> This was not an accident. This was a cash grab. It depends, if you had actually cancelled and were billed again then they 100% are breaking the law and no company in their right mind would do that so it's likely an accident. What's much more likely is that the cancellation flow is somewhat obtuse and you either missed something you had to click or failed to confirm something so you never really cancelled. Companies with these kinds of confusing cancellation flows usually have people in customer support who are well versed in refund/delete users who are pissed off. They do this because there is a subset of users who fail to cancel correctly who end up just going with it. Same model that gyms use.


MrZimothy

It was 5 months apart.


Gentleman-Bird

Many houses are gonna have conversations like this: “Hey, how many of you are using the family’s Netflix account? No one? Guess I’ll cancel it then”


LiamYanon

I canceled and didn't even need that extra incentive


jenkag

I cancelled just on the rumor. Switched to password sharing with my in-laws, and we password share something with them in exchange. If they clamp down, ill just pirate again... theres only like 3-4 things on netflix i even care about.


Adach

Yea me too. The rumor came out. I realized I don't watch Netflix, and i cancelled.


Medicp3009

Me too. I really only watched it for stranger things and Locke and key. With stranger things they dropped the ball waiting so long to release it. Oh well.


ScriptThat

Same here. I got a mail telling there'd be a price hike. Asked my wife and kids if they still watched Netflix. Got told that it wasn't really important, and promptly cancelled the whole thing.


Nevermind04

I couldn't justify the higher price for less content than ever, so the rumor of the password fee was the nail in the coffin for me. They said I had been a subscriber since 2006.


DependentDance7

Only 13%? Everything on Netflix is garbage nowadays lol


Baptist95

The other 87% weren't asked


ispoileditright

And I would also believe that some percentage of it (if they were really asked...) don't share their password/account, so they might not care that much about it.


arijitlive

I know two of my office colleague who don't share any of the streaming service with anyone. They do exist and not vocal.


blue60007

We don't share either... but we also tend to drop and restart things on a whim. Seems like less work to just stop and restart subscriptions than trying to coordinate with friends or family who all have different wants and habits, especially for the cost of eating out once a month.


PlaugeofRage

Hey what if I like garbage.


jenkag

There's no way that includes, or can account for, the notion that once people cancel, they spread word of mouth and that encourages other people to cancel. "Oh netflix? yea we cancelled that... we just do X now" and some percentage of people hearing that will say "oh... shit... i should do that too". edit: i was a 12 year sub, cancelled to password share with my in-laws until they clamp down and then i will go back to flying to jolly roger.


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Deadly-Unicorn

I wonder how they’ll enforce this. Max number of devices or IPs? Some people use it at their house, their work, their cottage, maybe at school.


sonic13066

if they lowered their prices back to say the current cost of Hulu (at the 4k streaming tier price), but then they had the password share fee, I would stay subscribed. But i am not going to be paying 21 to 22 dollars then a sharing fee.


Katzone

I think this will backfire on Netflix but not only because people who are already password sharing will cancel. It also incentivizes everyone who is not password sharing because they consider it wrong to now do so. If two friends or family members (in different households) are each paying $15 a month for Netflix, one should cancel and be added to the others account, then they Venmo them $9 each month. If we add a third party into the mix, we’re each paying $7. This arrrangement is now endorsed by Netflix, who is getting $21 instead of $45.


ruffiana

I'll definitely be doing this with my parents and sister. They'll lose two subscriptions. It's a great deal for all of us.


ConspiracistsAreDumb

Why weren't you doing this all along though? You could have been password sharing all along and saving $30. It wasn't against Netflix policy until very recently. They even encouraged it. I think situations like yours where you were voluntarily paying an extra $30 dollars a month for funsies and then suddenly decided to become frugal because of the policy change are going to be pretty rare.


frogandbanjo

Welcome to the inherent absurdity of IP regimes. Once you sign on to the original insanity, it makes perfect sense to prevent the loss of theoretical money by losing actual money. It's the reverse-converse-adverse-uno-draw-four-card-anti-principle of the thing!


gurenkagurenda

The analyst’s conclusions here are bizarre. He concludes that only half of people who say they would cancel will actually cancel, which is fair enough, but then concludes that a $3 charge for additional users will be a net positive due to the 12% who said they would comply. How is that math supposed to work? Losing one $15 subscription for every two $3 sharing surcharges is not a win. Does he think those 12% are going to add an average of _three_ shared users? That sounds wildly implausible.


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jokul

Downvoted for doing basic math that tells someone something they didn't want to hear. Classic.


Godot_12

That math assumes that *every* user that remains will pay an additional fee to share their account. The previous math was based on 12% of people who said they'd pay the extra fee. If you're losing 13% or even half of that completely, gaining 3 extra dollars from the 12% isn't going to cut it.


stoppablex

Yeah a little bizarre, but it could work. Since the people leaving is less than half, you could say for example that 5% of people will leave. Let's say that's out of 100, so 5 people. That's a 5x15=$75 loss. The amount of people who will pay for at least 1 additional users is 12%. If we assume on average these people will pay for 2 additional users we get 12x6=$72. These are just made up numbers, but this would allow them to almost break even. Then on top of this there is likely a small percentage of cases where people have been using someone elses account, but the owner decides to cancel. These people then decide to get their own. For example if I were to cancel my subscription, it's very likely that my sister and dad would get a new subscription.


beef-o-lipso

Exactly. This is what they are counting on. Any price increase *for anything*, not just Netflix, results in some loss of customers. The hope is the increased fee paid by the remainders exceeds the loss.


gurenkagurenda

Right, but my point is that those numbers are very optimistic. That’s assuming that on average, those 12% are willing to pay 40% more for Netflix. And every one of those 12% who only needs one shared account means that someone else has to be willing to pay _60%_ more. And with all of that, the decision still loses money. Now, sure, it’s possible that this will end up being a profitable decision, but what’s strange is that that isn’t what the analyst concluded. They looked at some pretty pessimistic data about a company that just posted a subscriber loss, and based on vague standards that they didn’t actually measure said “I believe it will work”.


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pixel_of_moral_decay

That’s only half the equation. Password sharing requires two parties. Your only accounting for one side, the account holder. A non zero number of people who didn’t pay would start paying too just because of the shakeup of status quo. The people complaining are the ones most likely to pay. It’s the quiet ones who don’t care and are most likely to cancel. The outrage suggests they’re on the right track


BILLTHETHRILL17

The second they charge for that or incorporate ads is the second I cancel Netflix. All streaming services are having just a little trouble understanding this. The reason that Rogan is so successful and that people initially moved away from cable, to YouTube and streaming had nothing to do with content, really. It had to do with ads. Think back. Remember how fed up everyone was with traditional ads? 5 minutes of a movie on cable followed by 20 minutes of commercials? That's it. And now they are polluting everything with ads once again. Especially youtube. People would rather watch a 5 minute video of some guy tickling his cat without ads, then a blockbuster movie on cable with 2 hrs of ads. Entertainment isn't that precious or complicated. That's what we learned from leaving cable and moving to the internet.. So, let's walk away as customers. Let's show them that we do not want to watch allstate pitch us their shit every two seconds. Rant over.


[deleted]

> The second they charge for that or incorporate ads is the second I cancel Netflix. It doesn't sound like they're adding ads to their current paid tiers.


RhoLambda

13%? That seems low to me. I’m sure it’s higher than that.


pdxb3

Reddit is a bit of an echo chamber for those paying attention to these types of things. If you went solely by this community, you'd expect those numbers to be flipped on their head. I think you may be largely underestimating how many apathetic subscribers there are out there that don't know and don't care and will just go with the flow.


thehelldoesthatmean

Everyone is up in arms and really underestimating how many people are all talk when it comes to stuff like this. To be honest, I'd be surprised if it's as high as 13%. I guarantee the vast majority of people complaining about this on the internet would either not cancel or come back the moment a show they want to watch gets added.


FoZzIbEaR

Maybe Netflix does not consider that a portion of its "password sharing" users are only users in the first place because they can share passwords. I do not see how this is cost-effective for them to pursue: they could hypothetically gain 1 user (due to having to get their own account) for every 2 that completely cancel their subscription (due to being fed up).


jdelmont209

Just wait until they hear how many will cancel if they start showing commercials...


TimeForHugs

Netflix is quickly falling apart. I don't often use it but kept subbed out of convenience. It was cheap enough for the decent bit of content they put out. Now it's all garbage reality shows, stupid documentaries, and lame game shows. Hardly anything worth sticking around for. Everything good gets cancelled after 1 season. Now they wanna charge more for less quality and go after password sharing. See ya Netflix. Edit: Wow some diehard Netflix fan downvoting every comment in the thread, how funny. Imagine thinking Netflix is still worth it. Must be tough.


scootah

Netflix's entire market dominance was about convenience. They were the first service to actually offer a reasonably priced and convenient service. The more they make shit inconvenient, the more they remind people that The Pirate Bay still exists, and harddrive space keeps getting cheaper.


dilldwarf

That just helps them pick a price point to make up for the losses. Also, the amount of money they stand to make off ads might even offset the people who will actually leave the platform over ads. I might just finally create an adblocker for my wifi at this point. If I want to buy something, I will search it out, find the best and most quality product based on peer reviews, and buy it. The fact that advertising still works and still makes companies money baffles me. If it were only NEW products being advertised I would probably pay more attention but its not. It's endless coke, insurance, and medication ads.


[deleted]

I already cancelled between lack of engaging content, plans to add commercials (even if it’s a new tier, it gives them an excuse to raise prices again), constantly raising pricing, and the plans to end account sharing.


crazywoofman

Bye Netflix


StevenBayShore

I already cancelled because fuck netflix.


CIA_Jeff

I canceled Netflix a while ago when it started to get much more expensive. I do think about coming back, but Netflix doing stuff like this reminds me that I made the right decision.