Netflix's Password-Sharing Test in Peru is Confusing Subscribers (techcrunch.com) 37
It's been a bumpy ride for Netflix recently, and the announcement that it will be charging for password sharing hasn't gone as smoothly as it might have hoped, a new report claims. TechCrunch: Subscribers in Peru who were opted in to new password-sharing restrictions have reported confusion over Netflix's loose definition of "household" and noted the lack of clarity around the differing charges imposed on consumers. Global tech news site Rest of World informally surveyed more than a dozen Netflix users in Peru, after Netflix's March announcement that it would be asking customers in the country -- as well as in Chile and Costa Rica -- to pay extra when sharing their account passwords outside their homes. Central and South America represent Netflix's lowest revenue per user, which helps to explain the markets' selection.
The majority of those surveyed by Rest of World in Peru said that they have still not received uniform messaging around the new charges, even though it's been over two months after the policy was first announced. Some subscribers experienced the price increase and then canceled their Netflix accounts as a result. But others who ignored the message about the new policy were able to share their accounts across households without an extra charge, they claimed.
The majority of those surveyed by Rest of World in Peru said that they have still not received uniform messaging around the new charges, even though it's been over two months after the policy was first announced. Some subscribers experienced the price increase and then canceled their Netflix accounts as a result. But others who ignored the message about the new policy were able to share their accounts across households without an extra charge, they claimed.
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Verify it is you with the fingerprint scanner on your phone with the GPS on your phone reporting the same as the geolocate of the IP address the Netflix app is being viewed from. Done deal.
I don't have a cellphone. So you can just fuck off with your silly biometric bullshit.
Re:They need to move away from passwords (Score:4, Insightful)
If you think that I or any other sane human beings are going to give their biometrics to netflix then you are in for a really big surprise.
for TV's / setup top boxes? that does not work and (Score:2)
for TV's / setup top boxes? that does not work and if they try to do something like NFL ticket that will fail in an COMMERCIAL TV setting.
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So my kids can't watch something when I'm not at home to authenticate? How convenient!
It's so stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
they still have an HD fee as well.! (Score:2)
they still have an HD fee as well.!
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Is there a Netflix originals only mode? (Score:2)
What you say would be relevant if failing a password sharing check caused the user's view of the Netflix service to fall back to a mode in which Netflix originals may be watched and works owned by third parties (which you refer to as "the content owners that license out the content") may not. If a password sharing check causes Netflix originals to become unavailable, then Netflix as such cares.
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Ostensibly, the feature to show only Netflix originals would be there to let Netflix offer service in a new country before finalizing licensing deals with the incumbent motion picture distributors that serve that country.
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Streaming services never cared how many folks shared an account (i.e. Netflix) because they limited accounts to simultaneous streams/screens.
Imagine taking this to the logical extreme. Someone creates a service that wraps a pool of Netflix accounts. Viewers sign up to the service instead of Netflix directly, then the service app/web page provides them an available stream from the pool whenever they want to watch something. The total amount of Netflix subscriptions needed would plummet.
How do even track same households? (Score:2)
Where do you even start? IP-based identification in the world where everyone has multiple mobile devices is never going to be enough. Especially since some of us use always-on VPN when outside of their house to protect their privacy from some of the most curious mobile signal providers.
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I am slowly getting tired of TV as the whole, to be honest. Apart from the old classics (of which I already own all on DVD/BluRay) there's hardly anything worth wasting time on these days.
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How do you sensibly define a household when not every family is a nuclear family with 2.5 kids?
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How about if I want to use Netflix on my tv, and also on my tablet when travelling outside my home? Once I leave my home network do i need a separate license?
What about if I want to share my Netflix with my (hypothetical) kids who are now povo students at Uni?
Can I share netflix with my wife who is on an overseas contract job for 3 months or do we need to get another account?
So many ways this can break.
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How do you sensibly define a household when not every family is a nuclear family with 2.5 kids?
What is a Netflix household?
A Netflix account is for people who live together in a single household. This single household is the Netflix household and is associated with the primary account owner’s devices and the devices used by other people who live in the Netflix household.
When a device outside of the Netflix household signs in to an account, we may ask the primary account owner to verify that device before it can be used to watch Netflix. We do this to confirm that the device using the account is authorized to do so. This helps our members enjoy Netflix while they're traveling or visiting friends or family, and when using devices for the first time.
https://help.netflix.com/en/no... [netflix.com]
So the household is the place where the primary owner lives. Furthermore depending on the plan you can watch Netflix on 1, 2 or 4 screens simultaneously (at least in my country). So you should be able to select a plan (or buy two subscriptions) that fit your household.
I don't see why this should be a problem for non-nuclear families. You will of course have to have multiple subscriptions if you don't live in one household. But the subscriptions are not family based, they ar
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Especially since some of us use always-on VPN when outside of their house
Well... I for certain that you aren't using any streaming service. They've all blocked the major VPN companies for a long time.
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It's pretty easy to know which ASIN a user is coming from.
If one IP is a semi static xfinity and one is from semi static centurylink you're almost certainly sharing. If though it's an AT&T ASIN then you're probably on mobile. What will most trigger the false positives is when you're on someone else's wifi. But even that can be taken care of with hardware fingerprints and seeing which IP it most commonly streams from. Not to mention the apps know what hardware you're running on. If you're running
I'm guessing,,, (Score:2)
...it'll be selective enforcement. People like myself who subscribe to their most expensive HD feed and have a mother who occasionally shares the account will likely never hear a peep. No point in killing that goose. It'll probably be the bottom tier accounts used by multiple concurrent IPs that'll get targeted.
Of course I'll only believe that until I suddenly need to log in unexpectedly...
Just abort streams already - it's easy (Score:3, Interesting)
All Netflix has to do is change the way they work. If you have 4 streams and start a 5th, the 5th will error out saying there are too many streams.
All they need to do is start the 5th stream, then abort the oldest stream. Just kick the user watching it back to the login screen.
If they log in again, they will find they lost their place and will have to re-start watching and fast forward. Oh, but that'll be a 5th stream, so the oldest of the 5 get aborted, and someone else gets kicked out.
After a few minutes of this rigamarole, people will sign up for another account because the hassle of entering your username and password again, finding your program, fast forwarding to where you left off gets really old really quick.
And even worse, you're not sure if or when it will happen again! It might take 20 minutes to get kicked out again, it might take a half hour, just when you're settling in you get kicked out. Your only option is make a new account, or suffer through random logouts and losing your place.
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Roku made one change in the latest OS - when screen saver kicks in, your movie gets kicked off paused state and into the app state. I am considering ditching Roky just for that minor inconvenience. Imagine what your suggestion would do to netflix cu
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don't think so.
Fox Sports in Australia does exactly this with their online platform, and it is so not an issue if you aren't purposely going over your limit.
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I mean - not aborting streams - you are prevented in even starting a new stream on a new device.
but then again - they offer picture in picture on their platform - 3 streams on one screen - goes great with my 100 inch projector.
they just need to get off their arse and stream 4k.
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IMHO, this is the most idiotic suggestion. This will just make customers upset and Netflix will have even more customer loss than they have now. What a way to push your customers back to pirating movies. It is not like Netflix movies are not available to pirate.
The part about logging the user out is a bad idea, but the part about aborting the oldest stream is a very *good* idea. This would fix the #1 problem I have with Netflix, which is that if I'm watching on my Roku and leave the house without backing all the way out to the list of shows, even if I turn the TV off, it takes half an hour or more before the Roku releases its "lease" on my account, allowing another device to start playing content. I've actually used the "log out all other devices" on more than o
Time to spend some karma (Score:2)
It doesn't help that they never finish anything (I'm looking at you Dorohedoro, it's not like the Manga is unfinished). I take it back, they did finish Seven Deadly Sins
Bring it. (Score:2)
I was one of the very early Netflix adopters. 3x DVDs since the start.
Our netflix account is shared (only) in our home and with our 20something kids.
There is very little anyone is watching on Netflix so right now we're paying them a monthly fee for maybe 3-4 hours worth of use per month.
If they assert that we need to pay an account fee for each of them? We're done.
I think the whole 'put every show in its own little walled garden' is both stupid and stereotypical of greedy AF media firms who will cheerfull
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I'm really stunned by these anecdotal responses. No doubt there are plenty of paying customers that will bail, but I'm sure they have a good idea about how many more there are who likely won't.
I mean you've used Netflix since the beginning. Remember how they had recommendations back when basically no one did?
Netflix, at its core, is really a data company.
They have a pretty good idea what you're worth. Probably a disturbingly good idea.
But more than that, I see comments on every article about this that are l
Thirteen people surveyed? (Score:2)
They really went out of their way to get a truly representative sample of Peruvians!
Well, technically the summary says "more than a dozen" so I interpreted that to mean, 13.
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They really went out of their way to get a truly representative sample of Peruvians!
Well, technically the summary says "more than a dozen" so I interpreted that to mean, 13.
Do we know the average IQ of a Peruvian? I mean, they could be a LOT smarter than the rest of us and Netflix only has 14 subscribers there . . .
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Great question! We have a survey sample of 13, we should test them and find out!
"were opted in"? (Score:2)
> Subscribers in Peru who were opted in...
Someone clearly doesn't understand the meaning of the term. Maybe they're confusing it with "voluntold"