1y ago

Netflix Anti-Sharing in USA - It's Here

My family shares our Netflix account. We live in different states, but all in the United States.

I used it yesterday and it was fine. But today it was not. I got the "you are not part of this household" message, with the three options being:

make your own account
make this location the household location
I'm traveling

I watch a lot of random stuff, but mostly on different services. So, while it's kind of a bummer to uninstall Netflix, I have plenty of options. It's moreso just depressing that the enshittification has finally hit North America. Will probably see more of this stuff around on the internet soon, as I'm guessing I just got my number pulled before most people (which is doubly depressing since this we've had Netflix since like 2005 or something and were strong advocates of it when linear tv was still dominant - THAT'S CAPITALISM FOR YA!)

28 comments

I unsubscribed and haven't had Netflix since June 18. I wasn't personally affected by their policy change since the only people who used the account were myself and my husband, but I canceled on principle. After years of declining selection and price increases for basic features, it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I have to say I don't miss it at all ... me hearties
- I was one of the first streaming customers in 2007. I was a long term customer for many years. Eventually I transitioned down to the 1-member plan for 8.99 with 1080p resolution which was fine for my 1080p television. Eventually they jacked the price to $9.99 and I noticed they had secretly downgraded the streaming rate down to 720p without telling me.
  So I cancelled my Netflix after fifteen years. Honestly I haven't missed it once. I look forward to cancelling more streaming services as well since the content really is going stale - I'm losing interest in most of it.
- I canceled Netflix three years ago. There are plenty of other less expensive services with a higher hit to miss ratio for their originals.
  Haven’t missed it a bit.
- Likewise I cancelled my sub in May when due to the constant price increases/declining quality compared to other services. But despite not sharing passwords since like 2010 I put “password sharing policy” in the comment box when cancelling

Fun Fact! Did you know that an external Blu-Ray drive and a copy of MakeMKV is only $115? That is equivalent to about 7 months of a standard Netflix subscription. Fascinating! 💸
Apropos to nothing, a library card is free! Did you know that your library will have almost infinite DVDs and Blu-Rays for you to check out anytime you want? Libraries are cool! 🤓
Just some totally random fun facts that I thought of for no reason at all... 🙃
- Just remember that dual-layer Blu-ray discs are up to 50GB each. For no reason, you should add a few TB of hard drives under 100$ to your computer because everyone needs data.. However, if you do partake in "extended library checkouts", you can have a rotating selection of 20-80 movies all without an internet connection. And you don't even have to rewind the tapes 🙃 for the library, how cool!
  Sadly, MakeMKV takes minimum 30 minutes per "job", meaning you can't just have a happy hour at the library admiring the Bluray cases, oh for shame.
  
  And you don't even have to rewind the tapes
  It's true you don't have to rewind the DVDs, but I always do just because I really appreciate everything the library provides to the community. Anything I can do to make the librarians jobs easier, you know?
- Hey, you seem like the kind of person who might know the answer to this: If I produce my own video content and want to share it with others for free, say through a peer-to-peer solution where others can help me spread my creation, how would I get the right to start seeding my video?
  
  Hmm. I'm actually probably not a guy that is well versed in that kind of thing. Are you talking about sharing your "extended library checkouts"? I don't really use peer-to-peer networks except for downloading actual Linux ISOs. Like the meme except earnestly. I don't really feel like pissing off my ISP.
  If you're talking about video you create and have the rights to... PeerTube might be a good way to get your stuff out there. It is a federated/peer-to-peer video sharing server. There are major instances you can use, and you could also host your own server and publish your work there and then let it federate out to the other PeerTube instances.

Pretty funny, I just canceled my netflix account. Not even for this reason.

4.2. The Netflix service and any content accessed through our service are for your personal and non-commercial use only and may not be shared with individuals beyond your household unless otherwise allowed by your subscription plan.
Are you really that surprised netflix is finally enforcing its terms of service?
- In a March 10, 2017, Twitter thread that was promoting its original series Love, Netflix wrote, "Love is sharing a password." The single tweet in the thread garnered more than 15,000 likes and more than 4,600 retweets.
  in 2016 Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said that consumers sharing Netflix account information was “a positive thing.” Hastings explained at CES that people who share someone else’s Netflix account often go on to become paying subscribers themselves at a later date, CNET reported. “We love people sharing Netflix whether they’re two people on a couch or 10 people on a couch,” Hastings said. “That’s a positive thing, not a negative thing.”
  I think people are surprised that the abilities of the service they signed up for have changed. Are you surprised people have a problem with Netflix simply having those terms of service?
  
  Can you provide a source that indicates that Netflix's account sharing was ever encouraged beyond a single household? My understanding is netlix has always been pro-sharing as long as all users that share a password are within the same household.
- Considering they did not while the profits were good, you can expect someone to reasonably assume that it might never change

Netflix blocked sharing you say? Kodi has not been made aware of this information yet.

Shit, we dropped Netflix as soon as the emails about it came. Not missing it either.

Hmmm, Netflix shows seem to be working just fine on my Plex server. /s

28 comments