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!~)
Hmmm, Netflix shows seem to be working just fine on my Plex server. /s
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.
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.
Here is the TOS back when the “Love is sharing a password” tweet happened: https://web.archive.org/web/20170306041322/https://help.netflix.com/legal/termsofuse?locale=en&docType=termsofuse
The only reference to password sharing is this:
The Account Owner’s control is exercised through use of the Account Owner’s password and therefore to maintain exclusive control, the Account Owner should not reveal the password to anyone. In addition, if the Account Owner wishes to prohibit others from contacting Netflix Customer Service and potentially altering the Account Owner’s control, the Account Owner should not reveal the Payment Method details (e.g., last four digits of their credit or debit card, or their email address if they use PayPal) associated with their account.
Which seems a little contradictory to the “love is sharing a password” tweet, but I think it can be reconciled as “The only way for you to retain exclusive control is if you don’t share your password so if you share your password and someone messes with your account, that’s your fault not ours. Also if you share your password definitely don’t share your payment info because then they could really mess your account up.”
No where in there does it say anything about only sharing within a household. The way back machine only has two snapshots of the page in 2018: one in January that doesn’t mention sharing outside your household and one in December that does. So it was added sometime that year, not sure what month, but that’s still a year or so after they tweeted that sharing is okay.
Is there a source showing that sharing outside your household was prohibited prior to 2018?
The original tweet
I understand that they’ve said that, and I’ll re-iterate, as far as I’m aware Netflix’s password sharing policy has always been for individuals living in the same household.
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.
