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Starting today, we will be sending this email to members who are sharing Netflix outside their household in the United States.

A Netflix account is for use by one household. Everyone living in that household can use Netflix wherever they are at home, on the go, on holiday and take advantage of new features like Transfer Profile and Manage Access and Devices.

We recognize that our members have many entertainment choices. It's why we continue to invest heavily in a wide variety of new films and TV shows so whatever your taste, mood or language and whoever you're watching with, there's always something satisfying to watch on Netflix.

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https://about.netflix.com/en/news/update-on-sharing-may-us

Time for your freeloading friends to cancel Netflix. No reason for you to cancel.

HOW DARE THEY NOT LET US STEAL FROM THEM ANYMORE?!?!?!?!

Yellerjacket said:

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Time for your freeloading friends to cancel subscribe to Netflix. No reason for you to cancel.

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fify

The writers contract isn't going to pay for itself

Very surprised it took them this long.

I don't see the problem here. Do you think you should be able to pay one fee and have all of your extended family and friends use that account as well? Why is this a problem?

After seeing other countries complain on Reddit for the past year, I gotta admit I still don't understand the issue.

People are mad that a company wants you to follow the rules and pay your fair share?

The funny part is people are only angry because they have been using Netflix a lot and enjoy the services, but they just want to steal it.

I pay for four screens. Why does it matter where they are?

Love is sharing a password.

— Netflix (@netflix) March 10, 2017

It's a change in policy. It hasn't been stealing. They are now making it that way. I'm allowed to disagree with it and take my business elsewhere.

Madmarttigan said:

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After seeing other countries complain on Reddit for the past year, I gotta admit I still don't understand the issue.

People are mad that a company wants you to follow the rules and pay your fair share?

The funny part is people are only angry because they have been using Netflix a lot and enjoy the services, but they just want to steal it.

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Probably the biggest wtf ever since the advent of the internet is the idea that music and video and so on should just be...free. I get it, free information and all that and 20 years ago it was fun to find some blog about your favorite show or favorite college football team and join a forum and all that,and you can read or consume as much content as you want from amateur folks who just had a passion for what they "covered" and you get legends like Kige Ramsey, YouTube Sports happening.

To go from that to "no, I deserve the entirety of human existence to be available to me for free at a moment's notice" has been a pretty big leap but somehow thats the way it went.

superunknown said:

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Madmarttigan said:

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After seeing other countries complain on Reddit for the past year, I gotta admit I still don't understand the issue.

People are mad that a company wants you to follow the rules and pay your fair share?

The funny part is people are only angry because they have been using Netflix a lot and enjoy the services, but they just want to steal it.

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Probably the biggest wtf ever since the advent of the internet is the idea that music and video and so on should just be...free. I get it, free information and all that and 20 years ago it was fun to find some blog about your favorite show or favorite college football team and join a forum and all that,and you can read or consume as much content as you want from amateur folks who just had a passion for what they "covered" and you get legends like Kige Ramsey, YouTube Sports happening.

To go from that to "no, I deserve the entirety of human existence to be available to me for free at a moment's notice" has been a pretty big leap but somehow thats the way it went.

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I think the the issue is more that password sharing was never a problem in the past, so much so that Netflix themselves would tweet out jokes about it. And now after 15+ years its suddenly a problem that needs to be addressed.

It's their right to change the policy. But lets not pretend like they didn't encourage it from the get go and say people sharing passwords are stealing....

I can tell you our specific example...my in laws have Netflix, probably mainly for their kids. We use their account and my wife's brother uses their account. None of us use it enough or like any of the content enough to justify paying for it. They've already said they'll cancel if/when this happens. We don't use it enough to care to pay for our own subscription when they do....

Because for 14 of those years Netflix treated money like it wasn't real or grew on trees, and basically every other streamer followed suit. But then all the sudden reality caught up with them, Netflix had one bad quarter where they didn't meet subscriber growth projections, Wall Street freaked out, and the entire house of cards fell down for all of streaming. Now it's all about tangible profit, not subscriber growth, which is why you're seeing *every* streamer going through this exact same thing… finding any way they can to cut costs, make fewer shows and movies, sell off content, fire employees, etc.

If the freeloaders come off their user list Netflix wins. Think of all the server space eaten up by people not paying anything.
If they lose a few disgruntled paying folks who think they should be able to give other people free access to a pay service, they still win on net probably.
And they come up ahead if even a small percentage of those freeloaders start paying.

It's really an absolute no brainer for Netflix in todays environment.

oragator said:

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If the freeloaders come off their user list Netflix wins. Think of all the server space eaten up by people not paying anything.
If they lose a few disgruntled paying folks who think they should be able to give other people free access to a pay service, they still win on net probably.
And they come up ahead if even a small percentage of those freeloaders start paying.

It's really an absolute no brainer for Netflix in todays environment.

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I understand they are looking for a way to "keep people honest" but I disagree with this take.
I don't see the correlation to server space other than the space required for profiles? In this day and age the cost of cloud storage and cloud computing is so low that the difference will likely be negligible after the initial blip of decreased overhead they may see.

Netflix whole model is really built off of the advantage they gained by being the 1st to market as far as "streaming" is known and leveraging all those eyeballs (regardless of which account they are using) to get their programming massive exposure.

If you start losing 1-2 households per account this will eventually lead to a massive dent in viewership for those flagship titles.
They are already reaching to pump out more and more content for less by churning out alot of subpar programs and a massive amount of international programming.

Netflix got massive by releasing original content that was head & shoulders better than what others were putting out for the most part. AMC was doing the same on premium cable. That is what they should focus on.

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In this day and age the cost of cloud storage and cloud computing is so low

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can't say i agree with this.

As someone that's maintained a Netflix subscription for 13 years from DVDs to blu-rays to streaming, I've canceled my sub. I currently pay $20/mo for 4 screen access for my family. This new policy considers my family as "freeloaders" just because we don't live in the same household.

Netflix is already the most expensive streaming service but it was always worth having for us if just one family member found something worthwhile to watch every month. At $28/mo, I no longer feel like the available new content is worth paying for monthly. As a family we can save ~$300/yr by only subscribing for one or two months per year to catch up on the small selection of worthwhile new 8 episode shows and new original movies.

No problem though. I look forward to the December Netflix content marathon.

felte said:

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As someone that's maintained a Netflix subscription for 13 years from DVDs to blu-rays to streaming, I've canceled my sub. I currently pay $20/mo for 4 screen access for my family. This new policy considers my family as "freeloaders" just because we don't live in the same household.

Netflix is already the most expensive streaming service but it was always worth having for us if just one family member found something worthwhile to watch every month. At $28/mo, I no longer feel like the available new content is worth paying for monthly. As a family we can save ~$300/yr by only subscribing for one or two months per year to catch up on the small selection of worthwhile new 8 episode shows and new original movies.

No problem though. I look forward to the December Netflix content marathon.

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Living in different households, does your family still share the same cell phone plan? Do you pay for everyone else's water & power? Do you pay for everyone else's internet?

I just don't understand why entertainment is considered the exception.

If someone can afford to live on their own, they should pay for their own streaming accounts, just like all of their other utilities. Granted, college is a gray area, but even then, certain parents are paying separate water & power bills for their kids, separate internet bills, etc, and they should have to pay for separate streaming bills as well.

Most the argument is valid, except cell phone plans. I know tons of people sharing cell plans across multiple households……

The other thing is simply price/value. Some people don't see the value in it for just themselves. If then and their family are using it, the value may be there. Nothing wrong with that view…..

c-jags said:

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AggieOO said:

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In this day and age the cost of cloud storage and cloud computing is so low

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can't say i agree with this.

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I deal with a ton of companies that host in the cloud or exclusively SAAS and their costs have gone up a noticable.

One product i sell is the second biggest AWS consumer behind Netflix and they've had a pretty good bump in prices because of AWS services going up.

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Yep. Cold storage in the cloud makes sense. But we aren't talking cold storage for Netflix. Actually an interesting parallel behind everyone moving workloads into the cloud and people cutting the cord. In both cases, the consumer is now usually paying the same or more than they were before the technology shifts.

This is better than the alternative they toyed with. They proposed charging for each profile in a household account separately at one point. That would have made us move to one profile and I would have to scroll past all of my wife's reality shows and Hallmark romance style movies to get to my stuff.

DallasTeleAg said:

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AggieOO said:

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In this day and age the cost of cloud storage and cloud computing is so low

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can't say i agree with this.

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Correct. Anyone who knows anything about video hosting can tell you how expensive it is.

My only concern is how this affects those of us who use VPNs. It will look like someone is logging into my account from all across the country every day or so.

I don't understand why anyone would have an issue with Netflix changing their policy to crack down on sharing passwords. It really isn't that much money. If you can afford to kick back and watch Netflix, you should be able to afford to pay for it.

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I don't have an issue with Netflix doing it. But doesn't mean I'm going to continue using the service.

And this is a drastic oversimplification. Just because I can afford it, doesn't mean I think it's worth it.

Not to mention that if you say this about every $20 or less streaming service you'll suddenly be looking at a monthly bill of $200….

This feels like a really strange hill to die on.

I don't even know what point you're trying to make. Are you saying all streaming services should be free? Are you saying Netflix is responsible for your oversubscription of streaming services?

We're talking about entertainment, which is not a natural right nor necessary to survive. It is very simple, pay for it if you want it, don't pay for it if you don't.

Or go get a hobby.