Netflix Is Bleeding Millions Due to Password Sharing

The problem is that they see it the wrong way, and it makes a huge difference in terms of business models. They look at it in how to prevent people from steeling, when they should look at ways to make them potential customers. A reasonable limit on how many devices can stream at the same time, with the ability to give out referrals in the form of three months free trial over the standard... with one referral per IP. If that person subs for three months as a result of your referral, you get three free months.
 
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duronboy said:
Then use your computer. Or xbox. Or anything with a browser. So this method would mean there's two passwords: Admin and user. Admin log-ins would require additional info that one wouldn't be comfortable sharing with someone online.
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if it ever became a worry for them i think a better route to go would be to have the admin(primary) account then maybe charge 3-5 dollars a month per shared account tied to that primary account. similar to how cell phone companies do with extra lines on your account.
 
This is the same logic as the anti-piracy groups. There isn't a 1:1 ratio of downloads to lost sales.

I use Netflix very infrequently (less than once a month) using my parents' credentials. If I didn't use their credentials there's no way I would get a subscription. Maybe (and this is a big maybe), I'd pay for one month once a year and binge, but that's a big maybe. The more likely scenario would be that I just don't ever watch it at all.
 
Netflix already adopted the most customer-friendly model, not sure why they would've done this if they we're in it to try bleeding customers dry.
 
Netflix? Pft. I have no interest in sitting for hours in front of the idiot box.

Strap a go pro on your downhill mountain bike and survive the trip down. Much better than Netflix.
 
So is this actually something that Netflix has stated is an issue? Or is one writer just trying to "get the scoop" and fuck it up for everyone who does use passwords of others?
 
SomeoneElse said:
This is the epitome of corporate greed talking. Even netflix doesn't care of they would limit their service to 1 stream per login..."
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Exactly. If this was some kind of world ending issue for them, the FIRST step would be to simply ensure that more than one concurrent stream can't happen per account. They could even lower the price, then have reduced fee add-ons for additional streaming devices. Then effectively families with high multi-device use pay a little for it, and mere friends aren't going to bother with trying to help someone else save $5 by going to the trouble to add additional streaming devices to an account then try to get their friends to pay.

And if some few people DO decide to do this? So what. Netflix still makes money off every one.

So yeah, the solution is simple.

I've had a hard time understanding how the hell they keep their bandwidth usage in check with multiple devices being allowed simultaneous use per account. It's amazing it's lasted this long.
 
sfsuphysics said:
So is this actually something that Netflix has stated is an issue? Or is one writer just trying to "get the scoop" and fuck it up for everyone who does use passwords of others?
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as far as netflix ceo says they don't care. it's just another random article claiming netflix is losing money. i haven't bothered to look but i'd also guess this writer(s) has put out articles about how piracy is killing the movie industry even though they've had record number profits for the last few years.
 
nutzo said:
Same argument as piracy.
Most the people who are sharing passwords would never pay for their own subscription, so there is no lost revenue.
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and lets not forget the actual positive that these fucktards dont mention.. that sharing an account to someone may be done so they don't have to jump through all the hoops of signing up to yet another account on the internet that sucks your details.... so they may use another account and "hey bro.. just use my login details and if you like it.. you can sign up".

Boom. More customers. But no... its muh-piracy.
 
*sigh*. They are not BLEEDING MILLIONS. They are not losing money, they are failing to entice customers.
Someone using a netflix password might not have signed up so how can you say it was lost money?

A better way, a less condescending way, a less spoilt-entitled bitch way would be to say there are millions in potential customers. Provide incentives to sign up and they will come

Netflix works because it is hassle-free... you start getting people to jump through hoops and they will leave. Sure gimp non-main accounts if you have to (720p, limited catalogue) but there better be a family option...
 
If they could improve their library here... I only get about 8 percent (yes, less than 1 tenth) of the library that US customers get... yet I have to pay the same price? Nu-uh! I rather grab someone else password for the few things I want to see.
 
yup EU gets screwed over... too many nations with their own broadcasting rights to certain content...
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
as far as netflix ceo says they don't care. it's just another random article claiming netflix is losing money. i haven't bothered to look but i'd also guess this writer(s) has put out articles about how piracy is killing the movie industry even though they've had record number profits for the last few years.
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You haven't bothered to look yet you're going to go ahead and talk out your ass about it?

The gist of the article is that Netflix has allowed sharing accounts for some time but that people are sharing their accounts outside their households and losing revenue from those people is going to cause investors to pressure Netflix to do something about it.

It has nothing to do with sharing accounts within households. Netflix accounts for this and even has rates for people to share their accounts within the same household. It looks like most of the people bitching in this thread don't even have Netflix accounts, which isn't surprising given the underlying point of the article (that a huge number of people are leeches).
 
MMitch said:
Anyway, I suppose sharing is with person that in the first place wouldn't/couldn't pay for it... (Example: My sister...)
it's like saying pirate are stealing money from big studios... it's stretched at best...
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Remember a time period where buying used games was like piracy to studios? This shouldn't come as a surprise with streaming services.
 
GotNoRice said:
What about people who subscribe to Cable TV or Satellite TV and then let their other family members and/or friends watch the TV also? Is this really any different?
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That is the same house/household it is being streamed to. Find a way to stream that to another house and not only would you be REALLY popular, you would probably also end up being sued for it. Even worse are PPV, where you are limited on number of people, and if done in a public setting (like a bar) a single fight or the like can cost thousands, larger places might be as much as $16k, it goes up past that, but you would be hard pressed to find a bar that size.

The whole thing is about other house holds with no relation to the subscriber using the service. Which to me doesn't really matter, you get so many streams at once you are paying for and if you want more streams you have to pay for it, who uses those streams I believe should be up to you.

Calavaro said:
If they could improve their library here... I only get about 8 percent (yes, less than 1 tenth) of the library that US customers get... yet I have to pay the same price? Nu-uh! I rather grab someone else password for the few things I want to see.
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License holders. They don't want the show in other countries (for whatever reason), region locked content is just utter BS, but without a doubt not Netflixes fault, they would love to have the extra content to get others to subscribe. It's the same with show rotations, depending on the license, they are only allowed to show the content for so long or are only allowed to have so many shows at once, so they have to rotate them out to be able to show those as well, most of the time it's a few months and the content will be back.
 
BlueFireIce said:
That is the same house/household it is being streamed to. Find a way to stream that to another house and not only would you be REALLY popular, you would probably also end up being sued for it.
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That already applies to a certain amount of content. For example, I can use the NBC streaming app for free. I just have to prove that I subscribe to that content via Cable TV or Satellite TV. Once I do that, I can stream that content to anywhere (including letting others use the password).
 
This sounds like "$100 a year for unlimited storage"


Headline: People Are Abusing Their Unlimited Storage!
 
GotNoRice said:
That already applies to a certain amount of content. For example, I can use the NBC streaming app for free. I just have to prove that I subscribe to that content via Cable TV or Satellite TV. Once I do that, I can stream that content to anywhere (including letting others use the password).
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You can do lots of things not allowed, not really sure what that proves?

The NBC TOS states that content may not be shared for any reason and for profit or not. To do so is consider "commercial". Or do you really think they are ok with you sharing your account with whoever and however many people you like?

Now, how they enforce this I am not sure, Netflix is more concerned with number of streams rather than who is accessing it. NBC might do the same.
 
BlueFireIce said:
You can do lots of things not allowed, not really sure what that proves?
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I'm not trying to "prove" anything, just addressing the comment you made in your previous post, since you seemed to indicate that it wasn't something that was possible yet.

BlueFireIce said:
That is the same house/household it is being streamed to. Find a way to stream that to another house and not only would you be REALLY popular, you would probably also end up being sued for it.
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im sorry... was this the same netflix that just 6 months ago was dancing in the streets because they totally hit a new price record for shares after a massive subscriber surge?

.....or was that some other netflix that is about to go under because they didnt do just that 6 months ago.......? im a bit confused here
 
Rob94hawk said:
Netflix? Pft. I have no interest in sitting for hours in front of the idiot box.

Strap a go pro on your downhill mountain bike and survive the trip down. Much better than Netflix.
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OMG THANK YOU... you have just proven to me how utterly lost and useless my ENTIRE LIFE has been to this point for liking something you dont like!!! WTF HAVE I BEEN DOING ALL THIS TIME!?!?!!?!?


:meh:
 
harbingerofdoom said:
im sorry... was this the same netflix that just 6 months ago was dancing in the streets because they totally hit a new price record for shares after a massive subscriber surge?

.....or was that some other netflix that is about to go under because they didnt do just that 6 months ago.......? im a bit confused here
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The problem is that they have to keep demanding you to give them money, if you would just voluntarily give them more money everything would be good. They can make better use of your money.
 
GotNoRice said:
I'm not trying to "prove" anything, just addressing the comment you made in your previous post, since you seemed to indicate that it wasn't something that was possible yet.
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It's not.

Just because the content is also available through another means is not the same thing, if you look at it that way a large part of Netflixes library would also count as cable sharing, as they carry shows that were/are also on cable. It's about service sharing, not specific content.
 
BlueFireIce said:
It's not.

Just because the content is also available through another means is not the same thing
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Even if it is dependent on your Cable/Satellite subscription, as in, part of that same subscription?

BlueFireIce said:
if you look at it that way a large part of Netflixes library would also count as cable sharing, as they carry shows that were/are also on cable.
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Well, I originally contended that it is more the same than different, so maybe sharing Netflix should count as "cable sharing". Pretty sure most don't get Netflix for free as part of their Cable / Satellite subscription though.
 
GotNoRice said:
Even if it is dependent on your Cable/Satellite subscription, as in, part of that same subscription?



Well, I originally contended that it is more the same than different, so maybe sharing Netflix should count as "cable sharing". Pretty sure most don't get Netflix for free as part of their Cable / Satellite subscription though.
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Still not the same, lots of other issues streaming from cable/sat than an online stream, it's also covered under a whole host of other laws.

Netflix as far as I know has not said anything about this, however cable/sat has made it clear. The problem only exists in the article, as Netflix has made it clear they are not going to do anything about it, even if they may or may not like it:

"Password sharing is something you have to learn to live with, because there's so much legitimate password sharing, like you sharing with your spouse, with your kids .... so there's no bright line, and we're doing fine as is."
 
sfsuphysics said:
The secretary where I used to work shared a DirecTV subscription with her sister, they both had satellite dishes they had 2 receivers, just didn't live at the same house. Not sure if they found a way to circumvent that anymore though, need to have a physical connection to the main box maybe?
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Shhhh...
 
nutzo said:
Same argument as piracy.
Most the people who are sharing passwords would never pay for their own subscription, so there is no lost revenue.
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But there must be some value to what they are streaming for them to want to steal it in the first place. If it truly had no value, then nobody would bother with "borrowing" a password in the first place.
 
GotNoRice said:
That already applies to a certain amount of content. For example, I can use the NBC streaming app for free. I just have to prove that I subscribe to that content via Cable TV or Satellite TV. Once I do that, I can stream that content to anywhere (including letting others use the password).
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Hah! Thats rich of them. NBC and their affiliates pay for the rights to broadcast over the airwaves, the airwaves that fly over my house. I can pick them up with a $50 antenna easily, in HD. Yet, Comcast now collects "Rebroadcast fees" every month on my cable bill. If I didn't get screwed over by comcast on internet (really the only high spped option compared to overpriced dsl in my area) I'd drop the tv portion of comcast in a heart beat. I get a crappy tv package with them anyway, with constant offers that require at least one year contracts.

So NBC wants me to prove that I subscirbe to cable or sat? For about $100 you can hook up a device to your antenna and broadcast those OTA channels across your home network. Anyway, they should all be scared as Comcast might get better with their video on demand services which could make netflix and hulu or nbc's streaming app pointless.
 
This is not a new issue. All these streaming services would benefit from cracking down on this.
 
Here comes more depressing DRM. Just wait...

One way or another, the concept o the Dongle is about to invade us once again. Fucking <<<shivvvvers>>>
 
mope54 said:
You haven't bothered to look yet you're going to go ahead and talk out your ass about it?

The gist of the article is that Netflix has allowed sharing accounts for some time but that people are sharing their accounts outside their households and losing revenue from those people is going to cause investors to pressure Netflix to do something about it.

It has nothing to do with sharing accounts within households. Netflix accounts for this and even has rates for people to share their accounts within the same household. It looks like most of the people bitching in this thread don't even have Netflix accounts, which isn't surprising given the underlying point of the article (that a huge number of people are leeches).
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Since there is a 4 stream max concurrent allotment of an account Netflix is not losing any money (its policy). The moment you walk outside your door would be considered in your statement as being "outside the house ". Sharing the account is not causing any loss of money. Its an untapped potential but not a loss to Netflix they are not spending money on this therefore they are not paying money out for it (no loss). This type of thinking is what causes the corporate greed.
 
SomeoneElse said:
Since there is a 4 stream max concurrent allotment of an account Netflix is not losing any money (its policy). The moment you walk outside your door would be considered in your statement as being "outside the house ". Sharing the account is not causing any loss of money. Its an untapped potential but not a loss to Netflix they are not spending money on this therefore they are not paying money out for it (no loss). This type of thinking is what causes the corporate greed.
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Usually when people say something like, "losing money" they're referring to a company's bottom line. If you're using that phrase like I often see it used elsewhere, you're thinking that Netflix isn't getting ripped off or losing something they have already like a candy bar sitting on the shelf walking out in someone's pocket.

Contrary to that, however, "revenue" is referring to a company's top line. It's their incoming stream before expenses. Profit is revenue minus expenses in a blunt fashion. I didn't say anything about losing profit or even losing money. I wrote, "losing revenue," which is the same thing as your last line talking about "untapped potential." In short, we're saying the same thing about untapped potential, which is what investors would be most concerned about and the article is discussing.
 
mope54 said:
Usually when people say something like, "losing money" they're referring to a company's bottom line. If you're using that phrase like I often see it used elsewhere, you're thinking that Netflix isn't getting ripped off or losing something they have already like a candy bar sitting on the shelf walking out in someone's pocket.

Contrary to that, however, "revenue" is referring to a company's top line. It's their incoming stream before expenses. Profit is revenue minus expenses in a blunt fashion. I didn't say anything about losing profit or even losing money. I wrote, "losing revenue," which is the same thing as your last line talking about "untapped potential." In short, we're saying the same thing about untapped potential, which is what investors would be most concerned about and the article is discussing.
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Right but screw what the investors think. The company CEO doesn't care. I commend him for that.....the investors are greedy bastards.....just look at the RIAA they caused alot of their own issues. This is reason why we have lame DRM on music and movies and as a result raising prices for movie tickets and what not. It s vicious cycle the more you squeeze the more you will lose to piracy because either they don't want or can't pay the high amount, therefore the company loses the money. It will never end.
 
SomeoneElse said:
Right but screw what the investors think. The company CEO doesn't care. I commend him for that.....the investors are greedy bastards...
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Sounds like a catchy phrase, even humorous to some extent, but not realistic. The investors in this scenario are people who buy Netflix stocks, ordinary people like anyone in this thread. It also happens to "screw" the people in this thread posting they enjoy Netflix original content. If the CEO doesn't come around to reality he'll find himself out of a job because that's how the business world works regardless of whatever juvenile fantasies you or anyone else convince yourselves.

It is what it is, some people are too cheap to pay $10 bucks to Netflix after spending much energy arguing cable services were "screwing" them and that they'd happily pay for content they enjoyed. Fact is, leeches will be leeches and find any possible way to argue they're justified in their behavior.
 
This is dumb, when you pay for a Netflix account you pay for being able to have multiple streams at the same time. What they should do is offer a single stream for a cheaper monthly price.
 
Hmm, I pay for a 4-stream account, and gave my password to two close friends, and my S.O., and they have explicit instructions not to share outside our group. If Netflix truly wants to hamper that because the CEO's pockets aren't lined with as much green as it was before, I can simply yank my account.
 
I doubt their math. The way this works is just like piracy in the eyes of the ignorant. They say "20% of users are sharing passwords, therefore, we are losing 20% of our revenue". The problem is that there is no way to prove or guarantee that 20% would buy a subscription if they had to pay for it. They just need to include the offset bandwidth cost into their budget and increase revenue if necessary to offset the cost.

Disclaimer: My household pays for Netflix.
 
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