Cracking down on shared accounts?

[Sheree]

I need to test this ... we don't share with anyone else but have two homes. I expect my service to travel with me. If it won't work at both locations this will be one we will cut out. As retirement approaches we will be cutting out some of these luxury items, especially if usage is limited.

us too. i have netflix and disney + on tvs at both houses. will i have to prove I own both?!!

 

[Jimsig]

I need to test this ... we don't share with anyone else but have two homes. I expect my service to travel with me. If it won't work at both locations this will be one we will cut out. As retirement approaches we will be cutting out some of these luxury items, especially if usage is limited.

Hulu currently makes you choose a home from wired internet connections, and sometimes makes you log in on that home network (every 30 or 60 days).

I haven't had Netflix question me yet, even though the account is split between three states.

It has to do with the IP address. I had been sharing my Netflix with my Mom. I pay the bill and am the account holder. It stopped letting her log in at her house - she was able to get in for a while using the "I am traveling" choice, but then that stopped working too. We paid the extra $8 a month to keep her on.

From what I have read Netflix will also check to see if your devices are on the same IP address (can't exactly remember which method they will use). They will allow you to watch from different locations but if your device does not hook up to its "home" network/IP address every so often it will stop allowing that device to be used.

My parents use YouTubeTV and have 2 houses and travel all winter in their RV. Now YTTV allows you to travel etc. but if away it will only allow you to watch the local stations that you are currently in. Instead of having to hook up each TV in their RV to each campgrounds WiFi my dad has a router and the TV's always connect to that router and all they need to connect is the router to the campgrounds Wifi or their cell phones hotspot. By doing it this way they always get our hometowns local stations, it doesn't realize they are traveling. So I figure doing it the way they are doing it doesn't pick up where they actually are and thinks they are home. Not sure if there is any work around with Netflix and the other like that? Maybe a way you can mask your IP and fake it out?

 

[HopperFan]

us too. i have netflix and disney + on tvs at both houses. will i have to prove I own both?!!

From what I have read Netflix will also check to see if your devices are on the same IP address (can't exactly remember which method they will use). They will allow you to watch from different locations but if your device does not hook up to its "home" network/IP address every so often it will stop allowing that device to be used.

My parents use YouTubeTV and have 2 houses and travel all winter in their RV. Now YTTV allows you to travel etc. but if away it will only allow you to watch the local stations that you are currently in. Instead of having to hook up each TV in their RV to each campgrounds WiFi my dad has a router and the TV's always connect to that router and all they need to connect is the router to the campgrounds Wifi or their cell phones hotspot. By doing it this way they always get our hometowns local stations, it doesn't realize they are traveling. So I figure doing it the way they are doing it doesn't pick up where they actually are and thinks they are home. Not sure if there is any work around with Netflix and the other like that? Maybe a way you can mask your IP and fake it out?

It wasn't supposed to be this hard - cutting the cord, the feeling of freedom - and it's quickly becoming a pain in the rear and almost as expensive as cable.

Fortunately we have an upgraded cable at house #2, it's included in our monthly assoc fees, so we will survive if we can't take the others with us. Just frustrating that they sell you on taking it with you, watch on your phone or iPad, share with family. I get it but at same time if the product becomes very limited it's just not worth having.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

It wasn't supposed to be this hard - cutting the cord, the feeling of freedom - and it's quickly becoming a pain in the rear and almost as expensive as cable.

Fortunately we have an upgraded cable at house #2, it's included in our monthly assoc fees, so we will survive if we can't take the others with us. Just frustrating that they sell you on taking it with you, watch on your phone or iPad, share with family. I get it but at same time if the product becomes very limited it's just not worth having.

I remember commenting on the DIS way back in 2015 or 2016 about streaming. It was always my opinion that eventually it would all get up in cost and complexity such that "cutting the cord" did not give one a net advantage. It wasn't exactly a popular viewpoint I remember but kinda seemed inevitable.

But I agree as time has gone on there's more levels of complexity with things like IP requirements and geographic requirements and all sorts of other things. But the cost part was always going to be the case.

With cable it was there for profit, streaming services would become that way as well. Yes it gave you the freedom to choose more piecemeal what you wanted to watch and be more portable (although premium channels with their apps allowed for this as well already) but there's not a profit long-term without splitting services, adding restrictions, new tiers, streaming only content, etc.

But even that's backfiring for them. Recent example being Paramount Plus (formerly CBS All-Access) that spun off SEAL Team to be exclusive content on there. Due to the strike for the fall season they are airing SEAL Team now starting with season 5 (which was the first to be on Paramount Plus) on cable just to pad their tv schedule. I saw the same thing only in reverse with Hallmark. They had a Hallmark Movies Now exclusive tv show several years back called When Hope Calls spun off from their cable show of When Calls the Heart but eventually they added When Hope Calls to their tv line up. They may have always planned to do that but if I had just signed up for their streaming app just for this so-called exclusive show I would have been annoyed to see it added to the tv line up. For that show though it's since been sold off to Great American Family.

 

[Mirabell Rose]

There is a difference between streaming services that offer local channels and those that do not. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) mandates that local channels can only be streamed if the device receiving the stream is in the geographical area to receive it over the air with an antenna. That is why some services like Hulu and YouTube with local channels have to track it to a location. I used to have a separate place to stay weekdays when I took a job far from home. If I tried to use the home account it would pull up and say I had to change my home location and you could only change 4 times a year, which worked for retirees going to Florida for the winter, but not for weekday/weekend splits. So I was able to use a google chromcast dongle at my weekday place because it picked it up as a mobile device. I couldn’t watch local channels, so I just used rabbit ears when I wanted those.

Disney plus and Netflix didn’t have to do this since they didn’t have local channels. It takes having the systems to find out the location of the customer. Makes sense that Disney can now use Hulu’s technology to do this.

I did the add on for an elderly parent for Netflix. I didn’t mind so much an add on fee, but I don’t agree with the fact that they limit add on’s to only one screen at their houses. I would have dropped Netflix levels, but my husband is a college football fanatic that wants his OLED big screen to get the top picture. This isn’t the right time of year to downgrade his picture.

We luckily did a one year Disney plus right before the last price increase. When that’s up probably will switch to a two months on, two months off rotation to keep the costs for Disney plus reasonable.

 

[elgerber]

I had Netflix have me confirm our network right after the crackdown, but both of my kids are still watching both from their homes and a gym.

 

[*WDW*Groupie*]

Late last year I gave my sister and her family access to my Netflix account; in February their access was cut-off. But dd can watch from her computer in her dorm room.

I haven't given her access to my Disney+ account and doubt that I will. She was constantly calling and texting and asking me for recommendations on what to watch, but then never watched the series I recommended! I think she found the choices overwhelming.

 

[EACarlson]

I got hit with it this morning. My mother had been logged into my Netflix account but hadn't watched anything in quite a while. My son is there for the week and tried to watch something, there came up a question of "Are you travelling?" My mother did not answer and now has been logged out. Their sandbox, their rules. I told her what happened and she accepted it.

 

[rdaky]

My husband gave our Netflix password to one of his family members. Netflix began kicking me off mid-show if she happened to log in at the same time. It was irritating and we ended up telling her to get her own account and we changed our password.

 

[reliev]

The deal is; they potentially lose money when people in different households share one account. So cracking down on this might see more paid subscriptions.

I'm not saying it always works. Statistics have shown that many people who use someone else's account do not sign up for their own when caught. Sometimes the fear of being caught is enough so people stop sharing their accounts.

netflix had raise in subscriptions despite the backlash the last quarter and I think the quarter before that soon I believe everyone will follow. like max etc.
edit looks like after they implement the crackdown they had 100k more subs, then the next quarter 1m+ more subscribers.

 

[tvguy]

I just find the whole shift to streaming frustrating and expensive. I'm getting $9.99 a monthed to death.
Had and dropped Netflix, YouTube TV. Got Disney+ and Hulu combo 2 months ago.
Just seems that the things I want to watch are all spread over different services. Not like how cable and satellite was where you could get everything in one place. Other frustration is you're paying $9.99 a month to get access to a show that may only have 6 or 7 new episodes a year instead of the old standard of 26 a season.
Frankly the best $9.99 I spent was for rabbit ears to get all the local dot 2, dot 3, dot 4 over the air channels.

 

[reliev]

I just find the whole shift to streaming frustrating and expensive. I'm getting $9.99 a monthed to death.
Had and dropped Netflix, YouTube TV. Got Disney+ and Hulu combo 2 months ago.
Just seems that the things I want to watch are all spread over different services. Not like how cable and satellite was where you could get everything in one place. Other frustration is you're paying $9.99 a month to get access to a show that may only have 6 or 7 new episodes a year instead of the old standard of 26 a season.
Frankly the best $9.99 I spent was for rabbit ears to get all the local dot 2, dot 3, dot 4 over the air channels.

there was an article that shows cable was cheaper than all these segmented services, I'm still one of those people with cable but they keep giving it to me for 20$ the day they don't I'm hopping over to youtube tv it isn't worth more $ to me
also what I do is I binge-watch a show cancel and come back it might be petty saving 20-30$ a month but there seems to be too much content to watch in general.

 

[tvguy]

there was an article that shows cable was cheaper than all these segmented services, I'm still one of those people with cable but they keep giving it to me for 20$ the day they don't I'm hopping over to youtube tv it isn't worth more $ to me
also what I do is I binge-watch a show cancel and come back it might be petty saving 20-30$ a month but there seems to be too much content to watch in general.

I have Dish, and I am lazy. I pay way too much but I can click one button and start watching. I get so tired of having to log on, and in some cases do a verification on my cell phone just to start the process, and I find all the streaming systems I have used have very clunky interfaces.

 

[Twilghtsprkle]

there was an article that shows cable was cheaper than all these segmented services, I'm still one of those people with cable but they keep giving it to me for 20$ the day they don't I'm hopping over to youtube tv it isn't worth more $ to me
also what I do is I binge-watch a show cancel and come back it might be petty saving 20-30$ a month but there seems to be too much content to watch in general.

The last time I had cable there were like $20 in bogus ’fees’ that you could not get rid of. That was when I cut the cord.

I rotate streaming services for the most part. Right now we have Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Crunchyroll, Paramount +, and Apple TV. But it is only costing me like $30.

Apple tv is one of those free trials, Paramount + errored when I canceled a free trial in April and for some reason I still have full access for free, Hulu is the Black Friday $2 special, Crunchyroll is $8 but I pay via Apple with discount GCs, Disney+ I paid for a year before the price increase with discount Apple GCs, and Netflix is loaded up to November with discounted Netflix GCs.
And actually my younger kid right now just wants to watch Pokemon and there’s a whole bunch of episodes you can watch on the Pokemon Tv app for free with no commercials.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Other frustration is you're paying $9.99 a month to get access to a show that may only have 6 or 7 new episodes a year instead of the old standard of 26 a season.

In fairness this was more akin to how premium channels worked, your HBO, Starz, Showtime, etc. They typically had much less episodes per season and it wasn't uncommon to go long stretches of time between seasons (sometimes years). I do agree with you in your frustration when it's coming down to one show but the format isn't really any different than other premium channels that you'd pay on top of cable (or have to get a high cable package) to get.

Observationally your foreign shows also have less episodes, British shows for example their series (their more common term for seasons) often has far fewer episodes than we would have for shows.

 

[jo-jo]

We paid $80 for the year last Nov. This Nov ,it will be at least $150 assuming some yearly discount. We may go to the rent a month, watch bunch of stuff, skip a few months.

Right now we are watching old stuff on prime video we never saw the first time around.

 

[tvguy]

In fairness this was more akin to how premium channels worked, your HBO, Starz, Showtime, etc. They typically had much less episodes per season and it wasn't uncommon to go long stretches of time between seasons (sometimes years). I do agree with you in your frustration when it's coming down to one show but the format isn't really any different than other premium channels that you'd pay on top of cable (or have to get a high cable package) to get.

Observationally your foreign shows also have less episodes, British shows for example their series (their more common term for seasons) often has far fewer episodes than we would have for shows.

I dropped HBO in 1987. It was never that way back then. But the content was not appropriate for our children which is why we dropped it. Didn't want them accidentialy selecting adult content.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I dropped HBO in 1987. It was never that way back then. But the content was not appropriate for our children which is why we dropped it. Didn't want them accidentialy selecting adult content.

alrighty then

 

[tvguy]

The last time I had cable there were like $20 in bogus ’fees’ that you could not get rid of. That was when I cut the cord.

I

Yeah, unfortunately all the "bogus" fees on my cable bill when I had cable were county mandated taxes!
Sacramento was the last major metropolitan areas to get cable TV in the mid 1980's and our elected officials looked at it as a cash cow. They wanted millions in licensing fees. I think they accepted offers from 3 companies that fell through after the contract was signed, then the companies said "oops, we can't give you all that". It was a mess.
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/11/...re-waking-up-to-what-were-empty-promises.html

 

[Twilghtsprkle]

Yeah, unfortunately all the "bogus" fees on my cable bill when I had cable were county mandated taxes!
Sacramento was the last major metropolitan areas to get cable TV in the mid 1980's and our elected officials looked at it as a cash cow. They wanted millions in licensing fees. I think they accepted offers from 3 companies that fell through after the contract was signed, then the companies said "oops, we can't give you all that". It was a mess.
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/11/...re-waking-up-to-what-were-empty-promises.html

For me the biggest offender was a ’regional sports fee.’. It started at $6 and kept going up (was $17 when I said that’s enough, currently they charge $23).