30
votes
A Max password-sharing crackdown is coming
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- Authors
- Angela Watercutter, Matt Simon, ron Tau, Makena Kelly, Carlton Reid, Matt Kamen, Megan Farokhmanesh, Elizabeth Minkel, Reece Rogers, Marah Eakin
- Published
- Mar 5 2024
- Word count
- 392 words
I canceled Netflix because of this. I don't even password share.
I got flagged for using my subscription at my parent's house on my device one day. I didn't hook up their smart TV to my account or anything, just a new internet connection to the same device.
I canceled it because I have no interest in justifying myself to use a service that I am paying for, and probably getting flags on my account to make it a more common occurrence anyway.
I used to subscribe to Hulu and Discovery+. Through sharing with family and friends, I had Netflix and Max. My family also has Apple TV through our Apple One subscription. I lost Netflix in the password sharing crackdown. When Max and Discovery merged, I cancelled Discovery because I had Max through a share. I quit Hulu when they raised the price by 50% and I realized I wasn’t using it often enough to justify that. So now I’ll be losing Max. Apple TV will be my only service left.
Instead, I subscribe to a seedbox and run a Plex server, and I feed my friends and family whatever they want. They just text me the movie or show, and I get it. So much more convenient. I’m currently paying $36 a month for 6TB of storage and more bandwidth than I’ll ever need. If the streaming services never started cracking down on password sharing and didn’t gouge on price, I would have stuck with the status quo because that was more convenient. They just all keep wanting a bigger and bigger piece and so now I’m dropping out. I never stopped sailing the high seas, but this is the first time I’m sharing the booty with others.
Yep. I lost Netflix on the crackdown and was sharing Max with my family who cancelled it, and I don’t miss either. If there’s something I want to watch, I’ll go get it. I still have Apple TV, and that’s I think worth it because there’s some interesting stuff on there… but like for the new Trek stuff I was putting it on Plex just because that’s where I go to watch stuff even though I had P+.
And don’t even get me started on ads. If it’s not live TV and it’s a service I’m paying for, and you interrupt my entertainment with ads… you’re gone. You don’t double dip on me. I will barely tolerate Paramount’s ads before something starts, but for nearly 20 years now my home entertainment (with a few exceptions) has been commercial free and going somewhere with commercial television is just horrible. I’m willing to pay for YouTube premium for no ads AND have it be my music service. That’s absolutely worth it.
It’s interesting you mentioned Paramount+. I never subscribed to it, but recently read an article about how in trouble Paramount is as a company. They’ve tried to unload assets but valued them too high, causing the deals to fall through. They’re losing billions a year with their streaming platform. That service is about to get a whole lot worse.
How Paramount Became a Cautionary Tale of the Streaming Wars
They've effectively ruined the Star Trek franchise IMO, so I'll never subscribe to Paramounr+ just out of spite.
They really floundered the Halo series as well, which had the potential to be a huge audience draw
I was thinking about watching one of the new star trek shows (as someone who's familarity with the franchise as opposed to being a "fan" per se).
What is it they've done that has been so detrimental? Which of the new shows (since the movie trilogy let's say) would you most recommend it I were dead set on giving it a whirl?
(totally agree on the halo thing)
Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks are both great new additions, IMO.
Strange New Worlds, hands down. It really captures the things that made the original shows great.
The Lower Decks is great, but I think it's much easier to appreciate it if you're more versed in the Trek universe already.
Prodigy (which is now on Netflix) is also really great, and an excellent gateway drug. It was marketed more towards kids, but it isn't a kids show. The second half of the first season really hits.
They've really ignored the original vision of Gene Roddenberry, which essentially boils down to 'a positive outlook of the future, where humanity is united and almost all of today's problems are solved (hunger, poverty, equality, corruption, etc).'
As a huge fan of the series before the reboot, that's what made it special to me (and most others). It made a case for the good in people, what life could be like in a future where our choices are guided by morals, not greed.
The new Star Trek really doesn't follow that formula. It's often times dark and painting a somewhat dystopian view of the future. It really just feels like a generic sci-fi series that's been inserted into the Star Trek universe just for the name (which is kind of how I felt about Halo).
Also, in the older series, almost each episode could be enjoyed as a standalone show. Most of the new stuff is super convoluted season long stories. That's a trend in new TV I think is overused, and it doesn't really fit the Star Trek universe.
That said - If you aren't a Star Trek fan, these issues may not actually affect your enjoyment at all.
Personally, I've watched all three new movies, and one season of Discovery and Picard. Discovery and Picard were pretty bad, even outside of the Star Trek context.
I've read that Strange New Worlds is actually good and somewhat retains the vision of the original run. I'd start there if you do want to watch some of the new Star Trek.
This is good to know. My husband uses Paramount+ every day, and I watch Ghosts on it each week. Hopefully things don't get too bad. He loves watching The Price is right and getting angry at the contestants who bet $1 over the previous person.
Honestly, it's just a shit thing to do. I understand it as a strategy, but it's so gamey and I always hate the person that wins with that strategy.
The Price is Right meta needs to change.
I agree. I don't particularly like watching live television in general because I hate ads, but I also know he really likes to watch that show in particular. It makes me seethe with rage seeing stuff like that too, so I avoid.
I'm with you on the ads. I actually don't watch Price is Right much anymore, but did a bit when I was a kid during summer and during the pandemic. Otherwise, I've got all the ads in my house blocked and it's lovely.
pihole? I had one of those for a while, but I haven't bothered to re-set everything up after a relocation.
Yup! Primarily for blocking stuff on my phone. I actually need to reconfigure my VPN so I can have the adblocking when I'm out and about.
Now to block ads in videos too, lol. I know there are ways to do that, but they're not really possible on my tv, sadly.
Ah yeah, I run an HTPC to my TV, so I have uBlock on Firefox there.
That article was harsh.
Should be interesting. Not that I don’t agree that the streaming services are in a tough spot, and that Paramount+ is the “also-ran” of the pack… and maybe it’s just the contrarian in me, but It kinda made me want to root for Shari Redstone.
I don’t know any of those players, just recognized some of the names, and while stock price and company valuations are not to be ignored… I love a good underdog story. Just maybe if Paramount/Viacom is forced into a position where there’s blood in the water and the sharks are circling… they’ll actually innovate and do something surprising? That might be cool.
I also saw the size of their IP seemed really big, and I wondered if there’s some value in sitting on those brands and franchises for a while. Until this distribution channel mess consolidates some- if that’s even an option.
Who knows. I have no skin in the game.
I keep wanting to do this, but I am not technologically minded in this way. It's one of the things I hope to learn this year. If you have any resources you can share on how to get started, I would appreciate it!
It's a rabbit hole, for sure. If you want to get started with Plex, I'd recommend installing Plex Media Server locally on a home computer that you don't use for much else and can keep on all the time. It's easy enough to install on Mac or Windows, and then you can point libraries in Plex to folders on the computer. In those folders, you put digital media that you have... movies, TV shows, music. Then, on a device like a Roku or Apple TV, you install the Plex app, sign in to your Plex.tv account, and then you can start streaming from that computer to your TV. That's the most basic functionality of Plex. Once you get comfortable with that workflow, you can begin to scale up. It takes some time to amass your library of media, but it's worth it to be in control. Good luck!
Thanks! This sounds a bit complicated, but I'm sure if I break it down into steps, it'll be easier to understand.
Look into Stremio and a Debrid service. I switched to that for my wife. We already had a Plex setup but it didn't match how she likes to browse things.
She literally couldn't be happier, and we pay like $18 every 6 months.
Thanks for this!
What benefit does a seed box subscription get you? I assume this handles the file acquisition stages of getting media on Plex…
You got it. But my seedbox also has one-click containerized installs of other apps, such as torrent clients and Plex. So it all integrates well with little effort.
What seedbox service do you recommend?
I personally have used Bytesized for probably 5 years or so and have been happy with them. I like their one-click app installs and the ease of upgrading storage. I will say that their RAM allocation is a bit low, and when I was testing Jellyfin with them my box was auto-rebooting often because Jellyfin is a bit of a RAM hog. Sticking with Plex and a torrent client is fine on RAM. I recently looked into Ultra.cc and their prices are a bit better. I don’t have any experience with them and migrating would be a huge pain, so I’m happy to stick with Bytesized for now.
Is it too much to ask to just have a service that just does what the user is paying it for instead of adding arbitrary restrictions to chase that next cent? It is of course and as long as people use them it will get worse.
I am going to use Netflix(I have paid them for a month or two, I am not perfect) in my example since I do not have Max where I am but likely the garbage will approach maximum no matter the service.
A user pays for 1/2/4 simultaneous connections except apparently the provider can just decide to refuse service based on anything they want, not to mention they are bundled with resolution maximum
If the user does not watch on approved garbage device the quality can be lowered arbitrarily
Interface and discovery is insane, it is actually easier to discover and keep track of shows outside of service
Related to above lack of options, intrusive design practices.
And more is always coming.
I would really love to watch a good tv sometimes but the intersection of the Venn diagram of not garbage and fitting my interests is so small and finding it and watching it is a chore.
Is it too much to ask to have a streaming service I pay and they just stream me the content they do have without arbitrary garbage that will actually only hurt the paying customer?
Yep. Limiting the amount of simultaneous streams made sense; no argument from me. Geo-IP fencing my login? Fuck you.
Not surprised. It was a huge success for Netflix, so it’s a no brainer for other streaming services to follow.
Somehow my coworker and I are still sharing my account. We've had this arrangement for like 5+ yrs now. I've never been prompted for verification, and as far as I know, she's never seen it either. I know she uses my account way more than me, so maybe it's Netflix thinks she's the "main" location, and I'm just a mobile device that occasionally uses it. No clue.
But as soon as one of us gets the verification, I'm cancelling my subscription and she can get her own.
Frankly I think the biggest mistake Netflix and everyone else made was not cracking down on this right out the gate.
It's dumb that people think 20 people sharing one $15/mo account for all their movies and TV is sustainable, but the streamers themselves are to blame for letting that slide for over a decade. Of all the ways internet services have found to enshittify over the last couple of years, this one doesn't even register to me.
I mean Netflix even advertised based on password sharing in the past, didn't it?
I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to crack down on 20 people sharing the same account or whatever, but it's not cool if it causes problems for individuals using their own accounts from multiple locations or whatever. I'd be pissed if the account I pay for was flagged erroneously, so I would hope they're fairly cautious to avoid false positives...
I agree, it's a situation where it's better to have a few false negatives than any false positives. Making things harder for legitimate customers is never good.
I agree with this. Feature regression is always perceived to be much worse than never allowing it in the first place. I would say that future streaming providers should learn from this and not allow password sharing out of the gate, but that probably won't happen since Netflix subscription rates surged with this change.
I think most people doing it felt that password sharing was an abuse of the system and didn't throw much of a fit when Netflix cracked down.
It kind of reinforces the idea that social media is a bit of an echo chamber. It seems like every thread on the topic from Reddit to even Tildes is full of people saying they cancelled or will cancel their subscription because of the change, but it's clearly working out in favor of Netflix out in the real world.
It can certainly be abused but there are better ways to combat outright abuses without further devaluing the experience and adding additional burden to paying customers.
Edit: This also does not only affect password sharing but also travel. It also further reinforces arbitrary restrictions on service and further degrading the value a paying customer gets.
I would cancel HBO if it wasn’t for my family using my account. I’m not totally sure how much they use it even. If they get locked out, guilt free cancelling would be a silver lining for me.
Mirror, for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.is/npv9J