I think Netflix is coming out as the bad guy here, but it's the whole industry that is broken. They seem to expect every single household to subscribe to 10 different streaming services. This obviously creates a market for password sharing, and I suspect it will bring a resurgence to piracy.

Just as a personal anecdote: I have Netflix, Paramount, HBO Max, TV2 Play, Paramount, Viaplay, Discovery+ and Disney+. And probably some that I'm forgetting. I don't really watch that much TV, and the only way I could justify this was by sharing the accounts with close family. The problem is that we're not in the same household. The moment this stops being a viable option we're likely just going to cancel the subscriptions. You can rent a lot of movies for $150/month.

The amount of subscription services are getting out of hand. Even my car has one, and the only value proposition it provides me is not having to connect my phone as a hotspot (which is kind of pain with an iPhone) and real-time traffic data. For $15/month.

> They seem to expect every single household to subscribe to 10 different streaming services.

Oh absolutely, it's frustrating. And whats even more frustrating is that some of those services refuse to have their content on other services but don't provide their service outside of the US.

I wanted to watch Dragon Ball Z last week. It's on Funamation and AnimeLab. Well neither of those services are available in Taiwan, so, only option is to pirate it.

I want to watch Star Trek - Strange New World. Not available on any service in Taiwan.

So I pay for Netflix, Apple TV, Disney+, and PrimeVideo.

HBO is available in Taiwan but you need Taiwan credit card... so I can't register with my Singapore card. Paramount, Hulu, not available here.

Sometimes I dont mind paying for these services but they don't want my money.

But at the same time I'm paying for 4, I don't want to pay for 10.

We are at the point of the priacy hat meme.

https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/bcdlbf/hello_old_fr...

> You can rent a lot of movies for $150/month.

So do it. It takes seconds to cancel and subscribe. If you want access to everything all at once, then pay $150 per month. If you cannot afford $150 per month, then spend an extra minute or two per month canceling and subscribing.

I find it to be very convenient, and more convenient than it has ever been in my life.

I am waiting for cable companies to resurface. Brokers that package a bunch of services together selling a single bundle to the end consumer and negotiating upstream with the many content providers.

If I had some equivalent of the Netflix very limited concurrent streams leverage, yes.

Also, they encouraged it, and not in a wink/wink way...explicitly: https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712?ref_sr...

I sign up for 2 concurrent streams, then upgrade to 4 concurrent streams. My kids move out and now with the same account they tell me I can only use 1 stream in my 4 stream package...

Netflix licenses and resells content not streams.

I think a lot of people in this thread are too fixated on the idea of “streams” and they have lost the plot. Netflix is a content producer and licensor. The streams are just a means to deliver that content.

That sounds like a netflix problem.

They advertise it in terms of streams. Whatever business arrangements they have with their providers is irrelavent to me as a consumer.

It'd be like if you went to an all you can eat buffet, and people started saying its not fair if you eat too much because the grocery store is charging the resturant per item not per person. It is totally irrelavent ti the person eating at the resturant.

They implicitly allowed it for well over a decade because it was good for their growth. We had a friends group with multiple Wiis using the same Netflix account when I was in college.

Microsoft implicitly allowed pirating Windows for over a decade, and for the same reason. Eventually they switched to an activation model when there was no growth left, just squeezing more out of the same userbase.

This is not a new trick.

Even explicitly: https://twitter.com/netflix/status/840276073040371712?ref_sr...

Its a business arrangement. If either side is unhappy they are allowed to terminate it.

That said, very openly turning a blind eye to something and then suddenly not is essentially unilaterally altering the terms of the deal. If i ran a business and suddenly changed the pricing scheme, that's my right, but i would understand if x% decided the value proposition no longer made sense and left. I certainly wouldn't be offended - its just business.

It really feels like you should be paying for streams, not where you are streaming to. Max out your 4-streams at a time? Well, then, pay more. Seems fair.

This sound like a good idea, I like it