Breaking News: Millions Watch Cable Television Without Paying

Exactly. Or put another way, freeloaders gonna freeload.

Netflix won't make money locking out the guy who bums a password to save a measly $8/month, because as soon as that guy gets locked out he's headed to BitTorrent, not the Netflix sign up page.

Oh joy, a report from Michael Patcher. I don't know why tech reporting follows the guy, because his predictions seem to be rarely right. Console gamers should know him as the guy that's been predicting that < 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 > will be the year of the Playstation.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-22/netflix-seen-cracki...

Stupid things in that:

1. Cost, in bandwidth and storage, to keep a cookie on a server for an authorized device: around nothing.

2. Cost to stream content to the user: Not nothing.

Netflix limits the number of concurrent open video streams, which is the right thing to do(since that's what costs money). The 6 device limit is something I didn't know, and is pretty funny, since I have 8 or 9 devices that can stream Netflix content in my living room.

So what's netflix doing? They're adding a new streaming payment tier for families. Instead of 2 concurrent streams, you'll be able to get 4 for $11.99 a month. This is absolutely the right approach.

There is a story here, but it is not as interesting as it seems. Current Netflix policy is pretty liberal about sharing, and they are considering tightening that up.

Some of them even let more than one person watch the same screen !

I pay for netflix and don't watch it.

I pay and don't watch for months, then suddenly i want to watch something on the bus back home while wife is watching something on the tv

yeah, me too. i got the free trial for house of cards and i'm going to leave it active until arrested development. we'll see if there's any other good stuff coming up after arrested development to leave the account active for. It's easier to pay for a couple months here and there that i don't need than to keep cancelling and re-subscribing.

I didn't watch the video, but is this referring to people sharing accounts?

yes

It's referring to the 2 week free trial Netflix did a few weeks ago. A lot of people signed up, watched House of Cards for 2 weeks and then cancelled the subscription. How many of those freebies translated to subscriptions, I don't know. I've been a Netflix subscriber, on and off, for over a decade and I got started with a free month sign up card that was with the DVD player I bought.

>A lot of people signed up, watched House of Cards for 2 weeks and then cancelled the subscription.

Nope.

Hastings also says that almost no one signed up — for free, for a month-long trial — to watch the show and then left Netflix afterward. “There was very little free-trial gaming — less than 8,000 people did this, out of millions of free trials in the quarter.” [1]

1: http://allthingsd.com/20130422/netflix-says-its-house-of-car...

i did this. i'll do it again for Arrested Development. Good content is worth it - the back catalog is not.

Really? Did you actually watch the video? The video is 24 seconds, and no where did they say that. She said "netflix lets friends and family share one account", and the ceo has said they may restrict that policy or raise prices because of it.

It was referring to account sharing and how Netflix is planning on implementing policies to prevent it, or possibly increasing the cost for those that want to keep it.

Wall St. likes to speculate about this [1] and I think Netflix will deal with it intelligently [2].

Account sharing is good for business played right. Amazon makes it easy with it with Prime shipping benefits [3] and gets plenty of business it wouldn't see otherwise from my siblings.

1: http://bgr.com/2013/04/22/netflix-price-increase-rumor-45707...

2: http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/22/4253820/netflix-launching-...

3: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=...

Well, somebody's paying.

Hopefully Carmen Ortiz won't start filing indictments...

How about the alternative headline

Millions Paying for Netflix Without Watching

Thing that burns me up the most about how businesses operate in the USA; commodity-like sectors charge fixed rates and then whine about "abuse". They always like to rig the economy and market, while whining about how horrible it is they are not able to gouge even more. All just so Wall Street can snort some more of society's productivity.

Yes, I was until recently in that category.

A friend told me that Netflix will probably continue allowing this in the hope that the freeloaders get a taste of what the service can offer them and sign up for their own accounts. I think the company can do more to incentivize that, such as tweaking the algorithms to be better responsive to individual viewers. If five or six people are all using the same account, you could have an over-eclectic smorgasbord of suggestions that wouldn't be very helpful. There's also social networking features, though in my personal opinion it's hard to execute effectively.

You make a very good point, i had netflix for a while and loved the recommendations it made, it was always pretty good at predicting if i would like a movie or not. However i canceled my account and now occasionally use a friend who has very different tastes and it really is like an entirely new experience.

I think at some point they DID restrict this. Then they relaxed on it. I think it's sensible to allow at least some simultaneous viewing. Sometimes my wife watches something on her phone while I watch something on the TV or vice-versa. It probably happens maybe an hour or two worth of content per week. I think that's reasonable to not restrict

However, I don't think it's be reasonable for the people that are sharing one account so that 2+ people are simultaneously viewing content from different locations more than 10 hours per week

Restricting account sharing or jacking up prices would be a bad move of tremendous proportions, especially considering the number of competitors Netflix has and the rate at which Netflix is dropping distribution contracts.

I'm not particularly attached to Netflix itself and would be pretty easily driven away to Amazon Instant Video or Hulu Plus if Netflix stopped letting me share my account or kicked up the price.

I'd say they have to know it's a bad move, but then again, Qwikster happened.

We don't have Hulu or Amazon Instant over here, so I'd be happy if they jacked up the prices, if that meant more updated content. It currently costs about the same as a small lunch (R$16,90), 3-4x less than a basic cable subscription.

Bill me R$29,99 and give me the latest season of HIMYM and Mad Men, please!

how would you watch the new season of Arrested Development?

I'll have to survive without it or wait until it becomes non-exclusive.

I care more about telling Netflix to sit and spin for bad business than I do about the Grim Adventures of Mike and Lindsay.

Netflix account sharing + media hunt chrome add on make the service worth it for me.

Take away either and ill go elsewhere.

> media hunt chrome add on

Are you talking about Media Hint (http://mediahint.com)?

The web site barely has any information what the addon is for. The mozilla.org page for this addon is not much better. The description says: This extension allows you to enjoy The Fun Stuff from any country! No additional set-up required. Install extension and you are ready to go. That is not very helpful.

Could you elaborate what is this addon useful for?