Yes that’s lousy. I probably don’t want to use Netflix if they don’t let you but multiple licenses
I love the term “password sharing”. It sounds so innocent. It’s really account sharing, or service sharing. I don’t blame Netflix, or any other business for that matter, for trying to get paid for their service. I’m sure there are legitimate reasons for individuals or families to want to log in from various places. But there are also a lot of freeloaders who want to continue mooching off another person’s account, at Netflix’s expense (and likely resulting in higher rates). As a business owner I can understand their dilemma. Hopefully they’ll find a solution that works, without creating too much of a hassle for legitimate users.
As a widower living alone, “sharing” passwords for anything does not affect me. However, I can see how definitions of a “family” and “household” quickly becomes complicated.
I don’t fault netflix for wanting to tighten the rules, but it’s not simple.
Do you let your friends in the back door of the theatre as a cost-saving measure? That practice may soon be more difficult.
Do you keep refilling the cup you got at McDonalds six months ago every time you get a Big Mac as a cost-saving measure? That practice may soon be more difficult.
The problem is that Netflix had a solution for that three to five years ago. If you had one license, only one view could be used at a time so if you were sharing and someone was using that license you had to wait for the other account holder to finish. In other words when not in use, you were subletting your Netflix subscription. This allows you to share multiple streaming services instead of having to alternate
Alternatively you should be allowed to buy multiple licenses so that you can share aka maybe one license is $9.99 a month while two licenses is $16.99 / month. Once you exceed two, the third person to access the account should not be able to view the account until one of the other users was not in use or have to buy a third license for $23.99 in total
If someone wants to share multiple streaming services, you don’t want to pay for idle time so you want to share / sublet your service when not in use.
I don’t think NetFlix should be able to ban people from subletting their subscription and that digital rights management should be owned by the user.
When my kids were in college I let them use my credentials. After all they still legally resided at home. When they left I changed the password. The complaining was legendary!
Oh good grief. Their subscriptions start at $7/month. If you can’t afford that, you have bigger problems. 
The issue is they used to have multiple license subscriptions. Is the $7 subscription the ad based one?
Yes, $7 is with ads.
Both of those things would require significant changes to the law, and would substantially increase the price Netflix would need to charge to be profitable.
Hard to know what their definition is. I use it on 2 tv’s in my home and I use it on my phone wherever I may be. I think my account let’s you use two devices at once.
I hope Netflix is aware that some people outside the home location could be someone traveling from that household or a college student. I don’t think I should have to pay extra for my college student to have access to our account. Hope they figure it out or we will cancel it. I don’t blame them if there are obvious other people using your account, but there should be some consideration for college students and travel.
I think the best way to address this is:
There would be 1 fee for your home service (everyone using the same IP address). There would be a waiver for other IP addresses up to some value. After that you are either charged per hour/day/week for the additional usage. I also assume that the IP addresses would have a limit to alternate streams. This would keep someone from giving the password to everyone in a dorm who use the same IP address.
IP addresses used by Netflix are those the Internet provider vends (usually one per modem). On the inside (router side) of the modem there could be hundreds of local IP addresses vended, such as at a dorm. Limiting simultaneous streams would address that in that only x number of people could be actively accessing Netflix per account.
And this is what Netflix did in the past.
If someone is using it, you cannot use it if sharing kind of like a party telephone. Or you must watch what they’re watching including if you have that annoying user that pauses, rewinds or fast forwards
As long as you’re not stealing separate access, there shouldn’t be a problem sharing passwords. For instance people who split cable signals to not need to pay for cable TV would be wrong. Having cable boxes was fine as would having one cable box and watching the same TV show on multiple TVs
I have netflix with ad, at first it was great. Now more and more movies are lock up b/c just a way the greedy netflix make people move up from free with ads to the next level. Hope they choke on their money.
I fully agree.
That said, most all companies resort to questionable practices to enhance profits. Alas, nothing new.
That might be true, but Netflix is also trying to deal with people using “questionable practices” to avoid paying for their service. Some people call companies greedy for wanting to be paid, but celebrate people who want to avoid paying. It’s too simplistic to think about it as the evil giant company versus the poor little innocent individuals. Individuals can be just as evil and greedy as companies can.