[Samurai]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

I don't think that would be a problem. As long as you are using the same device and profile (account activity) Netflix should be able to identify you uniquely.

I don't watch from smartphone at all. I prefer to watch on android TV or my desktop monitor, in both places.

[JLS]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I don't watch from smartphone at all. I prefer to watch on android TV or my desktop monitor, in both places.

May be you can use firestick or any similar device, and can happily carry it to any place you are travelling to
JLS

[SoumenD]

Very happy with this move.

I now can say NO and still not be the bad person to the el-cheapo freeloaders who can very well afford a subscription but just don't. Now I can simply change password for others as well and say Prime/Hotstar all are following Netflix's footsteps

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by Samurai

This is going to be a problem for me since I travel between two homes every month. I use my profile from both places. And Netflix may decide I am two different person.

Looks like I have to stick to just Prime Video I am in Udupi.

They have thought about this. A verification code will be asked if you're traveling and want to access Netflix from outside your 'household'. The code will be available in your e-mail and phone and you have a 15-minute time window to enter that code in the device which is roaming.

Anyway, I see this as the beginning of the end of the premium streaming service. I am already on password share with 3 other friends, one in the US, and I will not buy the full subscription for myself whatsoever. It is not worth it, at least for me. I watch a movie on Netflix maybe once a month or so.

I am bored with the content on Netlifx. Moreover, it is a classic case of 'decision paralysis' You have too many choices, out of which only 0.1% may appeal to your liking. The task is tough - to select that watchable content from a huge pile of crap.

PS: Seeing several posts welcoming this move because they no longer have to share their password with the freeloaders. If there are freeloaders in your friends circle and if you're feeling forced to share the password, something is wrong. Don't have freeloaders in your circle! In my case, there are no freeloaders, as 4 of us decided to share the subscription cost.

[harry10]

Originally Posted by TheRandomGuy

Will be the death of Netflix in India. They are killing what ever miniscule revenue they are getting from India.

I have been using Netflix for close to 4 years now, being shared by 4 other friends(which is then shared with close family on all sides).

Will have to drop it now if this is seriously enforced. Its just too expensive to maintain alone. With 499 pm for getting even 1080p. Even 199pm for the basic plan of 720p and one screen is costlier than what I am paying now with password sharing.

Its just not feasible.

I am paying 130 for netflix each month as 5 of us share it. Among Prime, disney hotstar, Apple tv+ and Netflix I watch netflix the least and primarily for Korean and Asian shows as Netflix originals are mostly rubbish. Plus there age old habit of cancelling shows whenever they want leaving the subscribers hanging on to a cliffhanger.

So, 650 each month for Netflix defies logic.

Prime charges 1499 for a year and gives Amazon free delivery plus Amazon music.
Disney hotstar charges 1499 for year.
Apple tv+ is I think 100 for a month.
Even the new player Jio cinema is charging 1000 a year.

So why is Netflix charging 7800 for a year. I am not ready to pay this.

I will happily pay for a single subscription if they charge what other players are charging.

Originally Posted by avk

This news needs to be analysed with respect to the regions it's been rolled out. Until June, the roll out were in countries where most of them had higher purchasing power than India. With most folks sharing almost all OTT subscriptions among friends & family and Netflix commanding the highest subscription cost, I think there will be a significant drop in subscribers who may prefer to watch the Netflix shows on other alternate channels.

You are absolutely right.
In US and Canada people are addicted to Netflix still a lot of them cancelled even though they can afford a separate account. In India first of all we don't get each content what US Netflix gets and for that one has to use VPN.

Originally Posted by Hatari

Have given up my Tatasky connection - so its Hotstar (free via Jio), Prime and Netflix.

Am on the Ultra HD Netflix plan - 649/- quite reasonable I feel for the quality of content.

Parents use 1 ID, daughter uses 1 ID.
For wife and me - 3 - 1 each for the separate shows and 1 common for what we watch together

Do elaborate on this hotstar free via jio? Is it jio fiber?

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by clevermax

They have thought about this. A verification code will be asked if you're traveling and want to access Netflix from outside your 'household'. The code will be available in your e-mail and phone and you have a 15-minute time window to enter that code in the device which is roaming.

Oh ok, that works for me.

Originally Posted by clevermax

In my case, there are no freeloaders, as 4 of us decided to share the subscription cost.

Usually it is the service vendor who defines who is a subscriber. According to Netflix, it is the nuclear family. They originally didn't stop subscription sharing, while building their marketshare. Now that they have to improve their bottomline, they are cracking down on it.

It is a business decision, and they will have to live the pros and cons of it.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by TheRandomGuy

I have been using Netflix for close to 4 years now, being shared by 4 other friends(which is then shared with close family on all sides).

Its just not feasible.

Assuming:

- You are using the 649 plan

- There are a minimum of 10 of you sharing it (4 other friends & their close families)

What is not feasible is 65 bucks per user. One won't even get a branded cup of coffee today for that much money. How does one create top-class movies & shows? Good content costs money, a LOT of money.

Originally Posted by harry10

Prime charges 1499 for a year and gives Amazon free delivery plus Amazon music.
Disney hotstar charges 1499 for year.
Apple tv+ is I think 100 for a month.
Even the new player Jio cinema is charging 1000 a year.

Agreed that Netflix is indeed the most expensive and its content isn't the best, although they do have stunning original shows from time to time and have greatly improved content quality in the last 2 years.

But from your examples:

- Hotstar India is in the doldrums and reportedly up for sale.

- Amazon is okay to burn money on Prime Video as long as it brings in more Prime subscribers for its store.

- Apple's content library is a small fraction of Netflix's, and its strategy is entirely different (hundreds of billions of dollars in cash, push for Apple subscriptions & services etc.).

[Yieldway17]

I have been a Netflix customer since the DVD days when streaming was an add-on to the primary DVD business and paid $9.99 for 5 years and later $12.99 for another 2 years before I returned back to India. I kept paying 649 Rs. per month (~8 USD) for another 3 years when I noticed the content quality has dropped massively and Netflix went with strategy of throwing many things at the wall and see what it sticks. And I was earning far less in India than in the US.

Came across a Netflix sharing group online and started sharing the 4 screens UHD plan since COVID first lockdown for about 190 Rs. and later 163 Rs. I use Netflix occasionally and will likely be not subscribing at 499 or 649 anymore because I don't see the value. Netflix has its costs and I have become an out of Netflix demography so we part here after about 13 years of paying monthly (full and in part).

If there is a compelling show or movie, I will add to my watchlist, accumulate them and will subscribe for a month to watch them in the future. Works for my occasional use pattern.

[libranof1987]

I suspect that subscription charges might just drop as password sharing is curtailed further - Netflix might be happy with four people paying 200 each for their individual accounts vs. one paying 650 while all four use it.

EDIT: just found an article confirming this trend.

Early results indicate Netflix’s new plan to boost its bottom line by cracking down on password sharing in the United States is paying off.

Netflix added 100,000 new accounts on both May 26 and May 27, shortly after the crackdown went into effect, Antenna’s data found. In the following days, Netflix has seen a more than 100% increase in sign-ups from the prior 60-day average.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/09/b...lts/index.html

[Imran.Syed]

I am one of those bad customers as GTO describes (LOL) who has never paid for a full Netflix subscription.
Feels weird how something came into existence, became such an integral part of our lives and has changed so much yet I never become a fully paying part of it.

I'm very indifferent to this news, I have avoided many kinds of subscriptions all my life so far because I basically don't mind waiting.
Think about it, planning accordingly and waiting 2-3 days or even some times 2-3 hours a day is enough to get around subscriptions.

I think there will be a small renaissance of pirating.
BTW if anyone can tell me the names of piracy websites I need to block now, I'll be very grateful haha.

[Rocketscience]

Not with them for this move at all but from my POV, their new ₹200 plan is a reasonable VFM considering, it can be used on TVs and it is 720p instead of 480p now.

Now, this is not YouTube's 720p with bad compression but actually usable, for screen sizes till 46 inches I would rate the picture quality a solid 8.5/10 considering 4k HDR is 10/10.

For screens till 55 inches (max I have tested) I would still rate it 7.5/10 which is perfectly useable and good enough, especially considering the price. And in our household with majorly 2 TVs, we use this plan and although I had planned to buy a more expensive one if we faced problems since this only allows 1 screen at a time (but can be added to multiple devices, just only 1 can run at a time), but there have hardly been any overlaps at all, as my and my parents TV viewing time is very different.

Coming to the content itself, first of all their UI is the best along with Apple's and runs the smoothest on my TV (Samsung - Tizen OS), Prime and others are considerably uglier and laggy, but the content library is so so and even in last month I only watched it 5-6 times with a total watch time not even 7-8 hours total.
Hell, my membership expired a week ago and I had turned off auto debit at paytm's end, and I only noticed it yesterday, won't be getting this again because I don't really like the content, but for those who do, extreme VFM, this plan!

[AtheK]

Welcome move or not, it is a Business driven decision, the content on Netflix tops every other OTT provider. So many of there series are both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos supported, which actually helps with a theatre like experience at home. Amazon Prime is not there bread and butter business they make a lot of money from Amazon Shopping platform. Netflix is earning solely on Content.

They gave you an option to build a user base, now today let us say they have 2 accounts at 649, which then is shared by let us say 10 people, they get 65 rupees per person. Now even if 9 cancel and only 1 keeps it, they will still get 649 per person. They will retain that 1 person out of 10 eventually, and will not see much of a drop eventually in there business. There is a high probablity that now one more will stay invested and now they will make 1300 rupees where they were earlier making 65 rupees and also the load on there servers will go down which is another cost saving for them.

I will continue with my sub as my son watches netflix quite a bit and it has a lot of kids driven content, eventually it is the cost of a cocktail that I am paying for quality content over the course of 30 days.

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by libranof1987

I suspect that subscription charges might just drop as password sharing is curtailed further - Netflix might be happy with four people paying 200 each for their individual accounts vs. one paying 650 while all four use it.
EDIT: just found an article confirming this trend.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/09/b...lts/index.html

The initial bump after the crackdown is understandable. But I think it is not a promising metric for the long term.



Unless they come up with a new option of single profile on any device with a lower subscription fee, total viewers might still see a decline.

[harry10]

Originally Posted by Rocketscience

Not with them for this move at all but from my POV, their new ₹200 plan is a reasonable VFM considering, it can be used on TVs and it is 720p instead of 480p now.

Now, this is not YouTube's 720p with bad compression but actually usable, for screen sizes till 46 inches I would rate the picture quality a solid 8.5/10 considering 4k HDR is 10/10.

You have a good point.
Only thing is once you become habitual of 4k HDR on a 55 inches it's just not pleasing to watch a 720p on the same tv.

I haven't made my mind how to handle this situation. Right now I don't have much time and that's why I am quite selective what to watch. Prime, hotstar and Apple tv+ will keep me occupied. After few months if content is promising I might subscribe for a month.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by clevermax

The initial bump after the crackdown is understandable. But I think it is not a promising metric for the long term.
.

The little diagram is absolutely and totally useless. You can’t make any conclusion from it. You need to see the Y and X scale units.

That uptake is that one person, 10, a million. Where does the vertical scale begin? What is the the time frame (x axes)

I watch Netflix occasionally when our daughter is here. But to date I have no stream subscriptions at all, other than Spotify. I prefer to do real stuff rather than watch others do it on telly/stream. Movies I still prefer to see in a cinema.

Jeroen