Oh no: Netflix is tackling the sharing of your subscription
Aii, the day you knew would eventually come. Honestly, I'm still surprised they're only tackling this now. Yes, Netflix is going to war. Sort of. They are going to tackle the non-paying viewers. Yes, you know who you are. I have a family subscription to Netflix, but I have a dark brown suspicion that about three to four extra people are watching. And that's just on my account, by the way. It's not like this watching together happens secretly, because I get in trouble if I watch a series that the freeloader in question is watching: he doesn't remember where he is. He's angry. Shameless. Well, I do contribute a bit to it myself, of course, because I approve of it. Don't punish me, Netflix, please.
Because they are going to tackle this ‘problem’ (I don't see a problem, but okay). They are really fed up with sharing subscriptions now. Officially, it was never allowed anyway (we are rebellious users after all), but Netflix never really did anything active to counter it. Until now, that is. It seems they want to combat this by focusing on user data; this way they can see if one account is being used by multiple people at the same time. That is, well, I can't put it any other way; just quite bad news for many of us.
They are also going to look at usage on one account that is not geographically possible. Are you sitting with your butt in Bali, but your freeloader in Amsterdam, that's not going to work anymore. Checking IP addresses is also part of the plan to tackle this, just like not displaying content multiple times for one user. I find that last one annoying, because if I want to see every episode of Friends at least twenty times, isn't that really up to me?
So dear freeloaders, your time of carefree – and especially unpaid – is over: time to finally get your own Netflix account. My freeloaders are definitely being kicked out, because Netflix is also coming with a penalty. Subscriptions can be temporarily blocked when someone does not follow the rules. THE HORROR.
