A while back Netflix announced a new pricing update…
The general idea was that they wanted to stop people from sharing accounts with friends and family…. and increase profits by charging an additional $7.99 more per month, for every user that logs in from an IP that’s different than your home address.
Which was especially relevant at a time where Netflix had declined in growth:
(Password sharing updates started rolling out internationally late 2022. Right around the bottom.)
Anyways, immediately when they announced that they planned to roll out these updates it was met with massive backlash.
To the extent it caused the rollout of the update to to be pushed back…
That is, of course, until now.
That’ll Be $7.99 Please
As of the end of May, 2023, Netflix has officially rolled out the password-sharing crackdown. Users streaming on an account outside of the home IP will need to pay $7.99 per month, officially.
It was met with the same backlash as before (not too shocking…)
For example…
Anyways, the big question here is:
Does Forcing Anyone To Do Anything Ever Work?
If the history of the internet (or people in general, really) has ever taught us anything… it’s that people hate to be forced to do anything or controlled.
Exhibit A:
China creates literal firewall around the entire country so they can’t access a free internet.
People circumvent that with solutions like v2ray.
Exhibit B:
Music and TV becomes unaffordable so everyone starts pirating instead.
People stop buying things outright so an entire market has to shift to streaming instead of selling (music, video, movies).
Companies then makes the product good enough at a price valuable enough people start signing up.
Company starts gaining popularity, producing some good IP (intellectual property, such as Squid Games), fattening their wallets, and becoming too confident…
Starts raising pricing, people accept.
Continues raising prices, and gets overly confident so they start requiring your family members and close friends to also pay for their own account or $7.99 per month.
People return back to piracy.
People Simply Have Too Much Choice in 2023
Netflix was convenient. You didn’t need to manage a library, run any seed boxes, or anything.
Just pay and watch.
It was the first major streaming service to catch on, you know… before Hulu, Max, Paramount+, Apple TV, and beyond.
No one else could compete with the complete experience Netflix provided.
But it isn’t the only streaming service to do that anymore.
All of these competitors can provide an equal experience.
Plus, it’s never been easier to provide your own streaming experience with tools like Plex or Jellyfin.
I mean, literally, you could browse here or on Lowendtalk, find yourself your favorite Romanian provider, install Plex (or Jellyfin)… and you’re in business.
If you really wanted to you could avoid the setup and scavenge Reddit for Plex shares instead, too…
That way:
You’ll never have to worry about subscription changes again, and you can control your entire library in one place.
You could even bring your favorite IP from other streaming services over and share it with whoever you want for a grand total of zero dollars.
I firmly believe if consumers are forced into a corner where streaming services get too confident with pricing decisions like these, pirating will become mainstream again.
People only ever switched to streaming because the value met the convenience.
It made more sense to pay $10 per month and save hours of your life… but, when you need 10 streaming services to have access to all of your shows and streaming services are getting increasingly confident?
Ehh, it might be time to take back that control.
To Be Devils Advocate, Though…
Outrage is different than action.
A lot of people can be really upset about the pricing changes Netflix just rolled out and insist they’re going to leave…
But all that actually matters, at least to Netflix is that they actually do.
Consumers can be mad all they want but until they vote with their wallets companies will continue to raise prices without adding value (or in this case… removing value.)
If Netflix was to continue to see that chart going down, I’m willing to bet they’ll be more likely to change than if it started going back upwards towards the green.
If Netflix’s pricing changes get under your skin, even if from a fundamental perspective alone… then you’ll need to vote with your wallet.
Set up that Plex server, put the control back in your hands.
That’s what the internet is all about.
Or don’t.
It’s up to you.
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Isin’t sharing your Netflix account with the entire block also piracy?
Was going to say this too. They don’t want to be responsible for piracy. If you can’t afford Netflix then just drop it. Very few people who were not stealing it care about this change. I have a failover ISP and it doesn’t affect me when primary goes down. So long as my mobile devices check in at home every so often, no problem with travel either. Non issue.
What if you travel all the time?
Kurt, what if you time travel?