
Millions Watch Netflix Without Paying [video] - shawndumas
http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2013-04-22/millions-watch-netflix-without-paying#r=read
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devin
Breaking News: Millions Watch Cable Television Without Paying

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mapgrep
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.

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cube13
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...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-22/netflix-seen-cracking-
down-on-sharing-to-bolster-profit.html)

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.

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kemiller
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.

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

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quotha
I pay for netflix and don't watch it.

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gcb0
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

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

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yardie
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.

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incision
>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...](http://allthingsd.com/20130422/netflix-says-its-house-of-cards-
strategy-worked-and-wall-street-agrees/)

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outside1234
i did this. i'll do it again for Arrested Development. Good content is worth
it - the back catalog is not.

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incision
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...](http://bgr.com/2013/04/22/netflix-price-increase-
rumor-457071/)

2: [http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/22/4253820/netflix-
launching-...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/22/4253820/netflix-
launching-11-99-family-plan-four-simultaneous-streams)

3:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200444180)

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madsushi
Well, somebody's paying.

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

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wahsd
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.

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adolph
Yes, I was until recently in that category.

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Apocryphon
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.

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katbyte
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.

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earlz
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

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quinoa_rex
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.

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BadCRC
how would you watch the new season of Arrested Development?

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quinoa_rex
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.

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ricardobeat
_Breaking news: Millions use the internet without paying! That's because
internet providers lets family and friends share ONE internet connection..._

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

Take away either and ill go elsewhere.

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prakashk
> 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?

