Mike Masnick ✅Kinda hoping that Netflix's new "we'll ban you if you watch the Netflix account you paid for outside of your home too much" story turns into a "New Coke"-style business school case study in how to do something totally stupid that pisses off your most loyal customers, and leads Netflix to reverse course quickly.
Greg Messerian@mmasnick they can call it “Quickster 2.0”
Jared Smith@mmasnick The Qwikster of the 2020s, one can hope.
🌲🧿 "Max"t💽d🏵️n 🔎🍄
Greg Glockner@mmasnick Saw a Reddit post asking how Netflix will track users on non-stationary networks like mobile or satellite.
DaSkinny ⚜️@gglockner @mmasnick
The reddit thread:
Bruce Johnson ✅@mmasnick As one who travels around the world constantly and barely spends more than a few days a year at their 'address', I'm curious about how I'll fit into their business model.
MudMan@LACanuck @mmasnick Same. I am presently going back and forth between places for extended periods of time, so by the descriptions going around of how this works I'll be flagged by their checks in maybe a couple of months from now.
Also interesting? My account is part of a cable TV bundle, so it's an interesting question to see what happens if and when they lock me out and I call my provider for support.
Mans R@mmasnick I was under the impression that it was (mainly) the owners of licensed content that were demanding this. Happy to be corrected.
@mansr have not seen any evidence of that at all.
@mmasnick Perhaps I'm thinking of the VPN blocking, or maybe I'm imagining things.
dragonfrog@dragonfrog @mmasnick Content owners are idiots.
Lauren Weinstein@mmasnick Kinda reminds me of how in early public Internet days some big ISPs tried to charge separately for every device hooked to the Net, and even tried to ban NAT.
Kevin@lauren @mmasnick The phone company did this too. First you had to rent phones from them, then pay for each device connected. One of the ways they found "illegal" phones was the voltage drop from the number of phones that rang for an incoming call. So phone makers added a switch to turn off the ringer.
First phone mute button was for pirate phones.
@kevin @mmasnick By the time there were phones being sold publicly the major telcos had long since stopped counting subscriber phones. The traditional method for blocking the count of extra phones while still permitting them to ring was to put a neon bulb in series with the ringer. Or uh, so I've been told.
JR Buckley 🏳️🌈⚛️@JRBuckley @kevin @mmasnick I've never heard of that. Unless there's a bypass, it also means you couldn't add someone onto an extension during a call!
@lauren @kevin @mmasnick
Exactly, only one extension could be used at a time.
Admittedly, I was 10 when I first encountered this and it was in locations controlled by the US Military (offices and off-base housing) in West Berlin, so I don't know if this was a standard thing or if I misunderstood its purpose, etc. I never saw it anywhere else after that or during the 12 years I spent in Southern Germany in the 1980s-90s.
@kevin @JRBuckley @mmasnick That was AUTOVON. Fourth column red buttons: FO - F - I - P (flash override, flash, immediate, priority).
These phones looked like the standard gray German phones of the day except for the mechanical indicator. Now that I'm wracking my brain over something I haven't thought of in close to 50 years, I think some of our German friends had phones like these, too.
It may have been a Cold War/Berlin thing.
Petrichor ᚄᚔᚅᚐᚁᚆᚃᚒᚔᚂ@sinabhfuil @kevin @mmasnick I've never heard of an operator initiating the howl. For sure many systems would run a howl for a relatively brief period if a phone was left off hook. Maybe some even kept it going until the handset was hung up again. Though smaller systems certainly could vary in practice.
@lauren @sinabhfuil @mmasnick Is the howl the strobing tone you'd get when you left a handset off hook? I remember us getting the North American tone on the Wikipedia page, but never heard it referred to as a howl. Jeez, I haven't heard that in forever.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-hook_tone
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-hook_tone
@kevin @sinabhfuil @mmasnick There are different ones. Some sound like sirens up and down. Others are loud BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP tones at a high rate.
@kevin @lauren @mmasnick
My grandfather built his house and it wasn't until the switch to touch tone dialing that the Phone Co realized that he'd installed a phone outlet in every room and had a dozen phones (not all plugged in at the same time). I don't remember exactly what happened, but there was drama.
My grandfather built his house and it wasn't until the switch to touch tone dialing that the Phone Co realized that he'd installed a phone outlet in every room and had a dozen phones (not all plugged in at the same time). I don't remember exactly what happened, but there was drama.
AlexisDyslexic@alexisdyslexic @mmasnick They want to sell you a higher speed connection.
That Anonymous CowardNope they'll keep going until the point someone with a brain points out that all of this chasing of pennies is destroying the whole thing.
That if the stream is paid for, no one needs to care where its used.
That a show needs more than 3 episodes before you decide to cancel it. Some of the biggest hits had slow starts, but Netflix is chasing pennies & wondering why users are going elsewhere.
Iron Curtain (Chiptunes)
Dante Mercurio@IronCurtain @That_AC @mmasnick I’ve said this same thing, since they already invested heavy in an incomplete show why not just continue for a few extra episodes to complete the storyline. No one will start an incomplete series but they’d own a much more valuable show for life if it was and who knows, it could become a cult favorite later on.
@dantemercurio @IronCurtain @mmasnick
Or 1899 where they KNEW that it was meant to be a show that needed a few seasons to unwind the story and they just end it based on soem metric that ignores the long arc
James Gilbert@IronCurtain @That_AC @mmasnick I'm still carrying a torch for The OΛ. I subscribe for a month if there's something I want to watch.
onekade@mmasnick what’s especially funny about this is that it is going to drive wealthy people crazy. Sorry you can’t use Netflix if you have more than one home
ToddLa@mmasnick yea first time I get blocked when I am “roaming” it is time to cancel
Mike Stevens 
@mmasnick It seems like a hell of a bind though, should they not do anything about password sharing?
I use my Netflix when I travel, which is often, but – for example – daily almost concurrent logins from another specific location must surely be indicative of something more than just "using your own account from another location"?
@mikestevens what's the bind? They already have different offerings that limits number of streams. No reason to block password sharing too.
@mmasnick Ah, fair enough. I am obviously not well enough educated on the topic, haha.
Marc Jacobs@mikestevens @mmasnick Take my example.
I have a home in California. My job is here.
My wife moved for her job and lives in Oregon. (Happily married, living apart.)
Our daughter goes to college next fall, in neither place.
Are we supposed to have 3 accounts? Why? My wife and I rarely watch the same movies or shows regardless of physical location.
⁂ Fish Id Wardrobe@fishidwardrobe @mikestevens @mmasnick Or $0, if I walk. 😁 (Nothing new to you in that comment, obviously)
I wonder how Netflix did a market survey to estimate the effect. Doesn’t seem like something you’d just do based on gut. But maybe I’m naive.
Cảm ơn@mmasnick @mikestevens it’s an untapped revenue stream, won’t somebody think of the shareholders
Fuck Elon 
yes and no. last time I checked they had the HD + streams or no HD and one stream. which is silly. Don't bundle stuff. A lot of single people would pay more for HD but have no need for more than one stream at a time, I am guessing.
Misuse Case@mmasnick I’m not sure what they mean by “home device.” Or how I will be affected by using a VPN on my devices a lot. But if it breaks Netflix for me I am dropping Netflix. I won’t pay to be treated like that.
appraiser@mmasnick I don't have a Netflix account, but 90% of my Disney+ usage is when I'm traveling and I want something interesting on in the background while I'm working in the hotel late in the day. (I've had certain Marvel movies on the the background *way* too many times.)
So if Disney looks, I'll have logins from all over the U.S.
Peter Sterne@mmasnick Did Netflix say they would ban users who log in at multiple locations? I thought they would just require users to use 2FA every time.
lythander@petersterne @mmasnick They're going to pick your "main location" and charge you to log in anywhere else, including make you create a new profile apparently.
Rick Rae@lythander
Maybe a good incentive to set up a #TailScale overlay network so no matter where you are in the world, you're watching from home. 
(And bonus, ads are stripped from your phone/tablet/etc. when surfing, thanks to the Pi-hole you have at home...)
@petersterne @mmasnick
@petersterne https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/1/23581421/netflix-password-sharing-home-setting-block-devices
Netflix hasn’t confirmed its plans to stop password sharing just yet
While Netflix hasn’t confirmed how it plans to crack down on password sharing in the US, a now-deleted support page indicates it could block devices that try to sign into an account that isn’t part of the account holder’s primary household.
@mmasnick Interesting. I thought the US help page (https://help.netflix.com/en/node/123277) was describing the new policy, but it sounds like it's actually describing the current policy and the new policy could be even more draconian.
Kevin Hardiman@mmasnick wait - what? Isn’t this something their TOS allows?
@kevin_hardiman https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/1/23581421/netflix-password-sharing-home-setting-block-devices
Netflix hasn’t confirmed its plans to stop password sharing just yet
While Netflix hasn’t confirmed how it plans to crack down on password sharing in the US, a now-deleted support page indicates it could block devices that try to sign into an account that isn’t part of the account holder’s primary household.
@mmasnick this seems to be the crux of it: “Netflix says you must ‘connect to the Wi-Fi at your primary location, open the Netflix app or website, and watch something at least once every 31 days’ on the devices you and your household members use to watch Netflix, or else they’ll get blocked.”