Buuuut I'm Already Paying for the Streams??

 Recently, my Google Tiles have brought me a few different articles about how NetFlix is experimenting with shutting down different-household account sharing. This is the article that my tiles brought me, today.

Now, I can understand that there are people that are using NetFlix (et. al.) in a way that is providing more usage than is being paid for. That said, if your streaming plan allows for N numbers of concurrent streams, whether four individuals are using that capacity under one roof or not should be immaterial. Similarly, whether or not those four streams are being used, part-time, across four people or thirty should also be immaterial. The plans offered aren't "four concurrent streams for an aggregate of 48 streaming-hours per month", it's a max of four concurrent streams, full stop. Arguing otherwise harkens back to cellular companies and (post-consolidation/big) ISPs putting their ginormous asterisks on their "unlimited" plans.

Further, What Netflix needs to understand is, if they're selling accounts that allow for "N" concurrent streams, they aren't losing money if, as the account-owner, I retain a stream for myself and set up profiles for N-1 other users – whether under my roof or no. NetFlix offers plan tiers (per the article, $9/mo for single-concurrency; $14/mo for dual-concurrency; $18/mo for quad-concurrency). In the case of my NetFlix account, I popped for the $18/mo. plan. That allows my wife and I to be in different rooms watching two different NetFlix-hosted shows or movies. It also means I have two paid for streams left over. 

My mom's retired and every dollar counts. So, since I have the two, paid for extra streams, I set up her Roku with my login. She doesn't watch much NetFlix. Indeed, if she didn't have the use of one of my paid for, extra streams, she'd not purchase a NetFlix subscription at all.

Me? I tend to be a binge-and-suspend streamer. Which is to say: I sign up for a given streaming-service when I know they've posted a series (or several) that I want to watch; I binge the series (or a few series); I suspend or cancel my account. Why would I pay for a year of any given streaming service when I can buy just one month. Especially, why would I pay four a half-dozen streaming services for a year when each such service might only have a few weeks worth of content I'm actually interested in?

There's currently only two streaming services that I don't binge-and-suspend: NetFlix and Prime Video:

• The only reason I don't binge-and-suspend Prime Video is because it's free with my Prime account. If I had to pay for it as a standalone service ...I probably wouldn't even binge-and-suspend as their content is almost entirely garbage. The notable exceptions being their acquisition of The Expanse after SyFy canceled it plus both the Jack Ryan series and The Boys. While Amazon has had some decent original content (Borat 2 was ok, as was Coming 2 America), it's rarely been content I'd sign up for a month's worth of service for or rent via Vudu (et. al).
• I don't binge-and-suspend NetFlix almost exclusively because I'm sharing it. Basically, I don't want my mom going to actually try to watch NetFlix only to be rebuffed. Absent that share-with-my-mom anchor, NetFlix would definitely be on the binge-and-suspend list.

At any rate, doing the math – and ignoring (for now) binge-and-suspend habits – what does NetFlix stand to make by making sharing outside of a household no longer doable? Absolute best case, I roll back to a two-stream plan and my mom ponies up for a one-stream plan. If both households leave their accounts in place, month in and month out, that $18/mo becomes $23/mo for them (. This is probably what their bean-counters are selling to their executives. But, what it ignores is:

• The risk that the shared-with household won't sign up at all
• The risk that the shared-from household won't retain at least the break-even number of streams
• The risk that the shared-from household won't switch to binge-and-suspend
• The risk that the shared-from household will simply wholly discontinue service due to the annoyance of having terms changed.

The funny thing is, Netflix's primary streaming-base is younger viewers. Which is to say, viewers who are far more likely to move to binge-and-suspend usage patterns. While the risks around boomers wholly turning off or moving to binge-and-suspend consumption-style is low, boomers aren't the primary customer-demographic.

I get that there is probably a non-trivial amount of actual abuse, but you could cut down on some of it by limiting the number of viewer-profiles ...and then using ML to evaluate whether any of the configured profiles are obviously being shared far-and-wide. But, overall, it comes across like NetFlix (and supposedly others) trying to hold on to a fistful of sand by squeezing tighter. There's too many ways to circumvent controls. Right now, circumvention is minimal. But, if the early 2000s demonstrated anything, it's that circumvention will proliferate if content-owners try too hard to dictate usage-terms.