It’s not you, but it’s not me either. It’s Netflix.
Is the line we recommend passing on to your loved ones, as you tell them they may finally have to pay for their own Netflix accounts and stop mooching off of yours.
It’s been a good run at least.
Netflix have announced that as of early 2023, they will be tracking IP addresses, locations, device ID’s and account activity to determine accounts that are password sharing, and will start charging fees ‘per member’ based on location.
Although the fee for this hasn’t been confirmed by Netflix, there are suggestions it will be one quarter of the monthly fee per location. Which means if you’re anything like most families, and have 4 people sharing one account (a moment of appreciation to these self-sacrificing family members), then you could be paying almost double per month. If you’re the one that’s been footing the bill the last few years, it may be time to for them to hear the tough conversation that it’s time you part ways, and they get their own accounts.
Apparently Netflix will be assisting users in this transition to separate accounts by transferring their profiles (including recommendations, your list and previously watched) to a new account, but it seems like a lot of admin if you ask us.
It’s unclear exactly how this location based fee will work either, especially for our traveller family members out there that frequently flaunt around Australia and the world. Supposedly they’ll be monitoring log in locations to allocate a ‘home’ for the account, and if another household streams for more than 2 weeks they’ll be notifying the user and adding the fee. This doesn’t bode well for our van goers or frequent house changers, but we’ll see.
They’ve also mentioned bringing in exceptions for travelling, but rumour has it you can only visit a given place once a year so we’re uncertain how that will actually work either. Let’s be honest, downloading Netflix episodes for long travel journeys is half the reason to have a subscription.
It seems to us that we may still have a little time up our sleeves while they sort out the finer details.
Image source: boredpanda.com
In other Netflix news they will also be bringing out a new base subscription at $7USD per month, coming to Australia from November 3rd. It’s a budget that should allow for these new changes, but will have users watching 4-5 minutes of ads per hour, and won’t allow them to download anything to watch offline. We’re not sure we’re up for that subscription but it’s nice to know they’re creating base memberships.
It seems all good things really must come to an end.
For now, I guess it’s time to put the popcorn in the microwave and binge out on as much free Netflix as you can while you still have the time.
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