Netflix Household Verification

[KFBR392]

We've gotten spoiled paying next to nothing for practically unlimited content for 15 years. Now the streamers have to chase profits rather than subscribers. I can't imagine Netflix will be the only one to crack down on this or the most strict. Those $200 million Ryan Reynolds abominations don't pay for themselves.

[roamingzebra]

It's just human nature at play. It's easier to do nothing and continue to pay for the service than it is to go through the cancellation process, so that's what people tend to do.

It's all relative. Anyone who ever suffered through the AOL cancellation process is a certified pro! Everything else pales in comparison.

[Bcdkgf]

We've gotten spoiled paying next to nothing for practically unlimited content for 15 years. Now the streamers have to chase profits rather than subscribers. I can't imagine Netflix will be the only one to crack down on this or the most strict. Those $200 million Ryan Reynolds abominations don't pay for themselves.

We have had unlimited content for my lifetime and I am old enough to be on Medicare. Free over the air is unlimited. My retirement community has cable tv, with DVR, again unlimited included in our HOA fees. We never watch it. I don't want to fool with a Spectrum remote. Frankly, having a Roku has spoiled me for ease of use and NOT having to listen to political and Medicare commercials is the big plus. We only watch for two hours in the evening, there's always something new on Paramount or Prime.

[ncbill]

It's likely we won't end up back in the cable days as piracy was rampant then. Netflix simply added a cheap and easy alternative to piracy and it took off. It's in no one's interest to return to those days and the usage of IPTV is sky rocketing so it's a serious risk.

Netflix has also acted as a catalyst for VPN becoming a standard tool among 2023s average consumer.

To be frank I'm not sure what people can not understand about netflix's new rule. And suspect people are being disingenuous to some extent.

All devices on a single membership must connect at least once a month from the household IP. If you don't you can provide a code to maintain access. The household IP is determined by the most active TV IP or manually set.

Every streaming service already has it ins terms that the service is not for sharing outside a household and not for public broadcasting etc.

For 90% of people this will just mean they can not access geo-locked content. The remaining 10% might have to faff about with home VPNs or codes.

I have several subscriptions that require me to access them every X weeks from corporate networks and I do that with my work VPN or horror of horrors going into the office.


Not being able to use a third party account as part payment for a multiple household account is really frustrating however.

Doesn't sound like much of an impediment in order to keep sharing with your kids, brother Bob, uncle Lenny, & cousin Brucie.

[MDfan]

I'll likely just cancel Netflix altogether and just re-order in those months where there is something I really want to watch. In my opinion, there's just not enough good content to justify it anyway right now.

[Big Dog]

We subscribe to Netflix, Prime, BritBox, Acorn, PBS, Hulu, Paramount+, AppleTV, MHz, F1, HBO. We don’t need all of those in our home and apartment, and I’m not usually a cheapskate, but it would be bizarre to pay double what we pay now, much less an additional tariff for our son at college, to retain what we think is use within the guidelines of what we understood to be “our household.”

Surely your child does not need 10 streaming services at college! So obviously your costs are not going to truly double. And they often have student plans.

I get that it has worked in the past, so it's an annoying new restriction. But imagine it is 15 years ago and you were subscribing to DirectTV. Should your college child also get to watch satellite for free when they are away at school? I understand where Netflix is coming from.

I wasn’t sufficiently clear. Forget about my son (who truly doesn’t need 10 services). However, if all of our subscriptions changed to a “Netflix model,” our MA home and NYC apartment (occupied 6-8 days/month) would require 11 duplicate streaming subscriptions. In real life, we would probably cut down on our subscriptions. My point was simply that it can add up, in response to pizzy saying it was a lot of fuss over $8/month.

Under Netflix's new policy you could watch both at your MA home and NYC apartment from a single non-shared account. There will be no need for a duplicate account. Even in countries with an extra home fee, it's much lower than the standard account.

With no need to do so on a mobile device? That wasn’t my take-away. How am I “authenticating” the TV at my second home?

every time you return to your home router in MA, you just need to log into Netflix from your mobile device(s) and that will authenticate them for another 30 days.

[rob]

Surely your child does not need 10 streaming services at college! So obviously your costs are not going to truly double. And they often have student plans.

I get that it has worked in the past, so it's an annoying new restriction. But imagine it is 15 years ago and you were subscribing to DirectTV. Should your college child also get to watch satellite for free when they are away at school? I understand where Netflix is coming from.

I wasn’t sufficiently clear. Forget about my son (who truly doesn’t need 10 services). However, if all of our subscriptions changed to a “Netflix model,” our MA home and NYC apartment (occupied 6-8 days/month) would require 11 duplicate streaming subscriptions. In real life, we would probably cut down on our subscriptions. My point was simply that it can add up, in response to pizzy saying it was a lot of fuss over $8/month.

Under Netflix's new policy you could watch both at your MA home and NYC apartment from a single non-shared account. There will be no need for a duplicate account. Even in countries with an extra home fee, it's much lower than the standard account.

With no need to do so on a mobile device? That wasn’t my take-away. How am I “authenticating” the TV at my second home?

every time you return to your home router in MA, you just need to log into Netflix from your mobile device(s) and that will authenticate them for another 30 days.

There is a mismatch here... lots of people do NOT stream/cast from mobile but have a SCREEN/DEVICE at the other location... I think that's what TT is also meaning. It's not viable to keep moving the device or TV back "home".

[Beensabu]

IMHO Netflix's content is not worth paying two subscriptions per month. It's pretty thin. I get it discounted through my Comcast (extortionate) cable package but I'd question its value at $15/mo. We already pay for AppleTV+, Hulu/Disney/ESPN+, Prime, ad infinitum. It adds up!

It's not. The scrolling to find "something to watch" is akin to flipping through cable channels back in the day. I'd gotten to the point that I'd found myself watching their singles reality shows late at night trying to get sleepy...

I'm really glad they did this, actually. Just subscribed to Disney+ and Peacock (which has a $19.99 annual promo right now fyi). The kid is over the moon and is hogging the TV this weekend. I successfully kept her from Disney programming in the formative years, and now she gets to catch up. And Dreamworks has a huge roster.

Told my dad he could go ahead and downgrade to basic (50% savings!) as we have plenty of new to us content to watch now. It will be interesting to see how many premium accounts they see downgraded vs. adding additional members.

[suemarkp]

I will also note that very few homes are assigned static IP's. Your IP address can change for a myriad of everyday reasons, perhaps from a reboot, equipment change, or short power failure. When that occurs, it appears you need to go through the Netflix Update process to redefine your household. Keep those instructions handy.

I'm still on IPv4 with Comcast/Xfinity. My internal IP addresses can change easily (192.196.1.x), but everything going out of the house uses Network Address Translation (NAT) to convert to one IP address. All your devices in the house appear to have the same IP address if you are using NAT. If you want to see what that external address is, go here: https://whatismyipaddress.com/

My external IP address hasn't changed in a long time even though it is DHCP generated. Changing a router doesn't change it. Changing a modem doesn't change it. Comcast can decide to change it, and if they do then I will probably have to re-register all my Netflix devices again. It can be annoying for other things too (e.g. monitoring security cameras remotely) if your external IP changes, so I don't think they want to change it unless they have to.

I will probably drop my multiple screens add on (its either 4 or 6). That was how I justified letting my kids watch on our account. It will be impossible here to watch more than 2 screens at once, so I'll drop to that basic service.

[Jags4186]

My mother has a beach house with a Smart TV. How does she use her Netflix account at her regular house and her beach house? Is she expected to bring the whole TV back to her regular house or is she forced to pay extra?

[pizzy]

My mother has a beach house with a Smart TV. How does she use her Netflix account at her regular house and her beach house? Is she expected to bring the whole TV back to her regular house or is she forced to pay extra?

Have you ever done the thing where a TV app asks you to visit a site and enter a short code or a QR code appears on the screen and you scan and log in from your phone and it authenticates the TV and the app is good to go?

[Beensabu]

My mother has a beach house with a Smart TV. How does she use her Netflix account at her regular house and her beach house? Is she expected to bring the whole TV back to her regular house or is she forced to pay extra?

Have you ever done the thing where a TV app asks you to visit a site and enter a short code or a QR code appears on the screen and you scan and log in from your phone and it authenticates the TV and the app is good to go?

I'm 40 years old, and I hate QR codes.

Have you ever heard of tech-phobic people going "that's too complicated, nevermind"? I do think they've misjudged their US demographics. The young people on their service are only there because someone else has been paying for it. And the old people have only been paying premium for the young people.

They've already got a cancel hashtag. And it's only because they want to charge for a feature they actively marketed as an actual feature (regardless of T&C) a few years prior. "Love is sharing a password"? It's an unforgiving crowd.

[TomatoTomahto]

I'm 40 years old, and I hate QR codes.

Well, you can also key in the web site name. If it works to authenticate our second home location, it’s good enough for me.

[pizzy]

Have you ever heard of tech-phobic people going "that's too complicated, nevermind"?

The world is leaving them in the rear view.

[Bcdkgf]

Have you ever heard of tech-phobic people going "that's too complicated, nevermind"?

The world is leaving them in the rear view.

That may be so, but if your an elder senior who tech savvy child lives 200 miles away and has set up their smart TV on their once a year visit at Christmas, most of them are going to say "The heck with this, I have to do what?"

[pizzy]

Have you ever heard of tech-phobic people going "that's too complicated, nevermind"?

The world is leaving them in the rear view.

That may be so, but if your an elder senior who tech savvy child lives 200 miles away and has set up their smart TV on their once a year visit at Christmas, most of them are going to say "The heck with this, I have to do what?"

I don't disagree. I think Netflix is ok with that also.

[Jags4186]

My mother has a beach house with a Smart TV. How does she use her Netflix account at her regular house and her beach house? Is she expected to bring the whole TV back to her regular house or is she forced to pay extra?

Have you ever done the thing where a TV app asks you to visit a site and enter a short code or a QR code appears on the screen and you scan and log in from your phone and it authenticates the TV and the app is good to go?

Is that the process? We can do whatever, I’m not worried about the process, I was just basing my question on the college student example above. Is there a specific process for someone with two homes? I haven’t seen that detailed anywhere, but I’m fairness I haven’t read through this entire thread.

[eddot98]

My mother has a beach house with a Smart TV. How does she use her Netflix account at her regular house and her beach house? Is she expected to bring the whole TV back to her regular house or is she forced to pay extra?

Have you ever done the thing where a TV app asks you to visit a site and enter a short code or a QR code appears on the screen and you scan and log in from your phone and it authenticates the TV and the app is good to go?

Is that the process? We can do whatever, I’m not worried about the process, I was just basing my question on the college student example above. Is there a specific process for someone with two homes? I haven’t seen that detailed anywhere, but I’m fairness I haven’t read through this entire thread.

I’m away from home right now in a hotel, not a second home. The smart tv in the hotel room has an easy way to sign in to Netflix, Prime Video, stream from a guest’s device, or to connect with an HDMI cable. We streamed Succession on HBO MAX from my iPhone and signed in to Netflix to watch some show to drift off to sleep.
Netflix sent me an email making sure that it was me. Nothing from HBO MAX. We have the 2 screen Netflix through TMOBILE for $6 and get HBO MAX through Spectrum.
By the way, I’m 72 years old and even though I don’t do Facebook or Instagram, I have no trouble with technology.

[rob]

My mother has a beach house with a Smart TV. How does she use her Netflix account at her regular house and her beach house? Is she expected to bring the whole TV back to her regular house or is she forced to pay extra?

Have you ever done the thing where a TV app asks you to visit a site and enter a short code or a QR code appears on the screen and you scan and log in from your phone and it authenticates the TV and the app is good to go?

Is that the process? We can do whatever, I’m not worried about the process, I was just basing my question on the college student example above. Is there a specific process for someone with two homes? I haven’t seen that detailed anywhere, but I’m fairness I haven’t read through this entire thread.

I’m away from home right now in a hotel, not a second home. The smart tv in the hotel room has an easy way to sign in to Netflix, Prime Video, stream from a guest’s device, or to connect with an HDMI cable. We streamed Succession on HBO MAX from my iPhone and signed in to Netflix to watch some show to drift off to sleep.
Netflix sent me an email making sure that it was me. Nothing from HBO MAX. We have the 2 screen Netflix through TMOBILE for $6 and get HBO MAX through Spectrum.
By the way, I’m 72 years old and even though I don’t do Facebook or Instagram, I have no trouble with technology.

Yes... and you will get a warning email from netflix when you do that... Not sure if they plan to stop that after x times or what is happening but why send a warning if this is normal with whatever rules they have now and allowed?

[RJC]

It sounds like this won't be an issue for a lot of folks because: a) the subaccounts can still use Netflix on all devices other than a TV and b) they can screencast from device to TV if necessary.

[TomatoTomahto]

It sounds like this won't be an issue for a lot of folks because: a) the subaccounts can still use Netflix on all devices other than a TV and b) they can screencast from device to TV if necessary.

If I understand correctly, our two locations will not be a problem since we can reauthenticate using our mobile devices as long as we remember to log in using them at home no more than a month before going to our apartment.

Our son in college will probably need a new $8/month additional account since he does not necessarily visit his “home” monthly.

Our TVs range from 55” to 85” and have good sound systems. I can’t see (literally ) watching on my phone or iPad. I’m not sure screencasting works well enough to suit us.

[eddot98]

My mother has a beach house with a Smart TV. How does she use her Netflix account at her regular house and her beach house? Is she expected to bring the whole TV back to her regular house or is she forced to pay extra?

Have you ever done the thing where a TV app asks you to visit a site and enter a short code or a QR code appears on the screen and you scan and log in from your phone and it authenticates the TV and the app is good to go?

Is that the process? We can do whatever, I’m not worried about the process, I was just basing my question on the college student example above. Is there a specific process for someone with two homes? I haven’t seen that detailed anywhere, but I’m fairness I haven’t read through this entire thread.

I’m away from home right now in a hotel, not a second home. The smart tv in the hotel room has an easy way to sign in to Netflix, Prime Video, stream from a guest’s device, or to connect with an HDMI cable. We streamed Succession on HBO MAX from my iPhone and signed in to Netflix to watch some show to drift off to sleep.
Netflix sent me an email making sure that it was me. Nothing from HBO MAX. We have the 2 screen Netflix through TMOBILE for $6 and get HBO MAX through Spectrum.
By the way, I’m 72 years old and even though I don’t do Facebook or Instagram, I have no trouble with technology.

Yes... and you will get a warning email from netflix when you do that... Not sure if they plan to stop that after x times or what is happening but why send a warning if this is normal with whatever rules they have now and allowed?

Here’s what the email said after delineating where the new sign in was from:

“If this was you or someone in your household:
Enjoy watching! Have you seen this one? The Night Agent.
If it was someone else:
Please remember that we only allow the people in your household to use your account.
If you don’t know who it was:
We recommend that you change your password immediately to keep your account secure.”

You may consider this a warning, but I’m not concerned about it. I was also able to watch Netflix in Greece when we were there a few weeks ago where we received the same informational email.

[RJC]

It sounds like this won't be an issue for a lot of folks because: a) the subaccounts can still use Netflix on all devices other than a TV and b) they can screencast from device to TV if necessary.

If I understand correctly, our two locations will not be a problem since we can reauthenticate using our mobile devices as long as we remember to log in using them at home no more than a month before going to our apartment.

Our son in college will probably need a new $8/month additional account since he does not necessarily visit his “home” monthly.

Our TVs range from 55” to 85” and have good sound systems. I can’t see (literally ) watching on my phone or iPad. I’m not sure screencasting works well enough to suit us.

That sounds right. Here is where I got the info from: https://lifehacker.com/netflixs-new-pas ... 1850058887

[rob]

Have you ever done the thing where a TV app asks you to visit a site and enter a short code or a QR code appears on the screen and you scan and log in from your phone and it authenticates the TV and the app is good to go?

Is that the process? We can do whatever, I’m not worried about the process, I was just basing my question on the college student example above. Is there a specific process for someone with two homes? I haven’t seen that detailed anywhere, but I’m fairness I haven’t read through this entire thread.

I’m away from home right now in a hotel, not a second home. The smart tv in the hotel room has an easy way to sign in to Netflix, Prime Video, stream from a guest’s device, or to connect with an HDMI cable. We streamed Succession on HBO MAX from my iPhone and signed in to Netflix to watch some show to drift off to sleep.
Netflix sent me an email making sure that it was me. Nothing from HBO MAX. We have the 2 screen Netflix through TMOBILE for $6 and get HBO MAX through Spectrum.
By the way, I’m 72 years old and even though I don’t do Facebook or Instagram, I have no trouble with technology.

Yes... and you will get a warning email from netflix when you do that... Not sure if they plan to stop that after x times or what is happening but why send a warning if this is normal with whatever rules they have now and allowed?

Here’s what the email said after delineating where the new sign in was from:

“If this was you or someone in your household:
Enjoy watching! Have you seen this one? The Night Agent.
If it was someone else:
Please remember that we only allow the people in your household to use your account.
If you don’t know who it was:
We recommend that you change your password immediately to keep your account secure.”

You may consider this a warning, but I’m not concerned about it. I was also able to watch Netflix in Greece when we were there a few weeks ago where we received the same informational email.

I have two main issues:
- The travel aspect where I don't want to be accused of been a thief - and that is EXACTLY what that email says outright. I don't care if your not concerned about the "warning"; neither am I... the accusation bothers me and I avoid companies that treat me like a thief as a default position when at all possible.
- The non-standard use of "household"... A kid at college where I pay for ALL expenses and they are without doubt a dependent by any definition is ABSOLUTLY in my "household".... and I don't care what other version of that they want to use.

Netflix either have not accounted for who is paying for these plans (unlikely) or are assuming that there are enough that just continue to pay the extra for their households out of apathy. Mostly this feels its more about regional content licensing but they are not honest enough to say that. Maybe they find the US market is like Spain or whatever, maybe they don't. IMO it's a sign of a dying company thrashing for more revenue in a world with pressure on their - now marginal to a lot of people - catalog.

[HanSolo]

All this over $8/month is embarrassing for our community.

It's an interesting question, which is more trivial, $8/month, or the value of what Netflix actually delivers.

Have you ever heard of tech-phobic people going "that's too complicated, nevermind"?

The world is leaving them in the rear view.

From what I've heard about Netflix content, Netflix may be what the world leaves in the rear view.

Disclosure: I've never subscribed to Netflix and therefore don't know what I missed, but I'm seeing no evidence that I missed anything important (while seeing some evidence to the contrary).

[punkinhead]

The problem for me is that the number of content streaming services has grown so much that the available content is too spread out. Any one service doesn't have enough to bring value to me every month. I haven't watched anything on Netflix in a couple months but I've kept my subscription out of laziness. If I have to go through many steps to keep it working in my RV then I'll instead expend that effort in cancelling. What I really need to do is cancel all streaming services and rotate through them by purchasing each for a couple months, getting caught up, then cancelling and moving on to the next. Coming from the bad old days where it was cable or nothing it's really strange to be in a situation where there are too many choices and none of them are great.

[stoptothink]

From what I've heard about Netflix content, Netflix may be what the world leaves in the rear view.

Disclosure: I've never subscribed to Netflix and therefore don't know what I missed, but I'm seeing no evidence that I missed anything important (while seeing some evidence to the contrary).

The content has progressively gone downhill. You aren't missing much. I let my mom know about the household verification and that it meant we (and 3 of my other siblings) would no longer be able to use one of the profiles she was paying for; instead of just going down to a single profile, she promptly cancelled her account.

[Taz]

We told our daughter that we would uninstall/stop being part of the extended household so she could drop to the basic plan. If we want to watch Netflix in the future, then we would subscribe for a month or two and drop it. We'll take advantage of short-time specials that pop-up such as $4 a month for 3 months Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+. Once the Stanley Cup is over, we'll drop YouTube TV for just OTA.

Need to remind ourselves that it is OKAY not to have every flavor in the freezer all the time. Somehow we lived with 4-5 channels as a kid.