Two weeks ago Netflix’s new measures became the most discussed topic among so many people that we literally brought it up in my neighbor community. Rising prices, detecting additional locations and blocking devices…it all looked like a disaster and a wave of service loss.
But time has passed, and even though Netflix forced me to establish a main location there is no record of any blocks preventing me from sharing the account with multiple other parent locations. And after several days of doomsday warnings and disastrous geolocations, the question is: why?
Netflix squeezes but doesn’t drown…yet
Let’s do a quick summary. Netflix wants to squeeze its revenues as much as possible now that it is not growing at the rate it would like. Investors and competition put pressure on it, so the company decided that users should follow its rules to the letter. Nothing of “love is sharing your password“: now this love costs 5.99 dollars more per month.
But while we all expected a block of extra slots if we didn’t pay, this one didn’t happen. Yes, it owes to some, but not to all. My Netflix is still active on multiple TVs, as well as my iPhone, iPad, and other devices; and it works perfectly.
Netflix must have studied well the reaction of all Spanish users to the right measures
My colleagues from Genbeta bet that Netflix has already benefited from the measures only with the change in user behavior. Everything that happened two weeks ago may have caused many people to create new accounts and contract additional locations, so the service must have collected a good amount of customer reaction metrics Spaniards. Perhaps the number of cancellations was less than the number of accounts that remained activeas simple as that.
Something that can also happen is that the blocks spread slowly. There are users who took months to see this blockade activated on their devices, as it happened in Chile:
I’m from the future on this side of the mountain range. We spent months avoiding email verification (pic 1 🏠 of my sister. Yesterday), but today it forces me to log out of other devices to access my account (pic 2. My 🏠 . Today) pic.twitter.com/xdkXruVw6s
—Gina 🦊 (@ginasepu) July 20, 2022
We may have received the notices in February, but it won’t be until late summer or fall that we’ll see these lockdowns take effect. And maybe in this case, the number of victims will increase to such an extent that Netflix will be forced to lower its prices, as has already happened in 30 countries. These are markets with fewer users than in USA and where lower prices have less impact on finances, but that’s something.
Time will tell what will happen in the future, but it seems Netflix users are at the mercy of very random decisions. The service threatens to block, but reserves the right to execute them. Wanna proceed carefully, study our reaction and act accordingly so that the victims are not carnage. Congratulations to all the lucky ones who can still use the account without blocking from wherever they want.
