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More Than Half of Streaming Users In US Are Sharing Their Passwords, Says Report (streamingobserver.com) 71

Posted by BeauHD from the password-sharing dept.
A new study conducted by Fluent shows a majority of Americans are sharing passwords to their streaming video services. While millennials lead the pack, non-millennials are doing the same. Streaming Observer reports: Nearly 3 out of every 4 (72% exactly) Americans who have cable also have access to at least one streaming service and 8% of cable subscribers plan to eliminate their service in the next year. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're paying for their streaming service. New numbers from a study conducted by Fluent show that the majority of Americans are sharing passwords to their streaming video services. Well over half of millennials (aged 18-34) -- 60% -- are either using someone someone else's password or giving their password to someone else. And just under half -- 48% -- of non-millennials are doing the same. The study also revealed that the main factor in what drives consumers to sign up for streaming video services is price, with 34% of Americans saying that low cost was the primary factor. That number jumps to 38% among millennials. When you take in to account that some streaming TV services start with prices as low as $20, it makes sense that price is the biggest issue. Convenience was the next biggest factor, coming in at just below 25%.
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More Than Half of Streaming Users In US Are Sharing Their Passwords, Says Report More

More Than Half of Streaming Users In US Are Sharing Their Passwords, Says Report

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  • Faulty report (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    They forgot to adjust for the large number of millennials who are transgender, so "Bob Smith" and "Bobbie Smith" might actually be the same account holder.

  • Multiple logins allowed with Netflix (Score:4, Interesting)

    by illiteratewithdrawal ( 937379 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @07:57PM (#54488367)
    Netflix allows you to share your login with multiple people with certain plans. You are limited only by how many concurrent devices are actively using it. Wonder if this skews the survey results at all?
    • Exactly - I pay extra for the 4 simultaneous stream option, explicitly so that my wife and I can share the subscription with our two children. (When Netflix cracked down a couple of years ago, it was not uncommon, on a Friday night for my wife and I to get blocked out of our own connection with two college [aka broke] kids using the service, so I said "ya got me, Netflix", here's your extra bucks...)

      It doesn't make sense for our "3 households" (Kids live elsewhere) to each pay the base two-stream service

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Netflix allows you to share your login with multiple people with certain plans. You are limited only by how many concurrent devices are actively using it. Wonder if this skews the survey results at all?

      And you have to, otherwise you can't stream outside of a single network. Why might you do this? Well, if you're watching Netflix on your phone using the WWAN, your phone's got a unique IP address. And if you're travelling, well, if everyone's using their data connection, everyone's using a unique IP address.

    • Netflix allows you to share your login with multiple people with certain plans. You are limited only by how many concurrent devices are actively using it. Wonder if this skews the survey results at all?

      And to get the 4K content you have to buy the family package with 5 concurrent logins. If I had a choice I would buy just one concurrent login, but with multiple they are basically forcing me to share passwords.

  • Well duh. (Score:3)

    by thundercattt ( 4205847 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @07:58PM (#54488375)
    A close friend has Netflix which I use her login for kids shows. I have Amazon Prime (Grand Tour mostly) and she uses my login. Times are tough and nobody is going to enroll in every streaming service because of their exclusive content.

    • Thundercattt says:

      A close friend has Netflix which I use her login for kids shows.

      No one is surprised.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gnick ( 1211984 )

      A close friend has Netflix which I use her login for kids shows. I have Amazon Prime (Grand Tour mostly) and she uses my login.

      If violating their TOS's bothers you, feel free to use my login for TPB. The selection is better than both of those services combined and the TOS is pretty liberal.

      • I wish TPB was faster. Found a hard to find cartoon Tiny Toons franÃais. 5kb/sec 1 seeder. Been downloading for a month. Got 13 episodes now weeee

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gnick ( 1211984 )

          I wish TPB was faster. Found a hard to find cartoon Tiny Toons franÃais. 5kb/sec 1 seeder.

          Faster than what? It has limits due to its nature, but I'll bet it's a hell of a lot faster than your best alternate source.

    • That's true.

  • Not the Same Password (Score:3, Funny)

    by n329619 ( 4901461 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @08:08PM (#54488441)

    Damn kids, stop using my "password" as your password.

    It's my "password" not your "password".

  • Netflix basic accounts expect 2 - 3 simultaneous streams. One person can normally watch one at a time. In talking to Netflix support, I have even told them that 2 - 3 may be using it at one time and it didn't seem to faze them at all.

    • As someone involved with a similar service: Of course they do. And they know very well when you're doing it, too, because the differences in access patterns are obvious.

      In the long run, turning a blind eye to people who are bending the rules a bit often works out better for everyone than cracking down on the slightest infringement. The business gets to keep customers who are paying their way (more or less) happy and loyal. The basically decent customers get to use the service in ways that are convenient at

      • In the long run, turning a blind eye to people who are bending the rules a bit often works out better for everyone than cracking down on the slightest infringement.

        Or in Netflix's case they just monetized it with the multiple active screens at a time tiers. I wish they'd go all in and allow you to assign different logins on one account.

        I love it, because my kids have access even when at their mother's house. By putting the login info on the kids' phones they can cast to the TVs at my ex's house, but my ex doesn't get access when our kids are with me. :)

    • I live in a two person household, and we often enough are both streaming separate Netflix programs. We mostly stream to our Android tablets. (my wife's OLED Galaxy Tab S is just about the most color/contrast rich way there is to watch video content. I have a cheaper tablet)

      The whole interface of the Android Netflix app is set up for multiple individuals using the account. We each have our separate icon and separate 'favorites' and records of what shows in a series we watch.

  • Sharing their password with who? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    In the same household? Relatives? Same family using different devices in different locations?

    Whoever thinks they have a handle on "streaming password sharing" is just making up assumptions based on very soft data.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 )

      Netflix intends you to share your password with your family: they support multiple profiles per account and charge more for additional simultaneous streams for a reason.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sims 2 ( 994794 )

        What else do they expect?
        I just have 4 computers on my desk one each routed through taiwan, canada, mexico and the united states.

        So I can watch 4 shows at the same time by myself on 4 different profiles......

        Anyone who thinks netflix isn't selling it this way just so you can share it is full of shit.

        Also are the people who insist that paying for netflix is piracy.

        At this rate buying a sandwich at arby's and then eating it with your friends at hardee's will be called piracy soon too.

  • Don't worry... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Soon, once your computer is hardware-locked so that you can't do anything with it unless Microsoft allows it and you can't run unapproved software or development tools without an expensive, licensed, rented workstation, you'll be protected from terrible copyright infringement with built-in DRM. In fact, it even has a feature that automatically turns you in and cancels your ISP subscription if you even try, and calculate the theoretical loss into real-time price increases. Fear not, the media corporations

  • Share yours please. (Score:3)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @09:43PM (#54488755) Homepage Journal

    So we can use them and increase the statistics. ;)

  • Just use XBMC/KODI.

  • I share mine. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I share my Netflix and Hulu Plus logins. I personally might get maybe 5 hours per month of TV time most of the year with the times I watch most might still hit at most 20 hours per month. I share it with a few family members and honestly, the kids are the main ones who use it at my house too while they are here.

    If I didn't share it, I wouldn't pay for it at all as I don't watch it enough to be worth my time and the main stuff I do watch is on CW which I can already watch for free from their site and if I wa

  • Even if 75% of Netflix traffic was "pirated", if they can get 25% of every customer in every cable market in the country to pay them $10/month, how happy would they be? Let 75% steal, then ratchet down, maybe, later after they buy Comcast in 10 years. We're just changing from Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner, DirecTV to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and Google, and many users will pay for multiple of these at $10/month.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      well, very happy, depending on how much per view they have to pay the content creators/owners/rentseekers and for transmit.

      thats what it boils down to. for netflix produced content it doesn't matter that much, as long as it's getting viewed.

    • and many users will pay for multiple of these at $10/month.

      Damn straight!
      I have Prime (GT, and shipping so I don't have to interface with people at the store) and Netflix (everything else). No need to pay $60/mo for the three or four channels I would actually watch, and be limited to the broadcasters schedule. When I had a TV package I actually lost the remote I used it so little... Which sucked when I cancelled the TV service. Cost me $20 for the remote I couldn't find.

    • > Netflix ... maybe, later after they buy Comcast in 10 years.

      Wishful thinking doesn't change reality no matter how much we wish it was true. As much as I hate to "defend" Comcast, let's take a look at the facts shall we:

      * Comcast is a Fortune 37 [fortune.com] company with a Market cap of 190 Billion, Revenue is $8,163 Million, Assets $166,574 Million.

      * Netflix is a Fortune 379 [fortune.com] company with a Market cap of 70 Billion, Revenue is $123 Million, Assets $10,203 Million.

      Netflix buying a company that has 66x their reven

  • hunter2 (Score:3)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Friday May 26, 2017 @12:57AM (#54489299)

    I have no idea how my password got out, I'm so careful!

  • Sharing passwords? That's crazy, how are you supposed to re-use the same password on your bank account if you just hand it out? I won't even share my IP address on the Internet.
  • I may be smithcl8, I may be Anonymous Coward. What's it to ya, as long as I say nice things?

  • Statutory damages for a tune is $75,000, so there should be statutory damages of $7,500,000 for password sharing, that'd teach those thieving no good pirates.

  • Would my password count as "shared" because the account is in my wife's name yet I use it as well as my kids? It's a "family" account yet you still have one login credential. By definition you have to share it, it's not like each family member signs in under their own unique login, like Amazon Prime Family and Spotify Family do. They just provide profiles for the shared account. As my kids grow up and move on the cost is so low I wouldn't care if they kept using it, the cost of Netflix pales in comparison

  • > Nearly 3 out of every 4 (72% exactly)

    What's the point of dumbing down the percentage and then mentioning it specifically. In the same sentence?

    I'm pretty sure nerds have a concept of what "72%" means.

  • Clearly, it's not that difficult from a technical standpoint to put a stop to the password sharing. Just make sure that as soon as someone logs in successfully, any previous/existing sessions are immediately disconnected and logged out. And if the IP address of the client changes to indicate it's on a different ISP or part of the country? Just make the owner do something to verify it before it turns back on. That would create enough hassle for account sharers so they'd be discouraged from doing it.

    The only

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