Together Price Helps Strangers Share Subscription Passwords (fastcompany.com) 83
An anonymous reader shares a report: Earlier this week, I bought a month of Starz for a fraction of its typical asking price. Instead of paying $9 per month, I paid $3.24. Then I added a subscription to Spotify for $3.49, and a Disney Plus subscription for just $3. All told, my bill comes to about $10 per month for $28 worth of services. Those cut-rate subscriptions come courtesy of Together Price, a service that lets people rent out access to a share of their digital subscriptions. In exchange for a cut of each transaction, Together Price essentially serves as a marketplace for organized password sharing. The service, which started five years ago in Europe and has 80,000 paying customers, just launched in the U.S. last week.
While Together Price isn't the first service to make password sharing easier, it's definitely the most brazen. Still, CEO Marco Taddei insists that the service is legal and that it technically honors each subscription's terms of use. He also believes the service is helping companies retain users that they'd otherwise lose. "We are targeting the very specific audience that needs to share," he says. "If [subscription providers] are not going to allow them do so so, they are going to drop the subscriptions." After signing up for Together Price, you can browse a "network" of users offering to share their subscriptions. Most major streaming video and music services are available, including Netflix, Spotify, Disney Plus, HBO Max, and Hulu, but sharing isn't limited to media. Some users are also peddling subscriptions to software tools such as Canva Pro and Surfshark VPN, and the site lets you set up custom subscriptions for pretty much anything by listing the service name, price, and sharing rules. For each service, you send a request to the subscription owner and submit credit card information to Together Price. Once the owner accepts the request, Together Price processes the payment, and you're allowed into a group where you can view login details and chat with the other members.
While Together Price isn't the first service to make password sharing easier, it's definitely the most brazen. Still, CEO Marco Taddei insists that the service is legal and that it technically honors each subscription's terms of use. He also believes the service is helping companies retain users that they'd otherwise lose. "We are targeting the very specific audience that needs to share," he says. "If [subscription providers] are not going to allow them do so so, they are going to drop the subscriptions." After signing up for Together Price, you can browse a "network" of users offering to share their subscriptions. Most major streaming video and music services are available, including Netflix, Spotify, Disney Plus, HBO Max, and Hulu, but sharing isn't limited to media. Some users are also peddling subscriptions to software tools such as Canva Pro and Surfshark VPN, and the site lets you set up custom subscriptions for pretty much anything by listing the service name, price, and sharing rules. For each service, you send a request to the subscription owner and submit credit card information to Together Price. Once the owner accepts the request, Together Price processes the payment, and you're allowed into a group where you can view login details and chat with the other members.
Slashvertisement Tuesday! (Score:3, Insightful)
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Spoiler alert: it's not. And I would not be surprised to see this company sued into oblivion for conspiracy to theft of service or something like that. I'm no lawyer, but building a business around the violation of terms of service doesn't seem like a very good plan.
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Is it fuck. I can't name a single website or company that doesn't have password sharing be against it's TOS.
Welcome to Economics! (Score:5, Insightful)
Black/Gray market activities occur where the Price doesn't align with the Supply/Demand meet point.
Streaming Services in essence have nearly unlimited supply so its prices should be lower then what the companies think they should be selling it for. Thus activities that reduce cost will happen.
Not all Black and Gray markets are selling drugs. New York's largest black market is Raw (Unpasturized) Milk. But there is also a black market trading Pirated Music, Software, reselling out of lease products...
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Can I ask what is the story with your random capitalization? Why is it a "Black" market one time, but "black" the next? Why is it "Pirated Music", but not "Lease Products"?
What's up?
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May Be he's Half german ?
Re: Welcome to Economics! (Score:2)
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Don't fault the teacher unless a preponderance of students come out of the class with shitty grammar.
It's possible he was just a shitty student and the teacher is fine. One data point doesn't show a trend.
Re:Welcome to Economics! (Score:5, Insightful)
Black/Gray market activities occur where the Price doesn't align with the Supply/Demand meet point.
It's not that simple. Pricing takes into account what price point will generate maximum profitablity, in most cases. If you lower prices all your customers get the lower price so unless you get enough additional ones to make up for teh loses and not add significant costs there is no good reason to lower prices. Gray markets do exist when pricing is high and you can arbitrage price deltas to make money importing products. Even if you lower prices drastically there will always be some fraction that will pirate it, and trying to get to the lowest price simply means you forgo a lot of revenue in exchange for more customers, who may not be all that valuable as a customer.
Streaming Services in essence have nearly unlimited supply so its prices should be lower then what the companies think they should be selling it for. Thus activities that reduce cost will happen.
Cost of production and pricing decisons are seperate issues. You need to turn a profit, but profit maximizing prices may be much higher than the cost to produce. People will always pirate no matter what the costs.
Not all Black and Gray markets are selling drugs. New York's largest black market is Raw (Unpasturized) Milk. But there is also a black market trading Pirated Music, Software, reselling out of lease products...
New York outlaws raw milk sales, IIRC; so it is natural that a balck market forms. Selling of lease equipment is the same as any used marketplace, some people are willing to wait for a product to depreciate to the point it is affordable and meets their needs; wether it is a car or a computer game.
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I am not saying it is a simple problem. Especially in the information market including streaming, software, and music and online books. Where supply isn't the issue, but the cost of operation is very high. It is just that Black/Gray markets are going to happen with such actions. I am not saying that the streaming companies are overcharging folks, just that their fee are not matching the supply and demand equilibrium
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I am not saying it is a simple problem. Especially in the information market including streaming, software, and music and online books. Where supply isn't the issue, but the cost of operation is very high. It is just that Black/Gray markets are going to happen with such actions. I am not saying that the streaming companies are overcharging folks, just that their fee are not matching the supply and demand equilibrium
Sure it is. Excess capacity does not mean supply and demand did not clear at the set price.
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Pricing takes into account what price point will generate maximum profitablity
Sure, but pricing decisions are made in full view of the supply and demand curves. That is how maximum profit is determined, at least until someone proves differently by doing the sorts of things you describe: changing price and watching what happens to profit.
But that doesn't refute the post you replied to. There will almost always be people unwilling to pay market prices and if there weren't the demand curve would be truncated. As long as the added cost of doing black market business doesn't drive the
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Pricing takes into account what price point will generate maximum profitablity
Sure, but pricing decisions are made in full view of the supply and demand curves. That is how maximum profit is determined, at least until someone proves differently by doing the sorts of things you describe: changing price and watching what happens to profit.
That is something the internet has made a lot easier as more customer data is known. They can adjust pricing based on that and get good ideas of demand at various price levels for various groups of customers; and price discriminate without it being obvious and see how elastic or inelastice demand is for a given produtc or product group. Uber does that with surge pricing as well.
But that doesn't refute the post you replied to.
I'm not sure of your point. Th only thing I was refuting was the idea that because supply was unlimited prices should be lower
Re: Welcome to Economics! (Score:2)
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It is actually more complicated with streaming services, because _one_ has a high value, the second one much lower, and the third one isnâ(TM)t worth much at all. I might be willing to pay $10 for Netflix, $10 for Prime, but at most $13 for both.
That's teh economics behind bundling, to a certain extant. A burger fry and drink may not be worth the sum of each price, but at 2/3 people will buy the bundle.
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illegal cigarettes are a HUGE black market in NYC [ny1.com] - as much as 60% of cigarettes in NYC are untaxed... The cigarettes are taxed $5.35/pack in NYC.
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illegal cigarettes are a HUGE black market in NYC [ny1.com] - as much as 60% of cigarettes in NYC are untaxed... The cigarettes are taxed $5.35/pack in NYC.
That's what happens when you have an easily transported product and high taxes.
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Black/Gray market activities occur where the Price doesn't align with the Supply/Demand meet point.
It's not that simple. Pricing takes into account what price point will generate maximum profitablity, in most cases.
It actually is that simple. What you are not understanding is that if maximum profitability is the only area of interest then Black/Gray markets will exist.
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Black/Gray market activities occur where the Price doesn't align with the Supply/Demand meet point.
It's not that simple. Pricing takes into account what price point will generate maximum profitablity, in most cases.
It actually is that simple. What you are not understanding is that if maximum profitability is the only area of interest then Black/Gray markets will exist.
As I pointed out gray markets will exist if there are price arbitrage opportunities. Black markets wilk exist when there is a readly avaiable cheaper supply, either due to tax differences or cheaper knockoffs. However, that does not mean you should price to eliminate them, but still price for maximum profitability, and for a for profit company profit maximization is the goal, except at tax time. And the OP is wrong in saying the supply and demand curves do not meet ta that price point.
Raw milk sales are legal in New York State (Score:1)
New York outlaws raw milk sales, IIRC; so it is natural that a balck market forms. Selling of lease equipment is the same as any used marketplace, some people are willing to wait for a product to depreciate to the point it is affordable and meets their needs; wether it is a car or a computer game.
Raw milk sales are legal in New York. Sellers do need to be permitted and meet testing requirements. I purchased raw milk directly from a local (New York) farm for years before getting my own cows.. yum!
Here are the regulations https://agriculture.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2019/06/RawMilkRegsPart2.pdf
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New York outlaws raw milk sales, IIRC; so it is natural that a balck market forms. Selling of lease equipment is the same as any used marketplace, some people are willing to wait for a product to depreciate to the point it is affordable and meets their needs; wether it is a car or a computer game.
Raw milk sales are legal in New York. Sellers do need to be permitted and meet testing requirements. I purchased raw milk directly from a local (New York) farm for years before getting my own cows.. yum!
Here are the regulations https://agriculture.ny.gov/sys... [ny.gov]
Thanks. I was not aware it was legal with certain restictions and if it meets certain guidelines. It appears only "on-farm" sales are allowed; so a black market makes sense to distribute it to sellers outside of "on-farm" sales.
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Streaming Services in essence have nearly unlimited supply so its prices should be lower then what the companies think they should be selling it for.
Netflix and their suppliers however do more than just store, copy, and transmit (like Piratebay). They also create so those have to be accounted for.
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Black/grey market activities will always occur because there is always someone that will want to pay less than the original seller is willing to sell for (or with respect to some of your example unable to sell due to legal restrictions).
Streaming Services in essence have nearly unlimited supply so its prices should be lower then what the companies think they should be selling it for. Thus activities that reduce cost will happen.
For this statement to be true all streaming services would have to be given away for free otherwise there will always be a price "lower then what the companies think they should be selling it for". 8^)
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A steaming pile of shit? Wrong... and if you try to charge $.01 for that, there will still be someone trying to figure out how to get it for free in a black or grey market.
I can get you two steaing piles of shit for $.01 just don't ask how I got them. Don't pay that corporate ripoff price; stick it to the man.
They'll just start blocking by IP (Score:2)
Also, I fully expect lawsuits soon.
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A subscription services doesn't have an "unlimited supply" as it costs them money, in the form of servers and all the costs associated with them, to supply the content. It costs them more to serve 1,000,000 users than 1,000.
So the premise of your point, that their unlimited supply should command a minimal price, is false.
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New York's largest black market is Raw (Unpasturized) Milk.
You got a cite for that? Doubt that market is 1/10 that of cocaine (or meth, or tobacco, or alcohol, or a bunch of drugs you've never even heard of).
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The largest black market segment in the world is probably baby formula. A double-digit percentage of the world's entire supply of the stuff, is illegally smuggled into mainland China via Hong Kong. Yes, really.
Banned (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nah, because
>CEO Marco Taddei insists that the service is legal
See? It's just like Napster; perfectly legal . . .
Yeah that's what happened with BugMeNot (Score:2)
Sure this will end well (Score:5, Insightful)
While Together Price isn't the first service to make password sharing easier, it's definitely the most brazen. Still, CEO Marco Taddei insists that the service is legal and that it technically honors each subscription's terms of use. He also believes the service is helping companies retain users that they'd otherwise lose.
I suspect HBO, Spotify, Netflix will beg to differ. Disney? You're poking Mickey, a figure more powerful and ruthless than any drug lord and whose actions would give mafia dons pause? Get the popcorn. Should be fun to watch.
Re:Sure this will end well (Score:5, Informative)
4.2. The Netflix service and any content viewed through our service are for your personal and non-commercial use only and may not be shared with individuals beyond your household.
I don't see how Together Price can say this even remotely 'technically' honors the Netflix TOS. While this is a brilliant idea, sadly I foresee this getting stomped on by content providers.
Re:Sure this will end well (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless they define household very precisely, you can go around that TOS quite easily, just ask the Jews who are the masters at going around even their own God's TOS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Sure this will end well (Score:5, Funny)
I think there's an old joke that refutes the above quite well:
An engineer dies and goes to hell. Pretty soon, the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and starts designing and building improvements.. After a while, they've got air conditioning, flush toilets and escalators, and the engineer is a pretty popular guy. One day God calls Satan up on the telephone and asks, "So, how's it going down there in hell?" Satan replies, "Hey things are going great. We've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there's no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next." God replies, "What??? You've got an engineer? That's a mistake he should never have gotten down there; send him up here." Satan says, "No way. I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm keeping him." God says, "Send him back up here or I'll sue." Satan laughs uproariously and answers, "Yeah, right. And just where are you going to get a lawyer?"
Note that Netflix, like every major corporation, is not on the side of the angels, and has no trouble finding competent legal counsel.
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technically and legally (Score:2)
Re:Sure this will end well (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Sure this will end well (Score:2)
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You're still reselling access to the service.
That could potentially bring not only Netflix but also the MPAA down on you.
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... expect an update to the TOS that says if they see simultaneous streaming from two different IP addresses they will suspend the account.
These services which allow multiple streams at a time and support mobile devices are explicitly designed and marketed to support streaming from multiple locations, and thus multiple IP addresses, at the same time. One member of the household streaming via a home internet connection while another streams over a mobile connection while traveling (or even at home, on a mobile device with the WiFi disconnected) is not reasonable grounds for suspending the account.
They should just price the service based on the
Public nuisance (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Public nuisance (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly this brazen commercialized abuse will lead to a crack downs that flag and disrupt the use for account holders who engage in arguably legitimate examples like the one you just provided and on completely legitimate examples like "Little Timmy is visiting his grandparents for a few weeks this summer" where nobody would argue he isn't still a member of his parents household.
The people behind this are just not credible. Any thinking persons knows there are about 0% odds these companies intended to allow subletting their subscriptions, odd that are not much better than 0% their armies of lawyers slipped up and allowed it via some error or oversight in the TOS, and 0% odd they wont act quickly to correct such oversight if it is found to exist. The business is stupid. I have no love for this big media empires, but honestly someone doing something this dumb deserves to sued into a smoldering shell
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Exactly this brazen commercialized abuse will lead to a crack downs that flag and disrupt the use for account holders who engage in arguably legitimate examples like the one you just provided and on completely legitimate examples like "Little Timmy is visiting his grandparents for a few weeks this summer" where nobody would argue he isn't still a member of his parents household.
The people behind this are just not credible. Any thinking persons knows there are about 0% odds these companies intended to allow subletting their subscriptions, odd that are not much better than 0% their armies of lawyers slipped up and allowed it via some error or oversight in the TOS, and 0% odd they wont act quickly to correct such oversight if it is found to exist. The business is stupid. I have no love for this big media empires, but honestly someone doing something this dumb deserves to sued into a smoldering shell
Exactly. This has to be some sort of scam. Somehow the people involved in this are bilking someone out of investment money, or they're being backed by these very streaming services as sort of a false flag operation to give them cause to sue, maybe get some legislation passed in their favor, and raise prices.
You think that's a bargain? (Score:3)
I get all the music I want for free on Youtube, and all the movies I want on VOD - including the latest and greatest - and 5,500 TV channels for around the world from OTT providers based in China for $100 a year. It's illegal, but no more than the shit you're astroturfing in this here /. story.
The original sharer gets screwed (Score:2)
If this blatant sharing keeps up, I'm seeing the account holder getting their account terminated.
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Presumably, it would have to be more than just a single login, to take into account the possibility that a member of the Iowan household is traveling to China. I wonder how long a trip could be and travel person would count as still in the same "household". I think it could easily be six months.
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Members of households travel, geo-location isn't a requirement for membership in a household.
Re: The original sharer gets screwed (Score:2)
resale (Score:2)
How many times can you resell your share? What stops me from just making money?
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According to Netflix, zero times - you can't sell membership in your household.
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I want to buy a share of service that belongs to someone else. Then resell it twice, then repeat. I guess if Netflix finds out and closes the account then I'm not really out anything.
Echos of Napster or AudioGalaxy? (Score:4, Insightful)
I am reminded of the days of Napster and AudioGalaxy, which brought music sharing to the masses. Something like this service is going to change something that streaming subscriptions frown at, and maybe have some detection, to something they throw all their lawyerly weight on, and stomp out of existance.
I can see Together Price being un-existed due to DMCA violations, ToS/EULA violations, copyright violations, patent violations... you name it... and the lawyers coming at them wouldn't just be the streaming companies, but even organizations that give IBM's Nazgul a run for their money like the RIAA/MPAA/etc.
Even worse is that Together Price has usernames and identifying info. In theory, I can see this happening: Streaming providers attach a fine onto their EULA for streaming, something like USD 10,000 or similar, with legal costs. They wait a few months while people accept and continue to use their products. The streaming provider then goes after TP with a motion of discovery, gets all their subscribers, from there, does a reverse class action lawsuit against everyone the list, and wins.
Overall, one might be better off going back to BitTorrent than using a subscription PW sharing service, once the lawyers start going after companies like this.
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I am reminded of the days of Napster and AudioGalaxy, which brought music sharing to the masses. Something like this service is going to change something that streaming subscriptions frown at, and maybe have some detection, to something they throw all their lawyerly weight on, and stomp out of existance.
Napster et al were indeed stomped out of existence, but music (and movies and everything else digital) sharing is easier and more widespread now than ever. With their record of stomping, account sharing should be a regular thing in the near future even when this particular company is gone.
Password sharing is Illegal in the US (Score:5, Informative)
maybe theft charges / money laundering as well (Score:2)
Or they can say take the deal or we go to court where we hit with all of it.
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but no one can say for sure
I suspect a judge could issue a quite certain determination.
Re: Password sharing is Illegal in the US (Score:2)
Premium Content (Score:2)
If the services are set up to allow people to buy extra premium content (like Disney+ does for new releases, or AppleTV and Amazon do for rentals), then unless that is completely blocked, sharing with strangers doesn't work. That's one good way of services can make sure you don't share your account with someone you don't trust.
Together Price better have great security (Score:2)
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I can see someone just being a vandal, logging onto TP, and changing people's subscription passwords, then letting TP know the account didn't work.
Of course, it isn't hard to add additional authentication forms, like mandatory 2FA if the IP or IP range changes to something different, or have a streaming service mandate household users be given sub-accounts (similar to what AOL did).
Re: Together Price better have great security (Score:2)
Totally Unethical (Score:5, Insightful)
I see discussion of the legal aspects of this, but I didn't see any posts covering the ethics around this.
To be, this service is the height of an unethical service, in fact I would say even worse than outright piracy of content.
If you pirate some Netflix show, because you have some fundamental disagreement with giving Netflix any money, I can respect that.
But paying for a service and then taking money from other people who then do not have to pay Netflix, just feels extremely wrong. You are convincing multiple people to not pay Netflix through the enticement of lower prices...
Fuckers (Score:3)
What this is going to do is inspire all those streaming content providers just to better-design their IP lockdowns/lockouts, so if stream A is running on one login, stream B cannot.
Basically, so this pissant .com can rake in some $, they're going to screw us all.
Password sharing crackdown (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, let's give them another reason to crack down [slashdot.org] on password sharing [slashdot.org].
This will only give them more reason to reduce the number of allowed simultaneous streams or use AI to track usage patterns [slashdot.org].
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And the winner is... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Lawyers
Re: And the winner is... (Score:2)
Credit card numbers (Score:4, Interesting)
Worth (Score:2)
Starz, Spotify, Disney Plus... All told, my bill comes to about $10 per month for $28 worth of services.
Noting that what they charge and what it's "worth" are different things, to different people...
like sharing a newspaper (Score:1)
You mean like BugMeNot.com? (Score:1)
Yeah, they got legally harassed into adding so many "exceptions", that the service became useless.
Unless their servers run somewhere outside of certain jurisdiction, I'm predicting the same here in 3... 2... 1...
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