Hulu Is Cracking Down On Password Sharing, Just Like Disney Plus and Netflix 62
Hulu updated its Terms of Service to explicitly ban password sharing outside of "your primary personal residence." Subscribers will need to comply by March 14th, 2024. Here's the new ToS section in full: m. Account Sharing. Unless otherwise permitted by your Service Tier, you may not share your subscription outside of your household. "Household" means the collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence that are used by the individuals who reside therein. Additional usage rules may apply for certain Service Tiers. For more details on our account sharing policy, please visit our Help Center.
We may, in our sole discretion, analyze the use of your account to determine compliance with this Agreement. If we determine, in our sole discretion, that you have violated this Agreement, we may limit or terminate access to the Service and/or take any other steps as permitted by this Agreement (including those set forth in Section 6 of this Agreement). You will be responsible for any use of your account by your household, including compliance with this section. The Verge reports: The new ToS is dated January 25th, 2024; previous versions of the ToS didn't mention account sharing at all. "We're adding limitations on sharing your account outside of your household, and explaining how we may assess your compliance with these limitations," the most important paragraph reads.
Neither the email nor the ToS say how Hulu will measure compliance or how quickly it'll take action, but Hulu will apparently "analyze the use of your account" and it reserves the right to "limit or terminate access" if it decides you've broken the policy. The ToS also suggests there's more info about its account sharing policy at the Hulu Help Center, but we're not seeing any help articles about account sharing right now. Netflix started cracking down on password sharing in the U.S. last May, resulting in the "four single largest days of U.S. user sign-ups since January 2019." The streaming giant later went on to add 2.6 million U.S. subscribers.
Disney Plus enacted a similar plan a few months later.
We may, in our sole discretion, analyze the use of your account to determine compliance with this Agreement. If we determine, in our sole discretion, that you have violated this Agreement, we may limit or terminate access to the Service and/or take any other steps as permitted by this Agreement (including those set forth in Section 6 of this Agreement). You will be responsible for any use of your account by your household, including compliance with this section. The Verge reports: The new ToS is dated January 25th, 2024; previous versions of the ToS didn't mention account sharing at all. "We're adding limitations on sharing your account outside of your household, and explaining how we may assess your compliance with these limitations," the most important paragraph reads.
Neither the email nor the ToS say how Hulu will measure compliance or how quickly it'll take action, but Hulu will apparently "analyze the use of your account" and it reserves the right to "limit or terminate access" if it decides you've broken the policy. The ToS also suggests there's more info about its account sharing policy at the Hulu Help Center, but we're not seeing any help articles about account sharing right now. Netflix started cracking down on password sharing in the U.S. last May, resulting in the "four single largest days of U.S. user sign-ups since January 2019." The streaming giant later went on to add 2.6 million U.S. subscribers.
Disney Plus enacted a similar plan a few months later.
Streaming is broken (Score:5, Interesting)
My DVD/Bluray and book collections are expanding as I cancel Amazon Prime and AppleTV, and consider cancelling Netflix.
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Re:Streaming is broken (Score:4)
Yes and no - My ageded parents still have comcast/xfinity. The selection 'native' of OnDemand stuff is considerably smaller than Hulu (which I only have because its bundled with the mobile phone plan I otherwise want) and features un-skipable ads.
The "DVR" which I don't think actually has any local storage, does let you "record" stuff, and you can fast-forward/skip-30s of things but it can't do so automatically like a 20 year-old Tvio could.
As crappy as the streaming services are getting, traditional cable and satellite offerings are still comparatively-expensive and even worse; so bad in fact they are bundling streaming services as features. Admittedly as far as xfinity goes the same company is also in the content and streaming distribution business so strategically it might be about transitioning people off traditional cable but as terrible as the streaming services are getting, I still so no reason to get nostalgic over 2000s era Cable.
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Streaming is sooooo much better than cable, come on.
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Why do you think this is "tying it to home"? I've been able to use streaming services when I travel -- at least within the US; I assume the international restrictions I see are because of license limitations. I infer that they're blocking things that look a lot more like use by separate households (repeated cases of multiple devices using the same account close in time but far apart in space) than normal travel.
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I had to cancel netflix because I move every month or more, and Netflix flagged my account.
I expect Hulu to do the same, but for me, I’m back 100% pirated content like in the 2000s.
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Why do you think this is "tying it to home"?
I think that it's perhaps just a poorly worded ToS, as it talks about "the collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence". I think you can use those devices when travelling, as long as you also use them at home.
It does seem to ban using your Hulu account on Smart TVs in hotels, AirBnBs and the like (even if you clear the setting before checking out), as those device are in no way associated with your primary personal residence.
I also wonder what happens if you have a device that is a
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I'm shocked. Not at Netflix or Hulu, but rather at you that you think a service doesn't come with some kind of restriction.
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I also wonder what happens if you have a device that is associated with your primary personal residence, but you only run Hulu on it when elsewhere. How does Hulu know it's your device?
I would expect all of these streaming services are capturing hardware related data include device type, serial number, and MAC address, and gateway, and relating this to your account. The issue might arise if you never use it at your home and connect it to the same gateway that all your other devices use, however with no other parameters changing this may be an allowed exception, or maybe you might receive a questionnaire to explain why...
Re: Streaming is broken (Score:1)
The key on my phone and FireStick expired on this last run, and the code they send me to reactivate is only good for a week at a crack, and only a few weeks in concurrence.
This is untenable, but it won't be changed, because I'm a niche case and they don't give a sh*t.
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You're not tied to home. You're tied to your household, those are two very different things. Household is the people in your home, people move and use their devices all over the place.
Greetings from the other side of the world where I am using my Netflix account despite not being at home. Doesn't act very much like a cable TV to me.
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I was never tempted to join the rental version of music, movie, or games because I don't want a third party interfering with what I want to do, and stuck to buying physical media.
What's happening in the last decade or so of pulling the plug on game servers or deleting content one bought from one's own device could have been seen from the beginning.
Prices keep rising (Score:5, Interesting)
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Those prices are jacking, and I'm progressively dumping them one by one. Who is going to be next? Because at some point the market has too many services each at too high a price. I don't "need" tv.
While I may agree with your rebellious attitude, our opinions on the matter are now irrelevant while swimming in an endless sea of mass addiction.
(Every Major Streaming Provider) "Oh, we're too expensive? Subscribe, cancel, or get the fuck out of line. There's so many addicts who "need" it standing behind you, I can't even pretend to give a shit. NEXT!"
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Everyone doesn't have to cancel. Just enough people to show overall negative growth trend in subscribers and revenue.
I killed 2 streams last weekend and Apple when they raised rates last year.
I use a friend's Hulu but he's killing it later this month, I'm not subscribing in his place. That will leave me with 2 services. Netflix will be next to go if they get any worse.
I'm not the only person who doesn't need tv. If it's going back to the 90s then I'll use the ad driven cable style listings that come fre
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Everyone doesn't have to cancel. Just enough people to show overall negative growth trend in subscribers and revenue.
I killed 2 streams last weekend and Apple when they raised rates last year.
I use a friend's Hulu but he's killing it later this month, I'm not subscribing in his place. That will leave me with 2 services. Netflix will be next to go if they get any worse.
I'm not the only person who doesn't need tv.
You're right. Everyone does not have to cancel, but certainly enough to in order for a mega-corp sitting on millions (or even billions) in cash reserves to even feel a speed bumps worth of impact. We live in a world full of mega-corps who hold the power to run with a loss for quite a long time and barely even feel it. Hell, we have multi-billion dollar valuations for corporations who have never made an actual profit, so it's not like "overall negative growth" still means what it did before we started cor
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What happens is their quartly report looks like shit, their stock price drops, the execs get replaced or greatly reduced income and eventually they go out of business or get bought by someone else who is also going out of business. It may take a few years, or many years but the current situation can't last and I think the rapid changes we're seeing recently will only accelerate the trend to cancels + piracy and a change to some new business model. 23 and me was front door the other day for 98% stock drop.
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Second this, and have said similar on other articles.
The problem is revenue, its costs. The issues with costs are not fixed they are variable according to production, and productions problem is not lack of output its to much.
Its a like a running a bakery and trying to put every flavor and variation of cake on the shelf each day. There are only so many people in town, and even if a lot of them really like both blue-berry-pound-cake and Boston cream, most folks are only leaving with one, its all they have ap
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Everyone doesn't have to cancel. Just enough people to show overall negative growth trend in subscribers and revenue.
But you're a drop in the bucket. I mean, I'm behind you in spirit, but for every principled person who cancels, there's two offal-addicted dimwits who will subscribe now that they can't easily password-share. It sucks and I hate it and steaming services are the demon bad guys, but it is what it is.
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https://deadline.com/2023/08/n... [deadline.com]
Note they added 2.6 million low end ad-tier subscribers but no numbers provided on net, or number of high tier lost for low tier gained, revenue numbers before/after, etc.
My guess is they're losing money on this (net) or it's close to breakeven with ad revenue based on subs who aren't really that into it because they're willing to get ads. So they lost a bunch of quality subs for low quality subs. Best of luck to em.
Yes I am just one guy but I'm not the only guy. The cons
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That's fine. Maybe instead of caring what the rest of the world is doing, make your protest and move on.
Enough people doing this may make a difference but deciding that enough people won't and giving up will definetly not make a difference.
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I subscribed to hulu for $1/month, disney plus for $2/month and starz for $2/month during black friday.
$5/month for 3 services is fair to me but especially as they now show ads, there is no way I would pay more than that.
I have a reminder to cancel them when the deals expire.
There are plenty of ad supported streaming services that are free, why would I want to pay and watch ads?
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Yes, apple goes this week. I came for ted lasso and kept it a little longer for Monarch. But now I'm done.
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First you had the regional content blocks, second the balkanisation where you had to pay several different subscriptions and finally the monetisation. This is how enshitification works. At the end of which, we go back to Piracy because it just works and has all the content you want for a reasonable price.
yarrrr (Score:4, Informative)
or a subscription
and the site isnt slow as molasses either
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Return to [redacted] (Score:1)
I'm kind of glad I put the investment into setting up a Plex server, I guess I'll see more use for it in the future. (I know there are Plex alternatives because of Plex’s unfortunateness)
The thing I hated most about Netflix was to get 4K you'd pay for four screens, but I don't have 4 fucking TV's, let alone an Internet connection that could sustain 4 concurrent connections to a 4K stream
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Is this actually a problem for you though?
I am just playing devils advocate, not endorsing what Netflix is doing. However my understanding is they try to finger print the devices using the account, and just make sure it shows up from an IP they have associated with your home about once a month.
I would think for most people, watching on their phone or tablet that isn't an issue, not that nobody is "on the road" more than month at time but it must be a pretty small faction of subscribers.
I'm always "me". Don't treat me like I'm not. (Score:4, Interesting)
I alternate between two residences - one "official" in town and another at a nearby lake, all thanks to a 90% online job.
I watch the same shows in linear episode order one stream at a time, using Rokus that are tied to a single Roku account. It doesn't take AI to see that I'm not sharing my account with anyone. I'm always "me"; I'm just in two places at two different times.
I canceled Hulu+Live TV within two days of signing up for it because I found that they already enforce this same kind of location-based restriction, and it sounds like the streaming service might have to be next.
Hulu (and others): I get it. But don't penalize your happy, legitimate, paying customers because you can't figure out the difference between me at two locations and my sister-in-law who's shared her subscription with three adult sons and a sister in two states.
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I don't know what they can see, but I assume they get all sorts of information about the platform they're running on. But: that is just an assumption, and you're right that even if Hulu could see the device ownership information I could just as easily attach out-of-household boxes to my Roku account AND give them access to my Hulu account. So yeah, that probably won't help Hulu decide if I was improperly sharing, but I was hoping it might.
Regarding Hulu account restrictions affecting me: The linked article
Pay For Your Streaming (Score:4, Interesting)
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"Vote with your wallet" won't work, because if I do, I CLEARLY must be copying their crap because it's unfathomable that I just can live without it.
Face it, to them you're either a dupe or a thief. That you just tell them to fuck off if their offer isn't to your liking isn't possible in their mind.
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Voting with your wallet only works if you can convince a few million people to vote with their wallets as well. That's going to be tough... I'd imagine that any of the media outlets that Disney owns aren't pushing this story hard.
ehh (Score:4, Interesting)
I really don't get why people get angry; I mean, (a) "this is your account, don't share it with other people" seems pretty reasonable, and (b) the price increases still mean streaming services are about the price of a premium cocktail.
Re:ehh (Score:5, Interesting)
Because the account is now tied to a place, not a person.
I live in more than one location. And until now, this made streaming a lot more sensible than cable. I'd just take my stream with me wherever I go. Very convenient. Whether I'm here, in town, with my parents or even on vacation, my streaming content is with me and I can continue watching my shows.
Now I'm a dirty, dirty thief just because I dare to watch my shows where they think I'm not. That I'm suddenly not where they think I am (because, well, there is indeed only one "me") doesn't seem to matter.
So, sorry, I have no use for them anymore.
I don't pay for a cocktail just to look at it. I'd like to drink it, too.
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I have streamed from my accounts at different locations, in different states, and in a different country.
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Well, the policy change is still new, give them time to complain about you being a dirty, dirty account sharer.
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Because the account is now tied to a place, not a person.
False. It's not. A "household" is not a place, it's the people in it. So far none of the streaming services tie you to a place. Greetings from the other side of the world where I am happily still using Netflix despite not being at home, and despite Netflix coming down hard on password sharing in my country. Yeah I couldn't register a new device I bought without being on my home network the first time, but whoop de fucking do.
I too live in more than one location and literally do not have a problem with this.
Re: ehh (Score:1)
I tried Hulu+Live TV and ran into this on day two when I went from my in-town home to my cabin at the lake.
Although their mobile app worked fine in both places, Hulu on my TV streaming boxes wouldn't allow me to watch anything because of the change. I could switch my "home" location to the lake, but I'd have had to switch it back when I went to town again, and they limited the number of times I could do that per year.
I canceled that day and went with another service that didn't have such draconian restricti
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Yes, the terms always said "you're not supposed to share", but people did and it was fine.. and now that changes, and some people that never shared but had unusual living / travelling situations could get caught in that cross-fire. As for the price.. yeah it's cheap, but if you accept small increases without any complaint, soon you'll see more and mo
Obvious Prediction (Score:4, Insightful)
At some point, the streaming providers are going to commit suicide by continuing to increase their rates, pulling restrictive nonsense like ( this article ) limiting where and how you can utilize your subscription or relapsing back to the old ways of drowning all of their content with advertising.
Or, as the current trend is going. . . . . all of the above.
What you've been paying is now "ad supported" (Score:2)
And these services that are hiking prices are increasingly serving ads? (e.g., "$12 (or whatever you what you used to pay) for ad-supported, $(1.5x that much) for ad-free")
Wasn't there already a streaming service that showed you ads, and yet is free? ..."TV" or something?
Is the thought that content of these services is supposed to be better than TV? Because they're not.
Apart from offering "watch (basically the same ****) whenever you want" on demand,... not sure what they think we're going to do.
It's almos
youtube is worse (Score:2)
Youtube will not let me share my password with my wife. If we want to watch on two different devices at the same location, they want me to buy a family plan.
Netflix Crackdown is Underwhelming (Score:4, Interesting)
My retiree mother uses my Netflix account, and has for several years. I use it, and we're on opposite sides of a large city. Last month, I got a gentle prod when I connected saying, "Hey, you know you can add another home to your account, right?" Saw it once, never saw it again. Service is uninterrupted.
When they announced the crackdown, I predicted the following:
- They would error on the side of caution in detection, because devices roam, people's circumstances vary, and false positives could really piss off their customers
- They would probably let it slide for low to medium usage in only a couple of locations
- Their targets are the people who share their credentials more widely
So far, that seems to be exactly what's happening. My mother and I are not their targets, nor are we likely to be.
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Their targets are the people who share their credentials more widely
So far, that seems to be exactly what's happening. My mother and I are not their targets, nor are we likely to be.
This is the case *for now*. When they first started the crackdown, you're right - they probably targeted the top 10% - folks who strategically shared their credentials with ten people in different time zones so that it'd be unlikely that they would exceed four concurrent streams, but clearly a demographic who was likely not profitable for Netflix anyway, so there may have been at least *some* understanding that there was an excess involved.
With those people gone or separately-subscribed, there was a new "to
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You are lucky then. I have an another location 10 miles away where I sometimes watch Netflix and now every time I do I have to adjust my household. I am on the Ultra Premium account, and I am supposedly able to watch 4 streams at a time, but only if we are sitting in each other's laps.
I just did the math and my family watches less than 20 hours of Netflix a month (I have 6 kids). It turns out that I haven't watched Netflix since November. It's not that big of a deal, but getting a message from Netflix
If it's just like Netflix (Score:2, Interesting)
Canceled Netflix (Score:2)
Netflix hasn't really yet. Plus I rotate services (Score:1)
I can justify streaming service for up to $15 per month. These days, that means one service at a time.
Besides, it takes them a year to build up a week's worth of new content I haven't seen (and want to see) anyway.
"VPN Appliance has entered the chat" (Score:2)
They don't know if you're not in the same house if everyone looks like they are.
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Hello Kodi! (Score:1)