Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV pretty much already do this where you can subscribe to third-party streamers from within the Prime and Apple TV apps. They offer “Channels,” like Acorn TV or Cinemax or BET+. I don’t think either offers any particular deals for adding subs via their apps. I don’t know how Prime does it, but with Apple these channels live in the Apple TV app itself, so you’re using its interface, not the BET+ or whichever app.
The problem is that few of the big streamers offer their subs through these channels. Apple TV used to have HBO available and there was speculation that Disney would join in the beginning. But then HBO Max killed the HBO channel and Disney+ never made it over. I think Paramount+ is the only big name service available on both. The rest are mostly niche streamers like Noggin, Hallmark and BritBox.
Here is Netflix’s current description of its plans:
Money quote: “ Netflix offers a variety of plans to meet your needs. The plan you choose will determine the video quality and the number of screens you can watch Netflix on at the same time .”
And yet here I am, a single guy who only ever uses one screen at a time but they charge me for four.
I pay for my subscription. No one else shares my password. But I have to pay for four screens (a requirement if I want 4K…I spent a lot on a 4K TV…I want the 4K).
So yeah, I’m a little salty about that and I would venture a guess I am not the only single person home in America.
I’d been a subscriber to the DVD-by-mail service for about twenty years, but cancelled yesterday. I noticed that in the past few months, I’ve found very few movies I want to see, so there were weeks between getting new discs.
And today, I cancelled the streaming service. So in total, that’s about thirty bucks a month I’ll be saving.
Probably but I am like you, paying for 4k and only ever using one screen.
I can’t see how they can reasonably enforce the rule anyway. If I had a wife and two kids who all used the service, how do they know if we have multiple homes or use the service in a hotel or when I visit my mom. My sister has my mom on one of her screens and also her daughter. The daughter lives with my sister much of the time. People are losing their shit over something that will likely never happen.
IP tracking. We’ve let our nieces use our account, and they both travel out-of-town for high school sports and music stuff. I regularly get emails from Netflix, informing me that my account was logged into from a different city (which just so happens to be where one of the nieces is for an event).
Ostensibly, Netflix is sending me those emails to notify me, in case it really is unauthorized usage (and, thus, an account hack).
Now that you mention it, I did get one of those when my account really was hacked. They got in a changed my email and re-set my password. The hackers had control of my account for like two hours.
I don’t get those emails when I sign on at a new location ( on vacation) - but I do get them when I sign on with a new device even in my own home. (and the email does note the zip code).
The irony is that Netflix actually does have huge room for growth, despite being the largest service. They’ve been steadily expanding in other countries, sponsoring relationships and content that adds tons of new properties they can bring back to the US (like Squid Game). They’ve been growing market share in Korea, India and the Middle East. A lot of streaming services aren’t even available outside the US, and they don’t have the variety of content Netflix does. They still seem like a good long term investment to me.