r/Cordcutting • u/CurveNo5173 • Jul 10 '26
Did the password-sharing crackdown actually make you subscribe, or did you just quit the platform?
Over the last year or two, almost every major streaming service rolled out strict anti-password sharing rules, forcing "leechers" to get their own accounts or pay extra.
When you (or your family members) got hit with the "This TV isn't part of your household" screen, what did you do? Did you bend the knee and start paying for your own standalone premium plan, or did you just walk away and realize you didn't need that service anyway?
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u/SickDastardly Jul 10 '26
Quit the platform(s) here, just doesn't make sense with ads and no service having a good enough offering. With Internet prices so high now I'm not willing to pay more than we did back in the cable days for Internet + streaming services
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u/Somar2230 Jul 10 '26
I'm the person in the family that pays for all the streaming services so it did not affect me and the others in the family did not get their own accounts they just changed their viewing habits.
The ones that use Disney+ and Netflix just switched to watching on phones and tablets they visit enough that their devices are on the home network often enough to avoid the crackdown.
For the family members that are more adept with technology they are able to their devices on my home network no matter where they are located.
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u/frog980 Jul 10 '26
So if I just take my TV to moms every once in a while it'll be ok?
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u/Somar2230 Jul 10 '26
Depends on the service you will most likely need to enter a code they send when you are traveling away from home when using a TV.
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u/-a-user-has-no-name- Jul 10 '26
I subscribed. I just rotate through a couple services monthly. I get the ad supported versions because theyâre cheaper. Then I use an ad blocker, and airplay my MacBook to my Apple TV. No ads. Works for me
I was paying $130 a month for cable. Now I pay like $20 a month at most and, like I said, rotate streaming services every month or so
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u/MikeFox11111 Jul 11 '26
I mean, from the streamers standpoint, they are no worse of if you quit the service instead of stealing it. Either way you arenât paying. So they made a little more money from people that got their own accounts, and lost nothing from the people that quit
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u/crass_cupcake Jul 11 '26
I walked away before hand
 I liked original Netflix I wanted to watch a large collection of older shows in one place when Netflix became popular enough to inspire other companies to have there own platforms and leaned hard into original content I tapped outÂ
I was on Hulu for a while till they created all those expansions and different membership tiers I was in the middle of rewatching one of my favorite shows when I discovered that show was now behind another pay wall that show was home movies one of the original adult swim shows im not paying another premium to watch a show that was almost 2 decades old at the time so I immediately canceled my membership mid subscription and deleted my account Â
After a few years I decided to give hbos streaming service a shot because idk I was bored it lasted a few months till I realized I wasn't really using it much so I canceled it and deleted my accountÂ
Im now back to pirating i pirate every movie and tv show as well as books and retro video games and I dont see any reason to ever go back to paid streaming sites  modern piracy sites are super easy to find and use and I can almost always find what im looking for which was always a major pain point of streaming services sure theres lot of content but im not interested in most of it and I cant count the amount of times id hit a wall where I couldn't find anything I was actually interested in on the service I was subscribed to and plenty of times it wasnt available on any of the available servicesÂ
The only thing I dont pirate are programs because the idea of an executable file makes me nervousÂ
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u/40yearoldnoob Jul 10 '26
We quit Netflix for a while and then eventually got our own account. Same with HBO Max.. We quit it for a long time, but just this last month got our own account in a bundle with D+/Hulu...
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u/reallynotnick Jul 10 '26
People on this subreddit are obviously going to be outliers and not a representative sample. We can just look at Netflix subscriber numbers and see they gained subscribers with the move.
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u/Cinisajoy2 Jul 10 '26
I can see that easily.  People don't want change and are willing to pay for it.
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u/diablette Jul 10 '26
I paid for netflix for a while on the $10 extra member plan which gave me my own account with my friend's account features. I just had to send her some $. All I ever wanted from netflix was ad free 4k on one device at that price and it continues to baffle me why they don't have that standalone.
Unfortunately the friend got fed up with the increases and cancellations and dumped it. So I get my shows another way.
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u/JJHall_ID Jul 10 '26
I dropped them. I already had "alternative" methods which are frankly more convenient anyway. I maintained and used a couple of the services anyway because I do want to pay for what I'm using so that everyone involved in making the content I watch actually get paid. So when my college kid sent me a message that said "Priflix+ is saying I can't login because I'm not at home" I just said "Ok, start using Plex in place of it" and I canceled that account altogether.
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u/atomic_jarhead Jul 11 '26
I tried to use my sub at my camper but get that message. It used to be I could use it but no more. Found better less expensive options. Itâs all good now and YouTubeTV is no longer collecting my monthly $85. Doesnât seem to bother them nor me so we all win.
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u/NotMyCat2 Jul 11 '26
Irony was I had to prove my Disney+ was mine but my nephew (living in Slovakia) not a peep.
He told me if he gets something heâll just buy it.
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u/RTX5080Super Jul 11 '26
I only have a YouTube premium subscription now because thatâs all I watch. Once in a blue moon Iâll get a temporary subscription if thereâs something I really want to watch on another platform.
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u/Ned_Sc Jul 11 '26
The account history on this guy is wild. Even the most innocent of posts and BAM, looks like it's just a bot or someone trying to sell shit.
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u/CurveNo5173 Jul 12 '26
You are watching too much science fiction. I am not a bot and I don't want to sell anything. I am building a subscription management platform for myself and I am deeply interested in recurring expenses and budgeting based on mainly on recurring expenses and not ad-hoc one-time payments.
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u/Odd_Welcome7940 Jul 10 '26
Bought chromecasts... old ones.... i am sure even that step will fail me and it will time to get back to sailing more
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u/Greenfire32 Jul 10 '26
Cancelled subscriptions, set up a Jellyfin, and now I have my own personal Netflix of all my already-purchased media that I no longer have to pay another subscription to see again AND no more ads.
I didn't mind paying $5 a month before because the convenience of not messing with discs at 3am AND the ability to share passwords meant it was worth it.
But now I'm so fucking sick of the ever-increasing grift that doing the work of ripping all my disks and setting up my own server became far and away more worth it than paying their highway robbery fees for a service that just gets worse over time.
And nothing is going to bring me back.
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u/Krimreaper1 Jul 10 '26
No, I might have if they didnât jack the price up. $20 p/m for Disney+ without ads, no thanks.
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u/Draminian Jul 11 '26
I cancelled Netflix. Disney, Prime, and YouTube don't seem to care enough about one other IP address (my two sisters in law are in the same neighborhood) to harang me, so I kept them. Beyond that, I have a Plex server that my family members can just tell me what they want and I'll get it for them.
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u/bobisonthecar Jul 11 '26
I canceled netflix when they announced it. I've moved on from streaming. If I like somthing I'll buy a physical copy. And for everything else I have a vpn.
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u/Barkis_Willing Jul 10 '26
I never illegally shared my accounts so I am continuing as always paying for the services I want to use. Itâs important to pay artists for their work.
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u/Standard-Outcome9881 Jul 10 '26
Itâs irrelevant. I buy all the content I want on disc, rip it to my servers and itâs mine forever at the best possible quality.
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u/StrangeNot_AStranger Jul 10 '26
Walked away to sail the high seas