Don’t pay Max for an ‘extra member’ until the service forces you to

Netflix is the envy of every other major streaming service; so, every other major streaming service continues to copy Netflix’s rules against password sharing.

This week, Max took a page from Netflix’s playbook by adding an option to pay $8 per month for an extra member that doesn’t live in your home, same as Netflix. Last fall, Disney added similar options for its Disney+ streaming service ($7 per month with ads, $10 per month without). Both companies have updated their terms of service to say that out-of-home account sharing is forbidden.

But calling this a “crackdown” is still extreme relative to the actual level of enforcement that’s happening. Let’s call them shakedowns instead, with streaming services using the occasional nastygram or sign-in nuisance to see what extra revenue they can knock loose. Don’t make it easier on them by giving in before it’s absolutely necessary.

Buying some time

Max and Disney+ are enforcing their password-sharing rules in pretty much the same way as Netflix, establishing a “Household” location based on signals such as your home’s IP address and device activity. They can then flag any streaming from outside of that home location as potential password sharing.

If that happens, there are ways to avoid opening your wallet right away.

Max’s support page says users may see a “Get your own account” or “Transfer this profile to your own account” message when they try to access the service. In both cases, users can instead select “This is My Account” and enter a code sent to the account holder’s email address. The support page doesn’t mention any limit on how many times someone can verify an account this way, and Max did not respond to a request for clarification.

Disney+ also lists several ways on its support page for users to dismiss its password-sharing warnings. In some cases, you can simply use a one-time code to verify your account. In others, you can either select “I’m away from home” or reset your household location to where you are currently.

These extra verification steps might thwart folks who don’t keep in close touch with the account holder. But for a kid who’s off to college, a child of divorced parents, or someone who’s just on an extended vacation, it shouldn’t pose much of an obstacle.

Tightening the screws

How Max and Disney+ proceed from here is unclear, but Netflix’s approach provides a blueprint.

Netflix started enforcing password-sharing rules in May 2023, but made them fairly trivial to work around in the months that followed. It offered an “I’m Traveling” button to facilitate temporary out-of-home access, plus a way to update one’s home location with a verification code sent via email. Viewing on mobile devices is also allowed, with an extra verification code required in some cases. (Some folks even realized they could auto-forward Netflix’s verification emails to help far-flung friends or family members log in.)

While Netflix reportedly started closing the code verification loophole toward the end of last year, it took a long time to get to that point. Instead of a sudden crackdown, Netflix has spent the past couple of years ramping up its enforcement gradually.

Max and other second-tier streamers are likely to move just as cautiously, given that they already had higher cancellation rates and lower viewership than Netflix without password-sharing rules in place. For them, further reducing the value of a subscription has a greater risk of backfiring.

Could you get banned?

No matter what happens next, there’s little risk in stress-testing the rules. To date I haven’t seen any evidence of Netflix account holders getting banned from the service for casual password sharing, and Netflix did not comment on whether it would ever do so.

The only company whose support documentation hints at any kind of permanent consequence for password sharing is Disney, which says there “may be a limit to the number of times you can update your Household” to a new location (Disney-owned Hulu + Live TV limits you to just four household location changes, and you can’t stream while you’re away from home at all). Still, Disney doesn’t say what its Disney+ limit is or what exactly happens when that limit is met. Disney and Max did not respond to questions on whether password sharing would ever be grounds for closing someone’s account outright.

Remember, these companies don’t want to kick out legitimate customers. The whole point of password-sharing rules is to create supplemental revenue from folks who’d avoided subscribing before. Don’t feel the need to contribute unless (or until) there’s no other way around it.

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