Netflix, which has been losing a fortune recently, claims that they're going to finally shut down multiaccounters.

This has been discussed for years, but apparently they're on the verge of doing it.

I have long wondered how they could accomplish this. Here are the technical barriers to them recognizing multiaccounting:

- People's home IPs will change over time, sometimes frequently and beyond their control

- Many people have two or more homes, or travel a lot

- Mobile devices will constantly have different IPs when on cellular data, or when connecting to Wifi away from home

- There is no way for Netflix to see MAC addresses of devices when people are watching through a web browser, which is how people watch when on laptop/desktop computers



Well, apparently here's the scheme they came up with, which is pretty smart:

Netflix will observe the "primary IP" that is being used to watch it. That is, it will see which IP is used the most, and assign that as the primary IP address.

In order for a device to be "authorized", it needs to watch at least one video per 31 days from that IP address. If it does not, the device will lose authorization. If the primary IP address changes (such as someone's home IP being changed by their internet provider), the customer can establish a new primary IP, but will need to do so by receiving a code sent to their phone number on file. There will presumably be a limit on how often one can change the primary IP.

I am assuming that "device authorization" will be done via cookies on laptops/desktops, as there's no way for Netflix to see which device is being used via browser. But a cookie could work just as well for this, although it would only work on that particular browser.



However, this method is not without collateral damage to customers. For example, if you primarily watch on your laptop, but you take your iPad on a trip with you, you're fucked if you want to watch Netflix if you haven't watched it on that iPad in over a month.

Additionally, if you are mostly watching Netflix via cellular data, or if you have dynamic home IP addresses which always change, again you are fucked.

Also, let's say you are on a long trip which lasts more than a month. Once again, you're going to have issues.



It remains to be seen if this causes a customer exodus, or if it spurs new subscriptions. Some theorize that the ability to multiaccount is what justifies a lot of people paying for Netflix. Others theorize that clamping down on multiaccounting will cause freeloaders to pay for their own accounts.

Also, it probably won't take long for people to come up with easy ways to circumvent the Netflix multiaccounting ban, such as creating a home VPN for purposes of logging in once per month and establishing that you "watched a video" on each device.