No one knew that Streaming would become one of the top industries in the town. Not only has it profited in billions, but that too during one of the deadliest pandemics in the world. When people were struggling with unemployment, the streaming industry was booming, and why not? It became the therapy people could not afford to get in those tough times.
And while this may be great news for the SVOD giants, they were still not earning as much as they should have; why? Because while billions of people are using these streaming services and watching movies, only a few million people own their said accounts. Billions of viewers, but subscriber count was in millions only.
This raised significant concerns for the company stakeholders because of the difference in their tentative profit percentage and the viewership. And their concerns were valid, but what was the reason behind all this?
The primary culprit behind this is none other than password sharing and the use of technologies to unblock geo-restricted streaming services. Here is why:
Access to Geo-Restricted Content
Lockdown had forced the users to stick to their homes at all times with little left to do besides streaming all the time. This binge-streaming has left everyone with little to no content left to stream because even when there is a ton of things to watch on the internet, they just can’t. The primary factor is the restricted content and geo-blocking technologies that prevent users from accessing those titles which are not licenced to stream in their region.
That’s why users are taking extra measures to get their favourite content, like US Netflix in Canada, HBO Max outside of the US and more. And this has raised numerous alarms for the streaming businesses because this may violate many copyrights and laws dedicated to the distribution and protection of the content.
It may seem like a minor issue because using a internetprivatsphare to access geo-restricted content is a minor thing if you like us and legal. Still, this looks like a massive pile of lawsuit issues and courtroom hearings from the production houses for streaming services. Which, if you ask us, is extremely scary. And that is why these services have become active in detecting VPNs on their setups and giving out various error messages when you use a low-quality VPN to stream your favourite foreign movies.
Password Sharing
This is one of the most common practices in the streaming world right now. People tend to chip in and buy a single account for all their friends and families to save costs and to create a strong bond of friendship as well. Usually, families take up a single account for themselves and their kids to keep an eye on what they watch by putting up parental guidance on their account but at the same time allowing them to stream “freely.” Meanwhile, they use this account to watch all their favourite shows and more alone or with their spouses.
That is why Netflix has allowed multiple profiles to be built based on users’ profiles that they can customize based on their preferences and watch history. This mode is made specifically for user sharing. But viewers are extremely smart now. Despite Netflix’s allowance for 5 profiles or less, people have further distributed these profiles amongst many friends and families. It means that per account, there are more than 10 people using it to watch their favourite shows,
If this isn’t a major setback for Netflix and other major streaming services, then what is. Hence they have started a crackdown on all the unauthorized access that is getting in on their servers with new devices and more.
