Netflix CEO 'Loves' Netflix Password Sharing

from the customers-not-criminals dept

For a few years now, HBO has turned a blind eye to users that decide to share their passwords for HBO Go (the streaming app for existing cable providers) and HBO Now (the standalone streaming app for cord cutters). Last year HBO CEO Richard Plepler said the company keeps a close eye on the company's password sharing stats, but said the sharing isn't a huge phenomenon. Besides, as the CEO argued in an interview a few years back, the act of sharing passwords can be seen as a new form of marketing the brand, and a tool to create a new generation of addicts:

"It’s not that we’re unmindful of it, it just has no impact on the business,” HBO CEO Richard Plepler said. It is, in many ways, a “terrific marketing vehicle for the next generation of viewers,” he said, noting that it could potentially lead to more subscribers in the future. “We’re in the business of creating addicts,” he said.

Contrast that to legacy cable operators like Charter Communications, which recently declared that the sharing of login credentials was a diabolical menace. According to Charter (who'll soon be paying $79 billion to acquire Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks), password sharing is a scourge, and HBO is a fool for turning a blind eye to such brazen "theft":

"But to (Charter CEO Tom) Rutledge, companies like HBO show a "complete lack of control and understanding in the space" by letting password sharing continue, and it's something that must be stopped. "The lack of control over the content by content companies and authentication processes has reduced the demand for video because you don’t have to pay for it,” Mr. Rutledge said on the earnings call. “That’s going on in the college market."

Of course automatically seeing everyone as a thief hiding in the shadows is a sort of rite of passage for cable and broadcast executives. And again, contrast Charter's statement to comments made at CES last week by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who proclaimed the company "loved" the idea of password sharing:

"We love people sharing Netflix," CEO Reed Hastings said Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show here in Las Vegas. "That's a positive thing, not a negative thing."...A lot of the time, he said, household sharing leads to new customers because kids subscribe on their own as they start to earn income.

Note that like HBO, Netflix's love of sharing only goes so far; the company's base $10 version restricts your account to two simultaneous streams, which bumps to four should you pay for the company's $12 plan. HBO similarly informs its users that it limits the number of concurrent streams per account for "security reasons." Still, perhaps there's a lesson buried in here somewhere about not automatically treating potential customers like diabolical criminals?

Filed Under: marketing, password sharing, reed hastings, richard plepler, streaming video
Companies: hbo, netflix

Cable CEO Is Really Pissed That HBO Hasn't Cracked Down On Streaming Password Sharing

from the get-over-it dept

As HBO's streaming service popularity has taken off, the company has yet to crack down on the sharing of passwords, believing it's a great opportunity to have programming junkies market the brand for you. We all of course already knew that sharing HBO Go passwords was a violation of the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA and an unholy sin. But according to Charter CEO Tom Rutledge, the sharing of streaming service passwords is also a diabolical theft of content that needs to stop immediately.

During the cable giant's recent quarterly earnings call, Rutledge decided to rant a bit about the perceived injustice of college students using their parents' passwords, insisting that HBO's leniency on this front showed a complete misundertanding of the market:

"But to Rutledge, companies like HBO show a "complete lack of control and understanding in the space" by letting password sharing continue, and it's something that must be stopped. "The lack of control over the content by content companies and authentication processes has reduced the demand for video because you don’t have to pay for it,” Mr. Rutledge said on the earnings call. “That’s going on in the college market."

But it's Rutledge who appears to have shown his lack of understanding of the market he serves. The CEO assumes that if you crack down on college kids sharing HBO passwords that these kids are magically going to go out and sign up for cable connections. What's more likely to happen should you crack down on the practice is that that these kids (most of whom are on a budget) will turn to cheaper streaming alternatives like Netflix -- or piracy. But in traditional legacy exec thinking, everybody's a criminal, even though Rutledge's company simply refuses to seriously compete on price.

Earlier this year HBO CEO Richard Plepler said the company keeps a close eye on the password sharing stats, and it's not really a significant number of people. Plepler (the guy Rutledge implies doesn't understand the market) a year earlier made it clear he understood the market perfectly well:

"It’s not that we’re unmindful of it, it just has no impact on the business,” HBO CEO Richard Plepler said. It is, in many ways, a “terrific marketing vehicle for the next generation of viewers,” he said, noting that it could potentially lead to more subscribers in the future. “We’re in the business of creating addicts,” he said.

So, whereas HBO thinks it's a good idea to turn the other cheek on a statistically insignificant practice to generate brand obsession, Charter (soon to own Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks in a $75+ billion merger) thinks it's a better idea to treat college kids like criminals, and in the process, driving them to Netflix and BitTorrent networks.

Filed Under: cable, competition, hbo, password sharing, streaming, tom rutledge
Companies: charter, hbo