Netflix is trying to crack down on password sharing, and this is angering a lot of people, the same way that pouring salt on leeches makes them mad and disengage from the tasty, nourishing host.
Before we go on, I should note that there is a perfectly legitimate reason to share your network password with someone who lives in another house in a different city. That's not leeching. As we'll see, these innocent people will be hit hard by the new rules. But there's good news, too.
So, what's the deal?
People share passwords with friends, who share them with other friends. That's the problem. Netflix never liked it, but for a while everything was going great — they ruled the streaming world and had billions to spend on programs like ... well, like that one show that was pretty cool. No wait, that was on Amazon. Well, you know the one.
Now they want to crack down and get more people to pay, which is reasonable. There's competition now. We finally have the world we wanted when there was only cable — instead of paying a fat sheaf of greenbacks for channels we didn't want, we can pick and choose.
It's great! And we hate it. We end up with streaming services we want to cancel, but don't because ...
A) It has that one show you started to watch and liked but then forgot about and you should really get back to it after you finish the other series on the other streaming service that has that show you've been meaning to start.
B) It's just such an effort to cancel. You have to do something. Odd, isn't it? You can whisper "I need toilet paper" in earshot of an internet-connected device, and for seven days your social media sites are full of ads with Charmin bears capering in the woods to have a happy chap-free ursine movement. But shout "Cancel Hulu" at the top of your lungs and every smart device, from Echo to TV to Siri to your phone, will suddenly be very busy doing something else. Didn't hear you chief, sorry.
