Comment by rahimnathwani | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rahimnathwani | Hacker News Reader

My wife and I live together, and we have a single Netflix account, using my email address.

Whenever my wife travels for work (3-4 weeks per quarter), her hotel room's TV has the Netflix app built in. When she logs in, she is often prompted to update the 'Netflix Household'. I then have to confirm this by clicking a link (assuming I see the notification in time! otherwise she just can't log in).

I contacted Netflix support and asked them this question:

  If my wife is travelling to a hotel, and she logs into the Netflix app on the hotel TV, can I still watch Netflix on my home TV?

The support agent told me the answer is 'NO' (yes, they answered in capitals). This surprised me, because a Netflix help page says "A Netflix account is meant to be shared by people who live together in one household.".

This describes exactly our use of Netflix. My wife and I live together in one household. But she sometimes travels for work (obviously without me).

The support agent told me that to support this use case (one person using Netflix on a hotel TV whilst the other person is at home) I'd need to pay for an additional user.

(This wouldn't be an issue if she were watching on a phone or tablet, because portable devices apparently continue to work as long as they're used for Netflix at home at least once per month.)

You just explained the headline. Netflix has successfully weaponized edge cases for profit - the "success" part crucially hinging on surviving the initial news cycle and coming out the other side with their reputation intact. The money grab was spread across so many disparate demographics and use cases that none could coalesce to a single, easy-to-message gripe. All it cost them was a few key slices of trust from discerning customers. Take enough of those slices and your business will fade - but who cares, for this financial year?

The thing is... we subscribe to several TV streaming services, but IIRC Netflix is the only one whose app is on the TVs at this particular brand's hotels.

And it's become even more inconvenient to use external HDMI devices. At the last hotel I stayed at, the TV unit was permanently on 100% volume, and the effective volume was controlled by the external box.

This would be fine, except that:

- at low volumes, it was hard to hear voices clearly, as the audio signal coming from the box into the TV was really low, and the TV was amplifying not only that signal, but also background hum

- attaching an external device to the TV (like a TV stick) means the TV remote can no longer control the volume

Which hotel chain so I know to avoid it?

At least some JW Marriott hotels have the TV setup I described.

but you control the volume on the external device via software.

then again, I bring a travel router running OpenWRT and travelmate, so I'm an outlier.

  but you control the volume on the external device via software

Yes, but:

1. If you're watching TV in bed, how do you change the volume on your laptop, that's several feet away from you? Do you just carry a very long HDMI cable, or do you use some remote control software to control your laptop volume?

2. Low volume => low SNR.

Are you sure about the volume thing? Isn’t the entire signal chain of a normal TV digital and there’s only a conversion to Analog at the End? I don’t understand why the background hum would change volume with this setup.

I’ve mostly been staying at Hyatt hotels but what I like there is that TVs have chrome cast built in so I can cast from my phone, that could be a potential solution here?

Sadly not :(

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