this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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Some legit customers are fucked by the anti-password sharing methods some companies have used. Hulu, for instance, locks you out of live TV service if your IP address changes more than 4 times in a year. My ISP goes down a couple times a week, and changes my IP address every time. Every 4th time, I need to call Hulu and inform them that I, in fact, have not relocated my television, and it remains bolted to the wall. My ISP wants $40/month for a static IP address, so it's in their best interest to keep changing my IP address as often as possible.
The Netflix one screwed me... I go to hospital 3 times a week for 5 hours of dialysis. But Netflix viewed that as a second household and wanted me to pay for a second account to use my own account in 2 locations
Now I pay for zero accounts and still get any Netflix shows I want through alternative methods
Wait...How does Netflix treat it if someone travels for a week? I thought you only had to "check-in" at the "home" location every 30 days or something like that.
I spent seasons abroad and netflix started to delete my downloads
That's what they changed it to after I had already left... At first they only gave you 2 weeks at other locations for the year
Whaaat? 2 weeks per year? It wouldn't have affected me, but how would traveling customers keep watching legitimately?
Well that's another reason I'm glad I didn't go with Hulu with Live TV. The main reason being they solely rely on IP geolocation from what I can tell, which is generally trash. With YouTube TV if the location is incorrect at least I have the option of logging in to verify my actual location using my phone.
It doesn't seem to be based on geolocation from what I can tell. My subnet hasn't changed in a few years, just the last octet of my IP address. The geolocation when looked up has remained the same the entire time. If my IP address changes from x.x.x.23 to x.x.x.24, they consider it a "home location change".
The initial mapping of the local channels seemed to be when I did a trial. Despite having to put in my home address I was getting local channels from a TV market about 150mi away (coincidentally where my IP incorrectly geolocates to about half the time) even though I know other people that have used it and get our correct local channels.
I don't use Hulu live TV, so I don't know if the local channels are mapped correctly. They should be, as the geo IP for our address is in the correct county.