Netflix's password police

Dirt is a daily email about entertainment.

Terry Nguyen, Dirt's senior staff writer, helms our dispatch, a running recap of the latest digital culture news. This week: the end of password sharing, etiquette lists, and Hysteric Glamour's return. 

At the Netflix headquarters, I’m imagining that there is currently a sense of triumph, a sort of grandstanding “ladies and gentlemen, we got him” attitude after months of threats. The “him” in question is the Netflix freeloaders, the thousands (maybe millions) of streaming anarchists who mooch off the generosity of old roommates, family members, and lovers. I am guilty of this, having proudly spent years without a single streaming subscription to my name. At least us arthouse kids will always have Criterion and MUBI, until they too get acquired by Disney.

The boom times are going bust and Netflix’s password-sharing crackdown is coming soon, likely by March. (Last week, Netflix accidentally posted a set of password-sharing guidelines in a now-deleted FAQ page.) The streamer plans to track information like IP addresses, device IDs and sign-on activity to identify offenders. The restrictions are currently being tested in Latin America: Users have to verify their home-streaming devices every 31 days and devices they travel with on seven-day intervals. 

It’s unclear whether devices outside of the household will still have access, even if operated by a family member who resides elsewhere, like a college student. Greater password-sharing enforcement and scrutiny means that Netflix will likely alter the structure of its subscription offerings. Rather than a “one Netflix account per household” metric, subscriptions could start to look like cell phone plans: We’ll start bundling with friends and family in exchange for lower rates. If phone plans are any indication, most people will probably remain beneficiaries of their parents’ Netflix accounts well into adulthood. 

📋 IN OTHER NEWS: New York Magazine released an etiquette list with too many weird little “rules”: A third of them are probably satirical, like No. 38: “Always wink” and “Do not touch the small of my back to move around me at the bar if you’re ugly.” I do, however, endorse No. 83: More people should have the (literal) guts to take the last bite from a shared plate. I would also appreciate some tips on password-sharing etiquette.

• Buzzfeed has a similar list for those who are terminally online. My favorite is this gem: “If someone asks for your social media details and you don’t want to share, just lie.” Or, you can simply not follow the person back.

PLAYBACK

Snippets of streaming news — and what we’re streaming.

• Stranger Things was the most-streamed show of 2022. (Variety)

• Get ready for the expansion of the Billions and Dexter universes. Showtime is planning up to four Billions-related series, starting with a spinoff set in Miami and other projects titled “Millions” and “Trillions.” (WSJ)

• HBO’s The Last of Us season finale will stream on February 10, two days before the series’ regularly scheduled Sunday night slot, to avoid competing with the Super Bowl. (Variety)

• There won’t be very many crypto ads this Superbowl, but expect to see lots of booze ads. In June, Anheuser-Busch, the brewer of Budweiser, gave up its exclusivity deal, allowing other alcohol brands to advertise. (Bloomberg)

• A smart, Jeopardy-style SNL skit on the fractured state of media consumption, ft. Pedro Pascal.

• Beyoncé released a "Cuff It" remix, which I bought in a fugue state last Friday while riding the MTA. Forget Best R&B Song of the year. Make "Cuff It" the national anthem. Let’s not talk about the Grammy’s.

MIXTAPE

Good links from the Dirtyverse.

• The return of Hysteric Glamour, the 1984 Japanese brand that was beloved by Paris Hilton, Christina Aguilera, and Carmen Electra in the 2000s. (SSENSE)

• Getty Images sues AI art generator Stable Diffusion for copyright infringement. (The Verge)

• A short newsletter from Dirt contributor Drew Austin on the Warhol-cribbed aphorism, “Parties are work.” (Kneeling Bus)

  • “If the elite’s present norms do indeed anticipate those of the masses by a decade or so, maybe O’Brien was prescient in declaring that parties would one day be a sort of job for everyone—that more leisure activities would become suffused with opportunity that must be seized, and that the remaining boundaries separating work and play would collapse.”

• A new venture capital bubble is forming around AI startups. (The Information)

• I've been enjoying these lectures-as-newsletters that food writer Alicia Kennedy has been publishing on her Substack. This week is on culinary tourism and the making of a “food destination.”

  • “The culinary and cultural capital of certain cuisines will go up and down, because their value has always been what they can provide to the imperial core nations, whether that's been sugar or coffee or chocolate or even human labor.”

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