Kirsty McLuckie on Netflix changes and family households

What determines who is a member of your household? In the case of a nuclear family, it is usually a pretty straightforward answer, but in these days of increasingly diverse familial arrangements it is less set in stone.

For all sorts of reasons, the definition of a household is important. Travel and health insurance, and vehicle breakdown cover, can include those living at the same address, up to a cut-off age for dependents.

All of which can make it complicated when you have half-in, half-out arrangements, such as students living away during term time, or those who split their time between two homes.

Adult children living with their parents will be covered by the house’s TV license, for instance, but when they move out they have to cough up for their own.

Image: metamorworks/Adobe Stock

For multiple media companies supplying subscription programming, we have become used to sharing passwords with friends and family, so all can access the films and TV shows available on one account wherever they are.

This can lead to awkwardness – one time, my daughter thought she was using her brother’s streaming account, only to be mortified to learn that it was, in fact, his ex-flatmate’s.

The poor chap only found out because of the prompts he kept receiving to continue watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Selling Sunset – not choices he would have made himself.

The recent proposed changes to one streaming giant’s rules on who can share a household account are causing consternation, however.

Netflix, which has up – until now – been reasonably relaxed about sharing its services, is rolling out new rules to curtail this.

Hitherto, up to five people could use one account wherever they happened to be. Families, friends, casual acquaintances, all got the most from their monthly subscriptions by swapping passwords and being generous with access.

Netflix itself used the phrase “Love is sharing a password” back in 2017 when the then young company was growing exponentially.

In a volte-face – and with falling profits – it has now clarified the rules on its website: “A Netflix account is meant to be shared in one household (people who live in the same location with the account owner). People who are not in your household will need to sign up for their own account.”

The streaming titan plans to insist that any device using its service is logged on at least once a month at the home IP address. Failing that, the remote user will have to contact the account holder for a passcode every time they want to watch.

As the poor sap who pays for our family Netflix account, I immediately saw an opportunity in the imposed regulation. With three adult kids living elsewhere, it is sometimes difficult to get them all home for a weekend together.

I’ve already imposed three-line whips – for Christmas, Easter, the August bank holiday, and the dog’s birthday – to nudge them to return to the homestead regularly.

But the necessity for a monthly Netflix log-in may become a draw even more powerful than our canine-themed fiesta.

- Kirsty McLuckie is property editor at The Scotsman