YouTube Is Pausing Premium Family Plans if You Aren't Watching From the Same Address (cnet.com)
- Reference: 0178978344
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/09/02/1643241/youtube-is-pausing-premium-family-plans-if-you-arent-watching-from-the-same-address
- Source link: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/youtube-is-pausing-premium-family-plans-if-you-arent-watching-from-the-same-address/
> If you're sharing an ad-free YouTube Premium or YouTube Music account with friends or family who live outside of your home, [1]you could lose your premium privileges . Customers who lose these can still watch YouTube or listen to music with ads -- but let's be real, it's not the same.
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> Multiple reports have shown people who have the service have been receiving notices that their premium service will be paused for 15 days due to violating a policy that's been in place since 2023. On its support page, YouTube says that an account manager can add up to five family members in a household to their Premium membership. But, the post says, "Family members sharing a YouTube family plan must live in the same household as the family manager."
[1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/youtube-is-pausing-premium-family-plans-if-you-arent-watching-from-the-same-address/
Re: (Score:2)
> What if I have more than one residence?
You're not buying a "service", you're buy^H^H^Hpaying a license^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hextortion fee to use a service at a specific location only.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
They're going to have trouble in Court claiming they have a unique and different definition of "household" than the law defines.
FTC isn't pleased with Google's behavior in recent years.
"Pray I don't alter it further" may have worked when they were partnering with the previous Administration to censor the base of the current Administration.
It's like nobody has a home IP and a random mobile IP because it's 2001 or something.
Maybe they'll just kill Premium and try to force everybody onto YouTube TV. At some po
Re: (Score:1)
I'm required by work to have an address in King County Washington, but I spend weekends on the beach in Bandon, Oregon... so yes, I have more than one residence. I also share my YouTube Premium account with family members that live at 2 other addresses...
These companies need to careful (Score:1)
There are now so many ways to watch youtube ad free on mobile devices or TV devices that I'll terminate my subscription if they want to play that game.
I have a family plan and my family members use it on their phones over 4G / 5G so they will have different IP addresses.
Re: (Score:2)
> my family members use it on their phones over 4G / 5G so they will have different IP addresses.
And if Location Services are turned on in those phones, then Google likely knows where they are regardless of IP addresses.
Re: (Score:2)
Next step will be going after all the ad blocks that filter out the commercials. Can't be that hard.
Bummer (Score:2)
My wife watches locally on the couch on the TV and I watch 4 yards away on my PC with a VPN saying I'm thousands of miles away.
People pay for YouTube? (Score:2)
A family plan no less. I don't get it unless content providers are compensated and hack out all the bullshit sponsorship segments.
Re:People pay for YouTube? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's pretty reasonable, comes with some content (Father Ted is one I play every now and again), no YouTube ads, and the music streaming service.
I pay for it and feel like it's a fair price.
Re: (Score:1)
YouTube ads are intolerable for me, plus I understand that content creators get paid a bit more for Premium views than a normal view, so that's mainly why I do it.
They've also recently added a nice "commonly skipped" feature that lets you fast-forward past sponsored segments easily. It's kind of screwing over creators who rely on sponsored content, but they're already getting paid more from my Premium views.
Of course you can also do this with Revanced or SmartTube, if you have the patience to wrestle with a
Re: (Score:1)
The whole family is very happy with paid Youtube and Tubi for everything else.
No other streaming service can keep up with the new content added daily to Youtube.
I have found that I only need to initially find and add about 10 channel subscriptions in order to have one of them upload something new and really good each day
That's all I need.
I really recommend it.
Sure Youtube is pulling the same stunt as everyone else - pay extra for no ads - but I found the value on Youtube is heaps better than
Kids away at school (Score:3)
This is very annoying for kids away at boarding school. They can't watch youtube videos ad-free? Their official residence is still our house.
Re: (Score:2)
The class action should be fun.
IRS says they're part of your household.
But the kids well just use Revanced if they make paying harder than not paying.
Solution (Score:2)
[1]https://github.com/yuliskov/Sm... [github.com]
[2]https://vanced.to/ [vanced.to]
[1] https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube
[2] https://vanced.to/
Both work well. (Score:2)
I find it absurd to pay for fiction so I don't, and their user base proves I'm far from alone.
Re: (Score:2)
If the Family Plan is restricted to connections from your house, could you just host a vpn server, so all the connections go through your house?
Google .. the Microsoft of the new millenium (Score:2)
Literally everything Google has ever done has seen massive enshitification.
A tax-avoiding, money sucking, hyper-bureaucratic global monster.
No, the next Sears... (Score:2)
Google is mismanaged much like Sears was. Google had search... but search is dead. They had ads... but there are now so many options for ads, and at least 75 new ad tech companies each week, and now that search is dead, nobody sees google ads. Google was responsible for the renewed interest in AI... and did some amazing work on some amazing projects... but killed all those in favor of Gemini. And they can only get people to use Gemini through deceit and dark patterns. So, when the AI frenzy dies some time i
Bye-bye Netflix, I get the hint (Score:2)
Right now our family is split in two locations for one of the roughly 10 thousand reasons such a thing commonly happens to families, and also, perhaps even more than that, one of the reasons we HAVE services like Netflix is to be able to use them while traveling. Which almost always involves one or more people traveling while one or more stays home.
In short, bye-bye Netflix. Too expensive and the quality has been going down steadily since 2010 or whenever anyway.
But... (Score:2)
What if I have 3 different home addresses? I made the mistake of telling AAA to mail my daughter's new cards on my account to their home address. AAA called me up and asked me if they lived at a different address... and canceled their membership.
New service - Family VPN (Score:1)
Where can I get a vpn service that makes all my locations look like a single place?
Er... unreasonable unilateral contract violation? (Score:2)
Over 90% of my family's connections are from our home, but most of the rest is from our data plan, so it's three more IP addresses plus when I'm at my job.
They do that, I'll complain.
Who knows if I won't sue for mal practice.
wedding bills to pay (Score:2)
Got to come up with cash somehow.
Sincerely,
Jeff B.
What do they think a family plan is? (Score:2)
You expect me to pay more so that my wife and kids that live in the same house can all watch TV? Why? Nope. Gonna get a single plane for that.
Family plan means multiple locations. That is what the customer expects, that is what you gave them.
Do not downgrade what you sold that met the customer's expectations simply because you do not want to meet the customer's expectations.
faimly viewing (Score:2)
Time for that family hosted VPN service.
Is the problem that people are seeing free videos& (Score:2)
....or is the problem that account sharing means it's hardee to track you and control what you watch unless you provide your ID?
F YouTube (Score:2)
Netflix plays this kind of game. When your cell phone carrier gives you a Netflix plan for everyone on your cell phone plan anyone on it should be able to use it - regardless of where they reside. We have a family cell phone plan but kids live in other states. Netflix should be giving each person their own account then. F! these streaming companies playing these games. I think it's high time they went the way of Cable.
selfhosted streaming the only solution to bullshit (Score:1)
plex jellyfin emby; blurays and dvds are a dime a dozen used and UDHR27 makes personal use 'piracy' fairuse, so fee free to sail the high sees without ever making/spending a cent.
Netflix pulled this crap on use - it's gone now. (Score:3)
Netflix has been pulling this crap, and even though we were all watching from the same address (using the same internet connection - no VPNs or any tricks like that), it started booting one of us randomly about it.
As I told them, this is bullshit, and I don't pay for bullshit. So we no longer have a subscription to Netflix.
Re: (Score:2)
Every machine in my house is on both a separate IPV4 and IPV6 address. Good thing I use Firefox and all the usual countermeasures.
Re: (Score:2)
They're unique but not internet accessible. They're all behind a firewall.
Re: (Score:2)
The only moron here seems to be you. Please google the following "how does a firewall work?" I too have public IPv6 addresses on all my devices at home, but all incoming connections are of course blocked by default.
Re: Netflix pulled this crap on use - it's gone no (Score:2)
I have public IPv6 addresses for every device in my house, all of them are firewalled without needing a NAT layer. This is the Internet working as intended.
Re: Netflix pulled this crap on use - it's gone no (Score:1)
What the other commenters are trying to tell you, but quite summarized, is that Netflix can only âoeseeâ your firewallâ(TM)s IP address. You are using Network Address Translation at the perimeter of your network, which is why the devices inside your network can each have their own IP addresses and still access the Internet through the one address on your firewall.
I recommend you look into a YouTube videos on how TCP/IP, NAT, firewalls and network routing work.
Re: (Score:2)
You are using Network Address Translation at the perimeter of your network,
No, I'm not. I have unique, public IPV4 addresses for all my machines, which are also firewalled. Thanks for you lesson, though.