I help family members with account management. (Kind of the unofficial side job of all of us tech-minded folk.) I know I’m not alone. Netflix, however, seems to think it must be completely unusual. Last month, I stopped being able to see settings for an account I pay for.
Pay for. Not use. I don’t think I’ve watched anything on that account since maybe early 2025, and that was already rare.
This, of course, is a side effect of Netflix’s rabid crackdown on users logging into accounts when not at home. Who travels to other homes or even whole other cities, amirite? But the stupid part (and I don’t use that adjective lightly) is that Netflix isn’t just blocking access to its content.
Content-blocking makes sense, given how the company keeps making its own series and also wants to buy a whole other company right now. But no, Netflix decided to go the full distance and even block access to account settings if you log in from a location outside of your usual home.
Can’t change the password, or in my case, update the billing information. I get that Netflix likely assumes that I would have access to the registered email address, and be able to put in the temporary code for access. Nope. I put the other person’s email address down so that if they ever need to reset the password, they don’t have to wait on me for the process to happen.
So over the holiday, what I assumed would be a two-minute billing update turned into a much longer task. I had the choice of calling the account owner to get a temporary access code (…which kind of goes against the reason why I take care of the account…) or actually haul my butt over to the person’s house. Fortunately, I live in the same geographic region.
Everyone else cares about Netflix’s series. Not me. I just want to pay for the dang service and then ignore it.
Ben Patterson/Foundry
I may now have to rethink my approach, so that I can get access to codes in a pinch if I need, while also still allowing password resets to be accessible to the account owner. (Yes, they do know about password managers, but this is just in case.) But seriously, Netflix. What the %*(#.
I could stomach this better if it was at least couched as You’ve never logged in from this location and we’ve blocked it because it seems suspicious. But nah. (Also, speaking of, why no 2FA still?)
This location block may be partially related to the holiday period—a quick check just now seems to let me access the whole shebang again. But I don’t trust this couldn’t happen again, and of course when I would most want quick access. (I’m mostly likely to have to shuffle things around or help with accounts during holiday periods. That’s when people have time off to watch the most things!)
But you know what also happens during the holiday periods, especially Black Friday? Deals on other streaming services. A few of which I took advantage of. Maybe I should stop letting an $18-per-month subscription continue uninterrupted when I have to deal with this nonsense—and there are cheaper and equally interesting alternatives available.