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Tried to pay Netflix to watch a specific movie… and it was hell. Discussion (lemmy.ml)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/movies@piefed.social
14 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I figured I'd pay for a month of Netflix so that the movie creators would get paid.

I paid and THEN Netflix asked for a phone number. Why do they need a phone number when we all know SMS spoofing is trivial?

At this point, I hadn't even logged in, and I was done with Netflix. Then and there, I cancelled my subscription.

However, the next day, I was able to log in with no problem. No phone number needed.

Alright. I figured I could use the month's worth of Netflix I paid for. I searched for the movie and tried watching it. I couldn't.

  • "You can't use a VPN"
  • "Your browser doesn't let us spy on you enough"
  • "Honestly we're just tempting you to get this movie through piracy lol"
  • "Nah, we don't care about you. We care about profits xoxo"
  • "Nah. No refunds. We warned you"

I don't know what I was thinking.

Oh yeah, I wanted to support artists. But Netflix made it impossible. What a joke.

all 14 comments

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[–] 39 points 7 months ago (1 child)

If it's a Netflix only movie, watching it on Netflix doesn't get the artist more money. It might get them sign off on future project but Netflix almost exclusively pays flat fee amounts because they do not want to share their viewership data with anyone.

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    • [–] 55 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    Call your bank or card issuer and get them to do a chargeback, tell them you paid for a service which was not rendered and the company refused a refund.

    Also, depending on where you live, it is likely that you have a legal right to withdraw. Many jurisdictions enforce a 14-day cooling off period where any party may unilaterally withdraw from an agreement.

    Not a lawyer, just a guy who refuses to let corpos get the better of me, and will use every trick in the book to fuck with them until they break.

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    [–] 19 points 7 months ago

    It's gotten to where paying for shit just marks you as a chump for whatever the next level of their scam is.

    "Hey this dummy pays for content, let's get his phone number and socials so we can sell him more garbage he could have gotten for free."

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    [–] 17 points 7 months ago

    That's the new game in town. They spent decades hammering it into us that we need to pay for things, but now they've decided to wring every last bit of value they can obtain out of us in the process. They're using the indoctrination to pay for things in order to obtain power over us that money alone can't buy.

    Paying them was part of a social contract which they keep adding more clauses to, whether or not we're okay with it. Just go back to piracy. If creators want to get paid, they can stop getting in bed with the fucking devil himself.

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    [–] 12 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    You wanted to support artists, so you paid Netflix?

    I'm not surprised that everything seemed hard

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  • [+] 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    How do you donate directly to people who made a movie you like?

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    Depending on the person, go to their websites and see if they sell merch, do live shows, or have any side projects. If we’re talking about Leo DiCaprio, he doesn’t need the money, but if we’re talking about a smaller artist, they are more likely to have a side hustle.

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    • [–] 5 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    prepaid netflix card, ftw. all they have ever asked for is an email to set up the account if you don't already have one, and a postal code for sales tax determination (doesn't have to be yours, just same country. *wink* *wink*). no name, no phone number, no billing address....

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    • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    Damn thats wild. Anyways, I tried to pay seeder and they were like lolwut.

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    [–] 5 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    I wanted to support artists.

    Then do so more directly. The artists will only see a tiny fraction of what you gave to Netflix.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 7 months ago

    Yeah, that's what I've gathered from this thread. In fact, someone on the thread pointed out that Netflix Originals pay for the cost of production + 30% and that's it. So not even paying Netflix do you pay the creators of the content. Insane.

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