Winter homecoming brings out cheers

Password sharing restrictions and its consequences on society

By Connor Keating Staff Writer

Earlier this year, Netflix dropped the news that it would be removing the ability for users to share passwords, forcing many users to buy their own account.

The news caused such a kerfuffle from upset users, that Netflix removed the announcement and claimed that it was posted in error, though some don’t buy that claim. Netflix then said that they are testing the waters by trying it out in Latin American countries, and are planning to charge users in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain extra for giving their account to people who don’t live with them.

Matt Wilper, economics professor at Hutchinson Community College admitted that he was one of the many who uses someone else’s account, his sister’s.

“I think it’ll affect (students) tremendously, like ones that don’t live with their parents because that whole idea of like households, it seems like they wanted to tie it to your wifi IP address, if I read that correctly, and of course our students come from all over who aren’t always going to be tied to that IP address,” Wilper said. “So it’s going to hugely, negatively affect those students.”

When the topic was brought up in one of his Microeconomic classes, students reacted negatively to the change. However some aren’t totally against the idea.

“I think it’d be fair to use it in the household, but friends should get their own subscription,” freshman

Rylee Jacobson said. “It interrupts my shows I’m watching, so I have to go find where I was at.”

There’s also the fact that only one user can be using a Netflix account at a time, even if they’re on different profiles. These restrictions, if they were put into place, would make the

Stange

• Continued from Page 1 a real indication that I should look at this job.”

Stange ultimately made the decision to take the HutchCC AD job.

“It was a family decision, not a professional decision,” Stange said.

As the AD, Stange felt more in control of his life. He felt the job was not easier than coaching but it was more predictable when he had free time. After his tenure at HutchCC, he moved on to be the athletic director first for Springfield Public Schools in Missouri and then at Johnson County CC.

Stange however, always had the itch to coach again.

“The last year at JCCC was the last year of having a child in the house,” Stange said. “Now that she was grown up and on her own, there were no more birthdays to miss.”

He had a chance to come back to coaching and he took it.

The Sterling College men’s basketball job opened up and he took it.

Now Sterling’s coach Randy Stange took over a program that was 2-29 in the 2021-2022 season and he experience for owners of the account smoother, but would greatly affect users borrowing the account.

If Netflix did go through with such a plan, Wilper says it may harm the company.

“We have to remember my forecasting predictions have not always been great, but I see streaming services as probably the closest thing we have to a competitive market in the United States right now,” Wilper said. “Competitive markets, very easy to enter and exit, many buyers and sellers, of course there’s many providers of streaming services, tons. It’s relatively very competitive. I don’t think this is a good idea for Netflix to be honest in a long term sense.

“I get that they’re looking at a short term increase influx in cash but they’re going up against Disney, Hulu, which are basically the same company, then there’s Paramount plus, also Peacock, they’re these big players attached to major networks, who are getting a lot of content from that (pre-existing content) plus in creating their own (new) content and Netflix might find themselves in the issue of not being able to keep up. It’s so easy to just leave Netflix. A couple clicks, they lose you as a customer.

“So I just don’t think this is very wise for them, and that’s why I think you see them scaling back. They were going to implement these changes, I think they saw the big backlash, and then they were like ‘okay, maybe we should slow the break’. So I think if they do go through with it, it’d be very bad for the company. Somebody could easily buy them up and just add them under their umbrella.” knew he had a job to do.

While Netflix may be a powerhouse in the current streaming service market, a major decision like this could potentially ruin them, sending users to go elsewhere for their entertainment.

As Wilper said, all it takes is a couple clicks.

“Coming here, I knew just with a little recruiting and bringing other guys back we were going to be better,” Stange said.

Stange was right, his team is now above .500 with a record of 1412. The Warriors are also 10-10 in KCAC play and tied for sixth place headed to Wednesday’s game at Avila.

Stange and his group have an opportunity to have the first winning season since 2013-2014. It takes more than just players for a team to succeed, it takes a culture and Stange knew that.

“When I walked in those doors, I wanted to change the mindset of accountability,” Stange said.

Stange wanted to focus on the little things with his players, “It starts with getting your guys to go to class and how they act in the community and the cafeteria,” Stange said. “We need to show we could handle ourselves and they showed me they could buy in.”

This idea of being bought in is bringing success to Sterling. Stange is back at the helm coaching in college basketball for the first time in 25 years. He is loving the experience and enjoying time with his family.