(A Netflix spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for more details.)

subscribers aren’t yet affected by the change, but Netflix has implied that it’s coming everywhere, as the company looks for ways to boost revenue amid a downturn affecting the whole streaming sector. Last year, the company tested the idea in Latin America, and this month it modified the policy and expanded it into Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain. In recent months, Netflix has started preventing subscribers from sharing an account across multiple physical locations without paying extra. The distinction between hard and soft products helps explain the controversy about changes Netflix is making to its streaming service-along with many other changes in the internet-enabled service economy. But that soft product has a value too: Without it, you’d feel shortchanged.

Call this the “soft product.” If you don’t get the hard product, you’ve been swindled. But you receive secondary goods and services as well: the box in which you can transport your burger, complimentary Wi-Fi with your SkyMiles membership, the kinship of watching a show with your family. What do you get when you buy something? The thing, of course-a Big Mac, airline transit to Miami, the right to stream Bridgerton.

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