Sarah Krouse reports in the Wall Street Journal:
Streaming music and video services that permit multiple users, plus the proliferation of family cellphone plans that are cheaper than individual accounts, have created ties that bind long after a breakup or divorce.Unlike car insurance and health insurance policies that are tied to a shared address or legal union, cellphone plans, Netflix, Spotify and Amazon Prime accounts aren’t. Many lingering connections are born of convenience—it’s time consuming and in some cases impossible to export viewing or listening preferences to a new account.
When Aimee Custis and Kian McKellar broke up after four years of dating, the couple divvied up their books, photography equipment and cookware. Left intertwined: their Netflix, Hulu and Pandora accounts.
They didn’t discuss separating the subscriptions when Mr. McKellar moved out of their shared Washington, D.C., apartment. They just continued paying their respective bills—hers, Hulu, and his, Netflix and Pandora. Two-and-a-half years later, they still share those services.
In the so-called sharing economy, even when love is no longer mutual, bills for entertainment and communication often are.
“We didn’t feel the need to cut each other off,” says Mr. McKellar, a 34-year-old videographer. He even asked Ms. Custis, a 33-year-old wedding photographer, to upgrade the Hulu account from a basic plan to the commercial-free premium version a year ago after becoming annoyed by repetitive ads, which she did.
Streaming music and video services that permit multiple users, plus the proliferation of family cellphone plans in recent years that are cheaper than individual accounts, have created ties that bind long after a breakup or even divorce.
Unlike car insurance and health insurance policies that are typically tied to a shared address or legal union, cellphone plans, Netflix, Spotify and Amazon Prime accounts aren’t, says Amanda Singer, a relationship mediator at the San Diego Family Mediation Center.
“Sometimes it’s a ‘let’s stay on it now and put it on the list of things to do down the road,’ ” she adds.
The cost of wireless service has fallen sharply over the past decade for those on multi-person plans. In recent years carriers advertised “family plans” comprised of relatives, neighbors, boyfriends, and even fellow fantasy football league members. Sprint Corp. in 2014 coined the term “framily” plans—a mashup of friends and family—for up to 10 phone lines.
When it comes to entertainment, some streaming video services allow multiple simultaneous viewers on a given account. Users of the same plan can create separate profiles when they watch, but they don’t have to if they’d rather keep a low profile.
Cassie Lentz still watches Netflix using her sister’s ex-fiance’s account, even though the pair broke up several years ago. Ms. Lentz is unsure whether he knows and says her sister now has her own account.
“When I would go to a friend’s house they’d be like ‘oh do you have Netflix?’ I’d say ‘yeah, it’s from some person I haven’t talked to for five years,’ ” said the 24-year-old, who lives in Long Island and works in marketing in the tattoo industry.
Many of these lingering connections are born of convenience—it’s time consuming and in some cases impossible to export viewing or listening preferences to a new account. Sharing costs saves each person money, time spent registering for new accounts and enduring long customer service calls, particularly when it comes to wireless plans.
During the chaos of breaking up and moving out of an apartment she shared with her now ex-boyfriend, a real-estate industry worker in her 20s says she’d forgotten that the two shared a cellphone family plan. “I probably owe him like hundreds of dollars,” she says.
Other times, sentimentality intrudes. A consultant in his 30s says he was puzzled by his parents’ decision to pay for his brother’s ex-girlfriend’s cellphone plan long after their breakup. The $30-per-month cost was minimal, they told him, and their memories of her were fond. Simone Lavin charges her ex-boyfriend, sister and three friends on a shared Spotify bimonthly on the payment service Venmo for their portion.
The pair broke up last May and discussed staying on the streaming music plan together when they parted ways, along with other “logistical things” such as whether they would begin watching “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” a television show they had watched together, separately. (They will.)
“It’s not a personal thing, it doesn’t require any interaction beyond the Venmo charge,” says Ms. Lavin, a 21-year-old studying political science at Yale University, who adds that her current boyfriend is unfazed by the agreement, which saves her $2.50 a month. “It’s been pretty smooth,” she says.
The only reminder of the former relationship comes when the service automatically generates a playlist that draws from all of the users’ listening habits. It includes songs by Bon Iver and indie group Fleet Foxes that the pair listened to together when they dated.
The arrangements aren’t for every pair of exes. Some balk at the idea of sharing any assets after they split, prioritizing the privacy of call histories and viewing preferences or simply wanting their own property.
“Even with an amicable split you have to say ‘what’s the cost and what’s the benefit?’ And what’s amicable today may not be amicable tomorrow,” says Sherri Goren Slovin, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based mediator.
Sarah Pawlowski joined a Verizon Communications Inc. wireless plan with her boyfriend of two years last summer to benefit from his military discount. The 21-year-old college student in New Jersey said the arrangement saved her money, and that when the pair broke up in October her ex-boyfriend encouraged her to remain on it.
Ms. Pawlowski says her ex-boyfriend soon stopped paying his half of the bill and she ultimately called his mother for help getting in touch with him to end their arrangement. She now pays $120 a month for her own wireless plan, compared with $80 a month as part of his.
Will she consider partnering on wireless bill with a romantic partner in the future?
“Oh dear God no. Maybe when we’re celebrating our 10-year wedding anniversary we’ll go to the Verizon store together. But no, never again,” says Ms. Pawlowski.
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