Do you share the password of your Netflix account with your ex?
Or do you and your friend who lives on a university campus take turns logging into your account to watch the new season of Bridgerton?
Well, that free ride of using the same account might soon be over. Netflix recently announced that they would finally be clamping down on the practice of password sharing.
According to the streaming company, more than 100 million households are using a shared password (!).
What Does That Mean?
Netflix is currently facing the issue of losing subscribers. The company recently announced that they expect to lose more subscribers over the coming months and therefore will need to put up a strategy to curb those losses. Hence, clamping down on password sharing.
The company plans to offer a new feature of offering an extra fee for accounts used by multiple people outside of the home. An alert will be sent to account holders whose passwords are being used by other households.
Netflix is already testing this feature in South America in countries including Peru, Costa Rica, and Chile.
For accounts that are sharing a password across addresses, Netflix is charging an additional fee to add “sub accounts” for up to two people outside the home. The pricing is different per country — about $2.13 per month in Peru, $2.99 in Costa Rica, and $2.92 in Chile, based on current exchange rates.
Is A Netflix Sub Account The Same As “Password Sharing”?
Currently, having a sub-account on someone’s account is technically not password sharing. This applies to users who are not in your “household”.
Netflix uses data including IP addresses to determine if an account is being used by an external party or in the same household. So if you’re on a university campus watching Ozarks on your girlfriend’s account who lives in her gated community, then that would be considered password sharing.
Users who have shared passwords with be offered the option to transfer their personalized profile information to either a new account or a sub-account, allowing them to keep their viewing history and recommendations.
Netflix’s Chief Operating Officer Greg Peters said that he estimated that the plan to implement its new strategy would take about a year to roll out globally.
Netflix is currently facing more competition from newcomers like Disney+ and HBO Max and they need more subscriber numbers and profit to keep its stock price up.
But will this new password crackdown lead to more losses or will it have to keep the company afloat with new additional paying subscribers? We’ll see what happens once they implement their strategy.
