Netflix’s password-sharing crackdown is approaching, with the streamer planning to roll out paid sharing “more broadly” later this quarter.
The changes will restrict Netflix’s use to a single household. Members can move profiles to new accounts and check which devices are using their accounts.
“Today’s widespread account sharing (100M+ households) undermines our long term ability to invest in and improve Netflix, as well as build our business,” the company said in its fourth-quarter earnings letter to shareholders. “While our terms of use limit use of Netflix to a household, we recognize this is a change for members who share their account more broadly.
Password sharing has long been the bane of Netflix, prompting it to launch several efforts to mitigate the issue in 2022.
In November, the streaming platform launched a new feature, Managing Access and Devices, that allows members to view all the recent devices that have streamed from a customer’s account and to log out of specific devices with one click.
In October, Netflix announced the implementation of a Profile Transfer feature that makes it easier for password-sharing users to set up their own accounts with a new tool that allows them to move their profile while keeping all of their customized recommendations, viewing history, My List, saved games and other preferences.
And in select Latin American nations, the streamer has experimented with add-on fees for password sharing, costing an additional $3.
Part of what Netflix is trying to do with paid sharing is introducing different price points of users, along with giving “casual sharing” viewers a “nudge” by creating features “that make transitioning to their own account easy and simple,” new co-CEO Greg Peters said during the company’s prerecorded fourth earnings call.
Not everyone, though, will be happy about the crackdown on password sharing.
“This will not be a universally popular move,” said Peters. “So there will be current members that are unhappy with this move and we’ll see a bit of a cancel reaction to that.”
However, he said, after things settle, new subscribers will come back with “borrowers creating their own accounts or incremental monetization through the extra member,” as the streamer’s “amazing” titles will win them back.