A major crackdown on Netflix passwords has begun.
The streaming giant on Tuesday sent an email to U.S. members who share their accounts with people living outside their household, urging them to stop using the service if they used someone else’s account for more than 30 days while they were away from home. announced it would stop. .
Netflix said it will charge an additional $7.99 per person for households who wish to pay for additional people to access their account. Otherwise, the company said it would encourage those users to sign up for accounts themselves. (Netflix allows users to transfer existing profiles to new accounts to preserve algorithms.)
The news was not surprising. More than a year ago, in April 2022, the company announced its first drop in subscribers in a decade, partly due to changing economic conditions and increasing competition from other streaming services. The company said at the time that it would explore ways to increase revenue, including adding cheaper ad space and cracking down on password sharing between households. Worldwide, Netflix estimates that 100 million people are accessing the streaming service without paying.
Netflix currently offers a variety of pricing options, from a low-end $6.99/month for the ad-supported version to a high-end $19.99/month for the version that contains no ads and allows subscribers to add two other members. I’m here. The extra charge is $7.99 per month for her.
Some Netflix subscribers took to Twitter to express their frustration with the new strategy, noting that the company has long encouraged users to share their passwords with others.
But that was a different time, when Netflix reigned as the only streaming service in town. Consumers now have a wealth of choices, from Disney+ to Warner Bros. Discovery’s newly launched Max, Peacock, Paramount+ and many more. And with many consumers feeling the financial strain of inflation, Netflix is working to increase revenue per subscriber.
The new policy came amid a writers strike, so some influential writers were encouraging users to cancel their Netflix accounts in solidarity with the writers.
Still, the discomfort wasn’t unexpected for Netflix. The company has spent the past year testing this strategy in smaller markets such as Canada, New Zealand, Spain and Portugal. In its latest letter to shareholders, the company said the initial reaction to password restrictions was “cancellation reactions in each market” and “acquisitions and increased revenues” after borrowers activate their accounts. said to continue.
In Canada, where Netflix imposed the strategy in the first quarter of this year, the company said, “Our paying member base is larger than before we launched paid sharing, revenue growth is accelerating, and we are now growing faster than in the United States.” It’s growing at a fast pace,” he wrote. “
