Netflix will crack down on subscribers sharing passwords with family members and friends not living in the same household and prompt them to pay an extra charge for the privilege. While the practice is widespread and popular, it is not good for business.
Chengyi Long, the streaming giant’s Director of Product Innovation, said in a blog post: “While these have been hugely popular, they have also created some confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared.”
“As a result, accounts are being shared between households — impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members.”
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The streaming giant has said that it would try out this approach as a test in Coasta Rica, Chile, and Peru. In these three regions, in addition to the ability to transfer viewing profiles, subscribers will get prompts to add extra viewers to the package at discounted rates.
“We recognize that people have many entertainment choices, so we want to ensure any new features are flexible and useful for members, whose subscriptions fund all our great TV and films. We’ll be working to understand the utility of these two features for members in these three countries before making changes anywhere else in the world,” Long said.
This is, however, not the first time that Netflix has tried to stop password sharing. The company had earlier dabbled with the idea of additional security layers to block users whose locations were not the same as the account holder.
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The addition of these features indicates Netflix’s strategic planning to keep growing as subscriber numbers plateau. In Q4 2021, Netflix added 8.28 million subscribers globally against 8.5 million in year-ago period. It is forecast to add 2.5 million subscribers in the first three months of 2022, compared to the 3.98 million it added in the year-ago period. Netflix slashed prices of its offerings in the last quarter in India to get more subscribers onboard after being repeatedly frustrated over the lack of user addition in one of the world’s biggest markets.
