For the past decade, Netflix has been a premier part of the streaming service landscape, with subscribers becoming enthralled by their crop of movies and television shows. This year, one key component of Netflix’s system is expected to change dramatically, with the streamer poised to end the ability for subscribers to share passwords. In a recent quarterly earnings interview (via Variety), new co-CEO Greg Peters anticipated that there might not be a positive response to the password-sharing measures, which are said to be “a gentle nudge” for those who are sharing accounts outside of their household.
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“This will not be a universally popular move,” Peters explained, indicating that “[There will be] a bit of cancel reaction to that.”
Why is Netflix ending password sharing?
While the exact extent of the efforts to end password sharing have not been made clear, previous reports have indicated that tracking IP addresses, login location and account activity could all be on the table.
“It feels a lot like the way you manage a price increase. … Consumers aren’t going to love it right out of the gate, but we need to show them why they should see value,” former CEO Ted Sarandos said during an appearance in late 2022.
Another option floated has included asking subscribers to pay extra for the ability to share passwords. Across the years of speculation about these measures, previous reports had indicated that the company loses up to $1.62 billion annually because of users sharing passwords.
“We’ve landed on a thoughtful approach to monetize account sharing and we’ll begin rolling this out more broadly starting in early 2023,” the company previously said in a quarterly statement. “After listening to consumer feedback, we are going to offer the ability for borrowers to transfer their Netflix profile into their own account, and for sharers to manage their devices more easily and to create sub-accounts (‘extra member’), if they want to pay for family or friends. In countries with our lower-priced ad-supported plan, we expect the profile transfer option for borrowers to be especially popular.”
What do you think of Netflix ending password sharing? Would you consider cancelling your account after that? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
