No more free password sharing for users, Netflix says

Borrowing a Netflix account from a friend or sibling rather than investing in your own seems more practical and cost-effective. But not anymore, because the popular streaming platform will soon ban free password sharing. So everyone has to pay to watch their favorite TV series in HD and say goodbye to free password sharing.

In a letter to shareholders, Netflix says it plans to “widen roll out paid sharing” later in the first quarter of this year. This means you may need to start paying to access Netflix content by the end of March. After the first loss of subscribers in more than a decade (200,000 customers) in the first quarter of 2022, it initially proposed a crackdown on password sharing in July last year, according to a source.

No more free password sharing for users, Netflix says

The streaming giant argued that account sharing “undermines” its “ability to invest and expand in Netflix over the long term” due to its broad reach, which affects more than 100 million households. While the Usage Rules already prohibited the use of an account outside of a single residence, it was further specified that this was a change for users who shared their accounts with multiple people.

According to the shareholder letter, “As we roll out paid sharing, members in many countries will also have the choice to pay more if they want to share Netflix with someone they don’t live with.”

In some US regions where it costs $2 or $3 to add a member account for someone outside the family, a shared password test has already been done. Because of the extra costs, many Latin Americans have canceled their subscription. Netflix expects a decline in engagement in the near term, but an increase in total revenue as borrowers begin to pay off their debts.

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