Netflix has more than 200 million subscribers from all over the world and the massive streaming company also believes 100 million more households also have access to their content by using the passwords of some of those subscribers.
Password sharing has been a practice many have done for years and the platform has been accepting it – until now!
According to new reports, Netflix is planning on cracking down on those sharing their passwords with others by forcing them to pay a so-called add-on fee in case they want to share the account with someone outside of their household.
This change has already been taking place, with Costa Roca, Chile and Peru becoming testing areas earlier this year.
There, subscribers were asked to pay about $3 in order to be able to share their passwords with people outside their households.
And now, The Wall Street Journal claims that Netflix is planning on introducing this system in the United States as well, starting in early 2023!
As soon as it goes into effect, Netflix users in the US will have no choice but to pay an additional fee as well in order to share their password with people they do not live with and the company will enforce this rule using IP addresses, account activity and device IDs.
In the Latin countries where this is being tested at this time, Netflix does not block subscribers from sharing passwords with others but instead, they are required to enter a unique verification code the primary account holder receives.
After entering the code, users can access the shared account but Netflix continues to show prompts for the account holder to pay the add on fee.
It is likely that they are considering a similar system for the United States.
Naturally, Netflix wants to do this in order to generate more earnings from those who share one password but it is safe to say that such measures could also do the opposite, pushing users to cancel their subscriptions.
After all, the platform has been losing popularity in the last couple of years as well so an additional fee could be the last straw for some subscribers.
Reports mention that the platform has been discussing quite a few different scenarios that may cause its users to feel inconvenienced and leave.
As for how they aim to address this problem, it is still unknown for the time being.