Netflix began the crackdown on password sharing for its subscription services, starting with users in New Zealand, Canada, Spain, and Portugal. The long-awaited password-sharing guidelines ask users to set a primary location for their Netflix accounts. Users can create two “sub-accounts” for their friends or family, for a monthly fee per extra user.
On Wednesday, the company released guidelines on how users in the above four countries can share their Netflix. “We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account with features like profiles and multiple streams. While these have been hugely popular, they’ve also created confusion about when and how you can share Netflix. Today, over 100 million households are sharing accounts — impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films,” the company wrote in its blog post.
The company will charge CA$7.99 in Canada, NZ$7.99 in New Zealand, 3.99 euros in Portugal, and 5.99 euros in Spain, as a monthly fee per extra user. The changes are rolled out with a new “Manage Access and Devices” page, for users to curate who has access to their accounts. The company, based on user feedback, will revisit and refine the new account management page.
It is safe to say that Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing is fetching results as the streamer has managed to slightly reverse its first reported loss of subscribers in over a decade in January-March last year. The company beat the estimates and reported the addition of 2.41 million net global subscribers in the third quarter of 2022, the majority of which came from the Asia-Pacific region.
Previously, Netflix began testing the same feature in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru. Members on the standard and premium plans in these three countries were allowed to add sub-accounts for up to two people outside their household and were charged an extra fee.
