If you’ve been relying on someone else’s Netflix account to watch ‘Wednesday’ or the new season of ‘Alice in Borderland’, we’ve got bad news for you.
The streaming company is reportedly planning to crack down on password-sharing early next year.
Source: cottonbro studio on Pexels
Those who want to continue sharing their accounts with viewers outside of their households may have to pay extra.
On Wednesday (21 Dec), the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Netflix will put an end to password-sharing in 2023.
Source: Malte Helmhold on Unsplash
This comes after the streaming giant lost a huge chunk of its subscribers early this year.
According to the WSJ, password-sharing was identified as a big problem that ate into Netflix’s subscription numbers in 2019.
At that time, the company was allegedly hesitant to address it as they did not want to alienate consumers. Then, a subscription boom amidst Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 put a halt to crackdown plans.
The success didn’t last long.
Back in April, The Guardian reported that Netflix had lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of the year — the first time in a decade such a thing had happened.
This prompted Netflix co-chief executive Reed Hastings to tell senior executives that they had waited too long to deal with the issue of password-sharing.
Netflix estimates that over 100 million users stream shows with passwords they borrow from friends or family.
That could change once the company begins charging those who share accounts extra to do so early next year.
Source: cottonbro studio on Pexels
The streaming service has been making other efforts to grow its subscriber base and revenue.
Last month, it launched a slightly cheaper ad-supported plan. However, research firm Antenna found that it was the least popular plan among all the options, with only 9% of US subscribers signing up for it.
Netflix seemingly debunked this claim, saying that Antenna’s data was not accurate. They did not provide their own figures.
At the moment, reports only state that the password-sharing crackdown will only be happening in the United States (US).
There’s no word on whether this will come to Asia and Singapore in the near future.
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Featured image adapted from Malte Helmhold on Unsplash.
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