Because Netflix is so expensive, it may be more practical and cost-effective for you to borrow a membership from a friend or sibling than to buy your own. But that won’t be the case for long, since the popular streaming site is about to make it hard for users to share passwords freely. Everyone must now pay to watch their favorite TV shows in high definition, so it’s time to stop sharing passwords for free.
In a letter to its shareholders, Netflix said that later in the first quarter of this year, it plans to “do paid sharing more widely.” This means that you might have to start paying to watch Netflix content by the end of March. A source says that the company first asked for a crackdown on sharing passwords in July of the previous year. This was after the company lost its first customers in more than a decade (200,000) in the first quarter of 2022.
Netflix says that users can no longer share passwords for free.
Even though account sharing affects more than 100 million homes, the streaming giant said that it hurts its “long-term ability to invest in and develop Netflix.” It was made clear that this was a change for people who shared their accounts with many people, which was against the rules before. In a letter to shareholders, the company said, “When we roll out paid sharing, customers in many countries will also be able to pay more to watch Netflix with someone they don’t live with.”
In some parts of the United States, where adding a non-family member as a member costs $2 or $3, people have tried sharing a password. Because prices went up, many Latin Americans stopped using the service. When debtors finally start paying, Netflix expects a temporary drop in engagement but a rise in total income.
