If you have been watching your favourite shows and movies on Netflix using the password borrowed from your family and friends, there’s bad news for you. The OTT platform is now planning to completely crack down on password sharing from the new year.
Over the years, Netflix has cited password sharing as a major reason behind subscriptions going down. The company was concerned about addressing the problem without risking alienating consumers, who now have a lot of OTT platforms to choose from.
Earlier this year, Netflix co-chief executive Reed Hastings told his senior officials that the Covid-19 pandemic masked the password sharing issue and they had waited for a long time to deal with it. Noting that 100 million viewers watch content on the platform using the passwords borrowed from family and friends. But now, the company has said starting 2023, it will ask people who share accounts to pay to do so, Wall Street Journal reported.
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The streaming platform is expected to roll out the update in the United States early next year. However, the company’s move risks giving up years of goodwill it had built over the years among the customers.
Hastings had himself acknowledged that he didn’t think the users would love the move, adding that it was important for the company to ensure the users see value in paying for the services.
This is a stark departure in the stand taken by Netflix which once tweeted:
The OTT giant’s terms of service mentioned that the subscriber who pays for the account should control the devices used and not share login credentials. However, the terms of service have never been enforced by the company. This year, Netflix said accounts are to be shared by people who live together, adding it would enforce the rule based on IP addresses, device user IDs and account activity.
The OTT giant had also considered enabling users to rent pay-per-view content using their subscriptions as the Amazon Prime customers can because it could leave the users wary of sharing their login credentials with others who might shoot up their bills. The company later decided against the move because the product executives were concerned it would take away from the simplicity of the service.
