Netflix to crack down on password sharing from early 2023

Following pilot programs in several Latin American countries earlier this year, Netflix has decided to crack down on password sharing globally.

It’ll do this by charging a little bit extra to the main account holder for each user who’s accessing that account but living in a different household. The additional fee hasn’t been revealed yet, but if it’s similar to the pilot programs, then account holders should expect to pay around $3 per month to include up to two people who live outside their household.

Netflix announced the move during its latest quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, October 18, and said the change will come into effect in early 2023.

If an account holder decides to politely ask their Netflix guests to stop using their password, they can now migrate their profile and all of its settings to a new account using a migration tool unveiled by Netflix earlier this week.

In July, Netflix director of product innovation Chengyi Long highlighted the company’s issue with “widespread” account sharing between households, saying that it “undermines our [long-term] ability to invest in and improve our service.”

Netflix data posted on Tuesday revealed that the company now has 223 million subscribers globally, indicating a net addition of 2.4 million users during the July-to-Sept quarter.

After losing 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter and almost one million in the second — and forecasting 4.5 million new subscribers for the current quarter — Netflix will be pleased with the apparent turnaround in subscriber numbers.

Indeed, following the publication of the results, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings didn’t hide his delight, saying: “Thank God we’re done with shrinking quarters.”

In another big move by the video streaming giant, Netflix recently announced an ad-supported tier costing $7 per month, $3 cheaper than its ad-free Basic tier. Basic with Ads, which comes with some limitations, starts on Nov 3.

One of Netflix’s big rivals, Disney+, is also introducing an ad-supported tier on Dec 8, costing $8 per month.

If you’re considering jumping between streaming services or signing up to one for the first time in a while, Digital Trends’ lists of new movies and TV shows landing on different platforms might help.

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