Photo: Mollie Sivaram
By: Nick Gambino
Netflix has always seemed pretty lax about their subscribers sharing passwords with family and friends outside their household. I wouldn’t say they’ve condoned it, but they never seemed to come after you. Well, it was only a matter of time before the streaming giant took proactive steps toward curtailing this widespread practice.
Netflix announced on Wednesday that they’re testing a new feature where subscribers will receive a nudge to pay for additional accounts for people using their accounts outside the household. It doesn’t look like they’re going to force you to do it, but rather they’re going to politely prompt you to pay. At least that’s the way I understand it. This will become more clear as they run the tests.
I can assure you, most won’t pay, but I don’t think Netflix expects them to. There are, however, those for whom money is no object and who will pony up the few extra dollars to legitimately allow family and friends to use their Netflix account.
“Accounts are being shared between households – impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films,” Chengyi Long, Director of Product Innovation at Netflix, said in a statement. “So for the last year, we’ve been working on ways to enable members who share outside their household to do so easily and securely, while also paying a bit more.”
For now, they’re testing this feature with Netflix subscribers in Peru, Costa Rica, and Chile. They’ll have two options available to them. They can add up to two additional members to their account for a small fee (e.g. $2.99 USD in Costa Rica where plans are only a couple bucks cheaper than the U.S.) or they can transfer their account to a new person, handing over their entire profile, including their viewing history to them.
They’ll have to be careful how they tread into this territory as password sharing is a very common practice and the last thing Netflix needs amid the streaming wars is for a large portion of their active subscribers to jump ship.
Netflix of course is well within their right to do this, but they should step lightly as they’re no longer the only streaming choice available. Far from it.
