Netflix is cracking down on password sharing between friends and family as the streamer has announced that it will begin charging users if they want to sharing their password with anyone outside of their household. According to Netflix, their customers will be able to share their passwords “easily and securely” with people outside of their house through a new add-on by “paying a bit more.”
“We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account, with features like separate profiles and multiple streams in our Standard and Premium plans.” said Chengyi Long, the Director of Product Innovation at Netflix, adding that “While these have been hugely popular, they have also created some confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared. As a result, accounts are being shared between households — impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members.”
Netflix has started testing the new feature in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, where members on its standard and premium plans will be able to add two additional members to the account for an extra cost. Meanwhile, the streamer is also studying another feature that will allow members on a basic, standard, or premium plan to transfer their profile data to anew account or a sub account retaining information like their watch history and personalized recommendations.
In Chile, the company will charge users an extra 2380 CLP to add an member to their profile, while 2.99 USD will be charged to customers in Costa Rica and 7.9 PEN in Peru. Netflix added that it would test these password sharing features in these countries and make adjustments accordingly before introducing the same in other markets.
According to Netflix, the company suffers a huge blow to their profitability amidst increasing competition, which impedes their ability to invest in original content. Netflix in January tempered its growth expectations, projecting customer additions in the first quarter at less than half of Wall Street’s expectations citing the late arrival of anticipated content.
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