Here’s What We Know About Netflix and Its Recent Password Sharing News
Updated: Feb. 10, 2023
The days of sharing your Netflix account password with family, friends and partners may soon be coming to an end as the streamer cracks down on password sharing
If you’ve been enjoying free access to Netflix courtesy of a particularly generous family member or friend, you may soon be out of luck. Netflix password sharing has become an increasingly pervasive issue, and many have long suspected that the ability to share a Netflix account would soon come to an end.
However, two lingering questions still remain: How will Netflix stop password sharing—and when? A recent mistake made by Netflix staff members may provide a little bit of insight into the future of Netflix password sharing.
What might change about Netflix password-sharing?
For years, it’s been easy to share your Netflix password with a friend or family member so that not everyone in your family or friend group has to pay for their own individual Netflix account. The ability to make multiple Netflix profiles under one account has made it even more seamless to share one account across multiple households. While many subscribers have enjoyed the luxury of password sharing, Netflix is not a proponent of it. The streamer reported that over 100 million households were involved in sharing Netflix accounts, and despite the company’s success, account sharing is ultimately detrimental to its business.
As a result of rampant password sharing, Netflix is proposing a plan in which account holders would pay an additional monthly fee for each additional user who resides outside of their household. All of this begs the question: When is Netflix ending password sharing? Though paid sharing isn’t happening in the United States just yet, it’s already begun to roll out in other countries. Despite efforts to bolster revenue by adding Netflix subscriptions with ads at a lower monthly rate, password sharing is still one of the biggest issues facing the streaming giant.
What’s currently happening with Netflix’s password-sharing?
In 2022, Netflix rolled out a trial “paid sharing” program for Netflix users in Chile, Peru and Costa Rica. As part of the program, account holders who wish to share their Netflix account with a user outside of their household are required to pay an additional monthly fee. For example, the fee in Costa Rica is currently $2.99 USD per month.
Now, the streaming giant is going one step further with these measures. The news of these tactics to end password sharing broke after a Netflix staff member made an error in which the company’s guidelines regarding these measures were made public to global users. Representatives from Netflix later took those guidelines down and explained that they had been posted by mistake. The guidelines were only meant to be posted in a few specific countries.
The new trial measures ensure an account is only being used within one household and are being implemented as part of the trial program. Netflix users in the countries included in the trial are required to connect their television, phone, tablet or computer to their home Wi-Fi network and open the Netflix app to stream a program at minimum once per month. If users neglect to do this, their devices may be blocked. Though these measures have yet to be rolled out worldwide, this trial provides the most information to date regarding Netflix’s efforts to end password sharing.
Will it affect you?
To date, Netflix’s “paid sharing” trial program has only been implemented in Chile, Peru and Costa Rica, along with the device blocking trial. Netflix has suggested that the whole program may begin to roll out in other countries in the first three months of 2023, though it has yet to specify which counties are likely to be affected. It is unlikely that every country in which Netflix is available will be affected all at once; the company is expected to slowly begin implementing the “paid sharing” program in specific countries and continually broaden the scope of its efforts.
If you’re looking for another place to stream movies when Netflix ends password sharing altogether, you may find your next favorite film or TV show on one of our other favorite streaming platforms. Be sure to check out all of the best shows on Netflix before you are prevented from password sharing once and for all.
Originally Published: February 08, 2023
