At the beginning of 2023, Netflix will make it harder for people to share passwords. This will affect about 100 million users.
Insiders say that the time has finally come, as Netflix has been losing subscribers since it grew quickly during the COVID pandemic.
A source who knows about the problem told the Wall Street Journal that the company lost a lot of subscribers because people shared their passwords.
The source said that Co-CEO Reed Hastings told senior executives at a company meeting that sharing passwords has gone on for too long and that the pandemic only covered up how bad it really was.
Now, the 100 million people who borrow passwords might not be able to watch their favorite shows on Netflix. However, sources told the WSJ that Netflix is likely to implement the ban slowly because it is afraid of a backlash.
The exact policy and how it will be enforced are still unclear, but the company is likely to use IP addresses to track and stop password sharing unless customers pay an extra fee to do so.
According to a source, Netflix tried this in South America and charged an extra $3 to $4 a month for a second home, but it later “sunset” the idea.
The company tweeted in 2017 that “love is sharing a password,” so this is a big change, and the executives know that customers won’t take it lightly.
Make no mistake, I don’t think consumers are going to love it right out of the gate,
Ted Sarandos, the co-CEO, told investors earlier this month. He is also said to have said that it was up to the company to show users how useful the service was.
In November, Netflix added a version with ads and a smaller library that costs $6.99 a month. This was another move to bring back subscribers who were leaving. Its competitor, Hulu, charges $7.99 a month for a service with ads.
