Netflix users will have to pay to share their subscription password with friends. From the beginning of 2023, the streaming service will charge for so-called account sharing. “We have developed a thoughtful approach to monetizing account sharing and will begin to roll it out more widely in early 2023,” Netflix said in its third quarterly report.
In the terms of use, Netflix already stipulates that users may only share an account with other people from the same household. A household is therefore people who share the place of residence – if you don’t live together, you can’t share your account either. Although this rule has been in place for a long time, it has not been actively enforced to date.
Netflix: An extra fee will be charged for subscription sharing from 2023
The reason for the reversal in account sharing could be the reduced number of Netflix subscribers at the beginning of the year. Even if the current quarterly balance is positive compared to the first and second quarters of 2022 and Netflix has recorded an increase in 2.4 million new subscriptions.
>> Also read: Netflix beats forecasts – customer churn stopped
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In South America, Netflix had already tested the model in the past and charged the equivalent of $2.99 extra for each shared account. Netflix users who had previously borrowed a subscriber’s account could convert it into their own account without losing the watchlist and other personalizations.
According to this model, the actual Netflix subscriber can decide whether or not to continue paying the extra fee for the decoupled profiles, so-called sub-accounts.
Netflix subscription: “Profile export” should make it easy to create a new Netflix account
The “profile export” function can also create a completely separate Netflix account. Anyone who decides to go this route then has their own Netflix subscription, for which they bear the full costs.
According to Netflix, a similar model is planned worldwide from 2023. Netflix officially states that the reason for the new function is that many people would have wanted exactly that, because if “families grow” or “relationships end”, the Netflix account should remain unaffected as much as possible.
More: Netflix starts cheap subscription in Germany – viewers have to endure so much advertising
With agency material.