Netflix is the streamer that started it all, but its hot streak may have come to an end. The service has been losing subscribers left and right, to the point where they’ve done the unthinkable: threaten to launch a cheaper, ad-supported version to lure back those who vamoosed over their ever-rising prices. (Those angry over its stable of comics who keep making trans jokes may not be sated by that one.)
Another solution they’ve been daring to try: cut down on password sharing. That hasn’t happened in the U.S. yet, but Netflix has for the last two months been effectively beta testing it in three Latin American countries, namely Costa Rica, Chile, and Peru. And judging from a recent report that examined the latter nation, those efforts have been going pretty terribly.
As caught by Insider, Rest of World spoke to over a dozen Netflix subscribers in Peru, where they’ve found confusion over one of the main rules of password sharing: the idea that you can only share it with your “household.” Some think it means your family, who may not live in the same home. Alas, Netflix really does define “household” as people living in the same house, related or not. That confusion, though, has put people at risk of breaking the rules.
Mind you, Netflix subscribers in those three nations can share their passwords; they just need to add an additional monthly fee to their subscription — about $2 or $3 per person not in their household.
Thing is, even people who are still sharing passwords across “households” (that is, Netflix’s definition of the term) have yet to actually be penalized. So no one appears to be minding the store. And who’s to say how many subscribers they’ll lose once they start doing that.
(Via Rest of World and Insider)