Netflix has announced that it will soon be charging accounts for extra users (or sub-accounts, if you will) and the reason why probably won’t surprise you: password sharing. The streaming giant has long cited the ubiquitous practice as a source of lost revenue, and it appears to have found a solution that will thread the needle of clawing back subscription fees while not alienating current users.
The plan will reportedly roll out in early 2023. So if you share a Netflix account with someone who doesn’t live with you, get ready to see your bill go up. Via Endgadget:
This move is an expansion of a pilot program currently running in Latin America which charges extra fees for “extra user” subaccounts, users outside of your immediate household who use your login to access the service. Basically, every listing on the “Who’s Watching?” screen is going to cost you extra money if they don’t also live with you.
As for how much Netflix will charge for extra users, Endgadget speculates that if the streamer follows the “pilot program’s one quarter of the basic rate scheme,” the price could be about $3-4. However, that fee can be avoided by having extra users transfer their sub-account data to a new account through a migration tool offered by Netflix.
While this change may come as a shock to users who have been sharing accounts for years, the streamer has been warning that this move was coming for a while.
“We’ve landed on a thoughtful approach to monetize account sharing and we’ll begin rolling this out more broadly starting in early 2023,” Netflix announced back in April. “After listening to consumer feedback, we are going to offer the ability for sharers to manage their devices more easily and to create sub-accounts, if they want to pay for family or friends.”
(Via Endgadget)