Netflix Expects to Complete Password-Sharing Crackdown in Next 2 Quarters

pcmag.com:

Netflix is indicating that its account-sharing crackdown will expand and target its remaining freeloaders over the next two quarters.  

Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters was asked during a Wednesday earnings call about the company’s progress in completing the crackdown, which began in the US in Q2. "So, we're going to continue the rollout for the next couple of quarters. And I think folks are trying to figure out how much juice is left there,” Peters said. 

So far, the company has refrained from instituting a full crackdown to avoid alienating viewers. “We've always thought that making this change should be done in a steady, considered way. And so, our plan has been to stage out this rollout,” Peters added. “And as a result, I think as you're alluding to, there are a number of borrower cohorts, which has, as of today, have not received part of that experience.”

The goal has been to carefully nudge account-sharers into paying for the service, for instance, through an official Netflix subscription option called paid sharing. But it now looks like the streaming giant is close to bringing down the hammer on all remaining account borrowers, whether they pay or not. 

“There's a set of borrowers that we're not going to convert. We haven't converted yet. We're not going to convert over the next couple of quarters,” Peters said. “But that really represents how we think about paid sharing going forward, which is it’s now become part of just our standard way of operating.” 

When this was first announced, some Netflix users said they'd cancel their subscriptions. But so far, the streaming giant has seen its customer base grow since the crackdown began. In Q3, the streaming giant added 8.8 million subscribers —1.75 million of which came