Netflix Is Planning To Take More Action On Password Sharing As Subscriber Number Dips

gamerant.com:

Netflix lived with their users sharing passwords up until now because it didn't hurt the growth of their subscriber count. Now that outside forces have since changed the game — i.e. more streaming services — thus affecting their subscriber count, those running the show at Netflix are changing their approach.

After Netflix reported a quarterly subscriber loss yesterday — going from 221.84 million to 221.64 million — for the first time in its history, Netflix has decided to crack down on the users who share their passwords with friends and family. While Netflix believes that password sharing played a part in the service growing as big as it did, they also believe it's prominent enough to also currently disrupt the business.

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“This is a big opportunity as these households are already watching Netflix and enjoying our service,” the company wrote in its letter to its shareholders. “Sharing likely helped fuel our growth by getting more people using and enjoying Netflix. And we’ve always tried to make sharing within a member’s household easy, with features like profiles and multiple streams. While these have been very popular, they’ve created confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared with other households.” In this same letter, Netflix estimates that “over 100 million” households worldwide are using shared Netflix accounts, including more than 30 million in the U.S. and Canada, and they cite this as a factor for “creating revenue growth headwinds.”

Though Netflix wants to crack down on this in hopes of righting the ship regarding their subscriber count, they understand that doing so can't be done right away. “It’ll take a while to work this out and get that balance right,” COO Greg