The days of freeloading off your ex’s Netflix account are coming to an end – the company has plans to start charging subscribers for sharing their accounts in early 2023, according to its latest investor letter.
Although the streaming giant called it a “thoughtful approach” to monetising account sharing, it seems more in line with the company’s recent increased efforts to limit the practice of password sharing among those residing in different households.
According to Netflix, when users add another member to their account, they may be prompted to pay an (as yet undetermined) extra fee. The company also introduced a Profile Transfer feature to help each member bring along features like Viewing History and My List should they decide to sign up for a new account.
“After listening to consumer feedback, we are going to offer the ability for borrowers to transfer their Netflix profile into their own account, and for sharers to manage their devices more easily and to create sub-accounts (“extra member”), if they want to pay for family or friends,” the company said in the investor letter.
Users will be notified via email when the Profile Transfer options becomes available on their account. To transfer a profile, go to the “Transfer Profile” option under the Profile icon on the homepage.
Netflix added that it expects the profile transfer options to be popular for ‘account borrowers’ in countries with lower-priced ad-supported plans.
According to a report by CNET, Netflix has already started testing the scheme to charge users for password sharing in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru.
It stated that charges for a fee for each extra member is “roughly one-quarter of the price of a standard Netflix plan”. Netflix first announced its plan to test for users to pay extra for account sharing back in March 2022.
The Netflix ad-supported plan will launch next month in 12 countries namely Canada, Mexico, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, UK, US and Spain. Netflix explained that the Basic with Ads plan will have five minutes of advertising per hour. Existing plans remain ad-free.
Source: The Star
