After successfully putting its for-pay account sharing to the test in Latin America, Netflix has now extended its efforts to stop password sharing to four additional countries. password sharing netflix

Users in Spain, Portugal, Canada, and New Zealand will no longer be able to share their Netflix accounts for free with friends or relatives who live outside of their homes. Although the business is promoting the change as a method to provide “users greater control over who can access their account,” the actual motivation is financial.

Announcing the widening of its account-sharing controls, Netflix says: “We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account with features like profiles and multiple streams. While these have been hugely popular, they’ve also created confusion about when and how you can share Netflix. Today, over 100 million households are sharing accounts — impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films”.

The company goes on to say: So over the last year, we’ve been exploring different approaches to address this issue in Latin America, and we’re now ready to roll them out more broadly in the coming months, starting today in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain. Our focus has been on giving members greater control over who can access their accounts.

Netflix emphasizes that an account is meant for a single family. While the business is marketing the paid-for account sharing extension as a way to raise additional funds to spend in series and movies, it is uncertain just how many account sharers will be persuaded to pay up.

Sharing details of pricing, Netflix says: Members on our Standard or Premium plan in many countries (including Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain) can add an extra member sub-account for up to two people they don’t live with — each with a profile, personalized recommendations, login and password — for an extra CAD$7.99 a month per person in Canada, NZD$7.99 in New Zealand, Euro 3.99 in Portugal, and Euro 5.99 in Spain.

Why is Netflix stopping password sharing? When does love end?

Nearly six years ago, Netflix made a simple claim on Twitter: “Love is sharing a password.”

Love is sharing a password.

— Netflix (@netflix) March 10, 2017

More than 100 million Netflix subscribers have shared passwords since then with their friends, family, ex-spouses, and even total strangers, according to the company’s fourth-quarter shareholder letter. In a letter to shareholders last month, the company claimed that watchers free-riding off of someone else’s account “undermines our long-term ability to invest in and improve Netflix.”

Netflix Reports Loss of Subscribers, Accelerates Anti-Sharing Policies

Netflix has been testing different ways to discourage password sharing in some of its Latin American markets since last March. The model proposed on Wednesday was first tested in Peru, Chile and Costa Rica.

The company reported a loss of 1.2 million paying subscribers in the first half of 2022, which prompted it to accelerate the crackdown on account sharing. Netflix also launched a new ad-supported subscription tier at a lower price point last November.

Netflix stated in its shareholder letter that the first quarter of 2023 would see a wider implementation of its anti-sharing policies. The corporation stated that while these new policies may have a short-term negative impact on “near-term member growth,” overall revenue would increase as more users who previously received accounts for free converted to paying customers.

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