Netflix Implements Global Password-Sharing Restrictions

According to TechCrunch, Netflix has expanded its crackdown on password sharing to countries such as India and Croatia, thereby blanketing the whole world (or at least the portions of it that have Netflix) with a regulation change that has ruffled feathers since its announcement late last year.

Anybody in one of those countries who is currently using another person’s account will now have to establish their own account and pay a monthly fee to continue viewing Netflix.

Netflix will test this approach in select locations in late 2022 before spreading it to the United States (and other countries) in May. In the United States, customers can pay an additional monthly cost to add profiles for persons who do not live in the account holder’s household.

According to TechCrunch, in these new areas like India, those extra customers would have to establish their own accounts, which Netflix attributes to poor current penetration.

As inconvenient as the new policy is, Netflix has noticed favourable results since its installation. In the last three months, the corporation recruited roughly six million new members, at least some of them were probably using a friend’s account previously. Whether or not those people choose to stay long-term remains to be seen.