TL;DR
- Netflix released its fourth quarter earnings report on Thursday.
- The report reveals that the company is ready to start cracking down on password sharing.
- Anyone who shares a password with someone who does not live with them will have to pay an additional fee.
The days of sharing Netflix passwords with friends and family for free are coming to an end. The company said it plans to crack down on freeloaders starting in the first quarter.
Netflix released its fourth-quarter earnings report on Thursday, revealing better-than-expected subscription numbers. Despite growing subscriber numbers, the company used the report to follow up on its warnings about fighting password sharing.
“Later in the first quarter, we will begin rolling out paid sharing more broadly. Today’s extensive account sharing (over 100 million households) is a long-term investment in Netflix to improve and build our business. Netflix said. “As we roll out paid sharing, members in more countries will also have the option to pay extra if they want to share Netflix with people they don’t live with.”
In case you didn’t know, Netflix is already testing its paid-sharing model, rolling out in countries like Argentina, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. The push has expanded the paid sharing model globally, requiring users to either create their own accounts or pay a little extra to share.
During the testing phase of the paid sharing model, Netflix users will set up their primary residence. If he needed a second residence, the Argentinian user had to pay $1.70, while in other countries he paid $2.99. The number of residences you can add depends on your subscription plan. Basic gets 1 dwelling, Standard gets 2, and Premium gets 3 dwellings.
No mention is made of how much a user will pay for paid sharing. But if the global release of the model is similar to the test, the user can probably expect to pay between $1.70 and $2.99 on top of the existing plan.