Héloïse Goy, with Alexis Patri
The Netflix film and series streaming platform, whose growth is running out of steam after a peak in subscriptions following confinements all over the world, wants to fight against account sharing. Chengyi Long, its director of product innovation, believes that this undermines its ability to invest in its programs.
Netflix is about to test a way to charge for sharing its passwords. Many of its users have taken to sharing or borrowing Netflix account passwords from loved ones. They may no longer be able to do so for free. At least that is the will of Netflix, whose growth has been faltering since last year and which is losing a lot of money with these password exchanges.
According to Chengyi Long, director of product innovation at Netflix, the fact that accounts are shared in this way affects Netflix’s ability to invest in quality series and films. The platform announced in a statement on Wednesday that it would study the possibility of charging its subscribers for sharing their passwords outside their homes.
Tests and price increases
Concretely, nothing is effective for the moment. But the American company has announced that it will launch a test program in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru. To be able to add up to two additional accounts to their profile, subscribers from these three countries will have to pay a sum in addition to their monthly subscription. A sum corresponds to 2 to 3 dollars per month.
Netflix will also offer a service to encourage those who benefit from the accounts of their loved ones for free to create their own subscription. In recent weeks, Netflix has increased the price of its subscriptions in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland. A priori, no increase is planned in France for 2022. French prices had already increased last October.