The Netflix streaming platform announced in a press release published on Wednesday March 16 that it would study the possibility of charging its subscribers for sharing their passwords outside their homes.
The American group has decided to launch a test program in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru; subscribers will need to pay a fee on top of their monthly subscription (approximately $3 in Chile, $2.99 in Costa Rica, and approximately $2.12 in Peru) to be able to add up to two additional accounts to their profile.
“We’ve always allowed people who live together the ability to share their Netflix accounts with features like separate profiles and simultaneous streams for our Standard and Premium subscriptions”said in this press release Chengyi Long, director of product innovation at Netflix.
“While these features are extremely popular, they have also created a form of confusion about when and how Netflix can be used.she added. The fact that accounts are shared in this way affects our ability to invest in quality series and films for our members. »
In addition to paid password sharing, the Californian group will offer a service in the three test countries to transfer a profile to a new account in order to encourage the beneficiaries of password sharing to create their own subscription.
Declining growth in the face of competition
In 2021, Netflix tested a way to limit password sharing by sending certain customers a warning message to verify that the user actually lived in the same place as the account owner.
After having long been lenient on the subject, Netflix seems ready to tighten the screw when its growth is running out of steam. The company only gained 8.2 million paid accounts from September 2021 to December 2021 to end the year at 221 million and it is increasingly facing competition from Disney+.
Netflix increased the price of its subscriptions in the United States and Canada in January, then did the same in March in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The rates offered are generally higher than those of its rivals, but unlike most of them, the platform does not run any advertising.