Earlier this week, Netflix took one more step in its attempt to clamp down on password sharing by bringing measures tested in Latin American markets last year to Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain, with a broader rollout expected in the coming months.
While stating that over 100 million households are sharing accounts, Netflix gave its customers the benefit of the doubt, saying that its old rules and features “created confusion about when and how you can share Netflix.” In a further attempt to sugarcoat what many will see as a bitter pill, Netflix said that the new rules and features would “give members greater control over who can access their account,” when they might as well have said: “Don’t play dumb with us. We know you know who’s been using your account.”
Going forward, users will have the option to pay an extra fee to share their account with up to two people outside of their own household. Limited to one extra user in the standard tier and to two extra users in the premium tier, prices range from CAD$7.99 per person a month in Canada, NZD$7.99 in New Zealand to €3.99 in Portugal and €5.99 in Spain.
According to a 2022, that’s an option many people would like. Morning Consult found that 11 percent of streaming subscribers who share a password with someone else would definitely be willing to pay a higher subscription fee to legally share their account, while another 22 percent said they would probably be willing to cough up a couple of extra dollars. At the other end of the scale 23 of those currently sharing an account would definitely not pay extra, with another 32 percent probably not wanting to pay more.
