Netflix may soon start charging for sharing accounts

The popular streaming platform, Netflix, has just announced its plans to stop free password sharing between users outside the household, depending on their location. The change will first affect three countries in Central and South America — Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru.

In a news published on Wednesday, Netflix stated that it will begin testing new ways of sharing passwords between users. It is, the users who share an account in different households will have to pay extra fees.

“We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account, with features like separate profiles and multiple streams in our Standard and Premium plans,” the streaming giant said in the news release. “While these have been hugely popular, they have also created some confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared.”

Netflix noted that subscribers with standard and premium plans, after the implementation of the new restrictions of features – whatever you call it, will be able to add two sub-accounts for people who don’t live with the primary user.

Each of those sub-accounts will have their own profiles and in fact, separate credentials (login and password) and will cost 2,380 CLP in Chile 2.99 USD in Costa Rica, and 7.9 PEN in Peru. In the listed countries the primary users will have an option to “add an extra member” on standard and premium plans.

Netflix’s password-sharing phenomenon has always remained a less protected flow of sharing accounts between users. In simple words, with its Standard and Premium plans, the streaming service allows to share your account among your family in a household where you live together. Users may not share their accounts beyond their household as clearly stated in Netflix’s terms of use. However, people have used to share their Netflix accounts by simply sharing their credentials not only between different households but also across countries.

The company never really bothered about the improper use of its facility because it didn’t matter as only a limited number of devices can be used to stream simultaneously – as of now 4 devices on Premium plan, and 2 devices on Standard plan can watch at one time. It’s not yet known how the change will affect the simultaneous use of multiple devices at a time.

Netflix will also allow users to “transfer profile to a new account” keeping their viewing history My List and personalized recommendations.

It’s also not disclosed how the streaming giant will spread this change across other countries. Right now in Pakistan, Netflix offers four subscription plans costing from Rs. 250 to Rs. 1100 after reducing the prices by Rs. 400 on each plan in October 2021.