Has Netflix Revealed Date for New Password-Sharing Restrictions in the United States?
Believe it or not, it seems to actually be happening this time. Netflix first warned users in October 2022 that rules to stop password sharing were coming to the United States in 2023. Executives initially indicated those restrictions would roll out in the first quarter of this year, but moved the worldwide release date to the second quarter to gather more data from test launches around the world.
Well, Q2 is roughly halfway over, and while there’s been little movement from the company so far, that appears to be changing. Advanced Television reports that Netflix is warning service providers and telecommunications companies in the United Kingdom to expect a backlash from the implementation of password-sharing restrictions soon. The report says that Netflix intends to implement those rules “this month,” and that U.K. customers would start to receive warnings if their accounts were being used outside the home in “the coming weeks.”
While not yet confirmed, users in the United States should be braced for those rules to hit them at the same time. Netflix representatives have announced that most of its global territories will see the measures intended to curb password sharing introduced at the same time, so if they’re being rolled out in the U.K. in the next few weeks, the likelihood that they will also be introduced in the U.S. at the same time is very high.
Netflix reported in April that it was quite pleased with the results of its efforts to stop password sharing in Canada, where restrictions have been in place since February. Considering that the world’s largest streaming combines Canadian and American subscribers for reporting purposes, it would stand to reason that the company is hoping for similar results in the U.S.
Netflix could make as much as $3.5 billion in additional revenue from cracking down on account sharing, according to Wall Street estimates, as long as it can overcome the initial anger its users will register.
One way that the company is hoping to mitigate that anger is by driving those disgruntled users to its ad-supported tier. Netflix’s Standard with Ads plan has experienced a somewhat surprisingly slow rate of adoption since launching last November, but because it generates more money per subscriber than any other Netflix plan, the company is likely crossing its fingers that the rules to stop password sharing will drive more of its users to the lowest-priced plan.
Netflix’s password-sharing restrictions will ask users to set a primary location, so the service knows when that account is being used away from home. Users will be asked to open the Netflix app at that location while on Wi-Fi every month, though it will not block devices that attempt to access it away from that spot. Customers will also be prompted to pay for extra users accessing their account; in the United States, users should expect this monthly fee to be between $5-$8; though with the Standard with Ads’ monthly rate at $6.99, if Netflix wants to drive more customers to that plan, the extra-user fee could be on the upper end of that range.
There will certainly be a public backlash against Netflix when it officially enacts rules to stop password sharing, and users might want to start getting ready. The regulations could come any time in the next few weeks, and Netflix might drop them without warning to try to keep a lid on the worst of the reactions.
Netflix
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