The days of Netflix password sharing with friends may soon be over.
In a blog post titled “Paying to Share Netflix Outside Your Household,” the company announced that it’s testing measures that would charge accounts extra for allowing users to stream outside of a given household.
“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,” Chengyi Long, Netflix’s Director of Product Innovation, wrote in the blog.
“While these have been hugely popular, they have also created some confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared. As a result, accounts are being shared between households – impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members.”
The streaming giant said over the next few weeks it will launch and test two new features for members of Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru.
The company said members on its Standard and Premium plans will be able to add sub accounts for up to two people they don’t live with – each with their own profile, personalised recommendations, login and password – at a lower price: 2,380 CLP in Chile, 2.99 USD in Costa Rica, and 7.9 PEN in Peru.
It added that members on its Basic, Standard, and Premium plans can enable people who share their account to transfer profile information either to a new account or an Extra Member sub-account – keeping the viewing history, My List, and personalised recommendations.
“We recognise that people have many entertainment choices, so we want to ensure any new features are flexible and useful for members, whose subscriptions fund all our great TV and films,” said Long.
“We’ll be working to understand the utility of these two features for members in these three countries before making changes anywhere else in the world.”
