If you've been sharing a Netflix account with a group of friends or family members, get ready for some unwelcome news. Starting next year, the streaming giant is going to begin cracking down on users who share their accounts with users outside their households.
As the largest streaming platform in the world, with more than 220 million global subscribers, Netflix executives said Tuesday in a letter to its shareholders that it plans to begin implementing a system to oversee password-sharing — and offer options for those using other users' accounts to transfer that profile to their own subscription.
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The new system will also offer account holders the option to establish “sub-accounts" that will allow others to continue using their Netflix accounts by paying an added fee.
Though the company didn't specify what the new fees will be for users in the U.S., it has already rolled out a password-sharing practice in Latin America — charging an additional $2.99 for options to either "add a member," or "add a household" on shared accounts. It also unveiled a more affordable ad-based plan for $6.99/month starting Nov. 3, with commercials running for an average of 4-5 minutes an hour. (But let's be real, nobody wants to sit through five minutes of ads each hour while watching a tantalizing movie!)
Despite losing nearly 1 million subscribers in the second quarter, Netflix revealed that a whopping 2.4 million new users had signed up for its platform in its third-quarter earnings report— more than doubling its projections for the quarter. It attributed the bump to popular shows streaming exclusively on its site, such as "Strangers Things," "Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story," and "The Watcher." With so many original movies and shows Netflix has bankrolled, we can't wait to see the movie it makes about itself.
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