According to AndroidPolice, Netflix ought to roll out the new rules as soon as the end of this year. It seems nothing will prevent the streaming company from bringing new sharing rules, as it has already preemptively piloted it in Peru, Chile, and Costa Rica in March. When saying this, we mean that for “Account Sharing”, you must use the “Standard” and “Advanced” plans. In other words, users of the “Basic” plan cannot share accounts. The streaming giant revealed that it is testing a technology that will require subscribers to pay extra fees if the system detects that users with multiple addresses are logged into the same account.
To share a Netflix account, the rest two sub-accounts should be open and owned by non-residents. Therefore, multiple users will be able to watch videos simultaneously for free. As for the cost, taking Costa Rica as an example, each person will be charged an additional $2.99.
Netflix is Losing Millions
The above plan is still in the testing stage. For the time being, there is no concrete information on when Netflix will launch it globally. However, when it happens, Netflix might lose even more subscribers than now. As you know, in the first quarter of the year, Netflix loses hundreds of thousands of subscribers. What’s worse, it’s predicted that the streaming service will lose more than 2 million subscribers within a year. So when it launches the new rules, it will inevitably cause greater fluctuations.
Recently, we have heard that Netflix has plans to launch a live broadcast service for new content such as reality shows and talk shows to restore a large number of lost users.
Netflix says the cost of an additional account is 30% to 40% of a basic membership. In the UK, £2.99 a month means subscribers on the most expensive plan pay £21.97 a month for 2 people living elsewhere.
Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings said the company is considering rolling out ads on cheaper subscription plans and will “address that in the next year or two.”
For many subscribers, these changes are not acceptable. And as there are many other similar services, there could be an escape from Netflix to HBO, Disney Plus, etc. But according to Netflix’s calculations, there are up to 100 million subscribers that watch its content due to shared credentials. Because of the decline in the number of subscribers and income, the company has already canceled many projects. So like it or not, Netflix has to make some adjustments in its plans and the overall system.