Netflix will soon make US users pay to share accounts

Netflix customers in the US have been plagued by this spectre for several months. It seems that change is finally on the horizon, according to Netflix’s latest letter to shareholders. “In Q1, we launched paid sharing in four countries and are pleased with the results,” Netflix said. “We are planning on a broad rollout, including in the US, in Q2.” This new initiative called “paid sharing,” will essentially require users to pay an extra membership fee in order to add profiles for those living outside the household of the account owner.

Netflix released details in February on how this account-sharing system will work. It’s a bit confusing but here’s the core of it: Account holders will need to indicate a “primary location,” and people physically living in that household — people who are on the home’s network — can use that account. Users who want to create profiles of people living outside their home will need to pay a higher fee.

How many accounts are affected? Though it didn’t specify number of individual accounts, Netflix’s shareholder letter indicates account sharing is used in more than 100 million households. Netflix didn’t specify whether that just meant users’ additional profiles included within an account owner’s subscription tier, or whether that included hangers-on (like your younger brother who mooches off your goodwill) who happen to have a password they can use to log onto your account.

Netflix has multiple levels of subscription, with some allowing account holders to create additional profiles. Right now, only the two most expensive subscriptions — Standard ($15.49/month) and Premium ($19.99/month) — allow users to add extra members. Standard gives you one additional profile while Premium allows you to add two.

If someone outside of the household wanted the profile, they would have to pay an extra fee. (Polygon’s explainer on the new pricing plan goes into greater detail with a breakdown on what actual pricing looks like.) Basically, college students, long distance lovers, spread-out friend groups, adult-aged siblings — may the odds be ever in your favor, for duking out this new pricing.

Netflix has already rolled out paid sharing in four countries: Canada, New Zealand, Spain, and Portugal, and says it has been “pleased with the results,” according to the letter to shareholders. Apparently there’s a “cancel reaction” when Netflix launches paid sharing, but it appears that this initial loss is recovered as “borrowers” — which seems to be Netflix’s word for people who had previously enjoyed a profile on an account outside their household — activate new accounts, or existing users pay the additional fee for those “extra member” accounts.

Netflix announced that it would add anti-accountsharing measures by the end of 2022. Netflix reported their first month of ever-lower subscriber numbers in April 2022. Though the numbers improved in subsequent months, it seems that the fear has remained.

The platform is undergoing a few changes. Netflix announced it would also end its DVD rentals service in September. It’s truly the end of an era.