These are dark days for lovers of movies and binge-worthy TV shows.
Streaming giant Netflix has recently announced that they will soon be axing the ability for users to easily share their accounts with friends and family.
Since last year, the popular streaming site began exploring ways to prevent users from sharing accounts and passwords in an effort made by Netflix to encourage users to purchase accounts of their own.
With the implementation of account restrictions beginning in Latin America, today the new rules imposed by Netflix will slowly roll out to users in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain.
For an extra $7.99 in Canada, standard and premium members now can add up to two additional member sub-accounts – with profiles, personalized recommendations, login information, and passwords – for people who don’t live with them.
According to Netflix, the mass sharing of accounts has led to the streaming giant struggling to invest in future TV series and films.
“We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account with features like profiles and multiple streams. While these have been hugely popular, they’ve also created confusion about when and how you can share Netflix. Today, over 100 million households are sharing accounts — impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films,” Netflix shared in a press release.
Despite the above, Netflix has reassured users who travel that they can still easily use the streaming program on their personal devices or log into a new TV, like at a hotel or holiday rental.
That being said, within hours of this announcement, users of the platform took to Twitter to voice their frustration with the platform.
Just give up. There is no spinning this positively and you are going to look awful no matter what. There’s no confusion here, it’s very clear what you are doing and people do not like it. Just accept you are going to lose more customers and deal with it.
— NEW GAMES HAVE RETURNED!!! (@TheyCallMeDSP) February 8, 2023
According to one post by Netflix back in 2017, the streaming service applauded the use of password sharing. Fast forward to 2023, and users were quick to address the irony on social media.
love is dead https://t.co/aO2ZEkDfDB
— Jill_Krajewski on IG (@JillKrajewski) February 8, 2023
With this disheartening news coming from the popular streaming site, how do you feel about the end of the platform’s password sharing era?
