Posted in: Netflix, Opinion, streaming, TV, TV | Tagged: commentary, netflix, opinion, password sharing, streaming

Netflix Breaks Up with Password Sharing After 5-Year "Love" Affair

When I think of Netflix right at this very moment, three things come to mind. First, we're excited as hell for the return of The Umbrella Academy this June. Second, our monthly subscriber bill is going up. And finally (and the reason for this post), the streaming service is going to start cracking down on password sharing moving forward. Now I know many of you out there right now are thinking, "Are you kidding me, Ray?! Sharing your Netflix password is as American as Mom, apple pie, baseball, and slowing down past car accidents for a peek under the sheet! They can't do that to us!" And to that, I would say… nothing, because you never know who's reading this and I don't need to suddenly start having "issues" to episode into TUA Season 3.

What I will say is that the news is true and that Netflix is test-running a new service where subscribers can pay to share their login intel. Over the next few weeks, subscribers in Chile, Costa Rica & Peru (what lottery did they lose?) can add extra subscribers for an additional cost of 2,380 Chilean Pesos (or $2.97); $2.99 in Costa Rica; and 7.9 Peruvian Sol (or about $2.11). From there, the streamer will evaluate how it went and roll it out from there. While Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings promised that there wouldn't be a "turn the screws" approach to combating password sharing, the days of the practice are numbered and it's been a long time coming.

Consider this "perfect storm" combo: Netflix has more streaming competition than ever before (Amazon's Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, etc.) for the same pool of viewers so keeping your committed viewers is key. Then you have the growing costs that come with being in a "content war" with a dozen other streamers as well as cable, which hits Netflix even harder considering the amount of original programming it puts out annually. Finally, you have the ripple effects from COVID-19 that impacted costs on a number of levels as more regions of the world slip back into lockdown. See what we mean? There was no way Netflix was going to let the status quo remain for much longer. But thanks to this beautiful mass media we call Twitter, we're able to time travel back five years to a time when the streaming service had very different feelings about password sharing. In fact, as you're about to see? They were in "love" with it:

And just in case that wasn't clear enough, let's isolate the "love letter" to password sharing that the streaming service apparently embraced five years ago:

But isn't that the crazy, wacky thing about love? It can burn so hot and so bright for so long, and then the next thing you know? your favorite streamer is asking for their favorite hoodie back and letting you know they're changing the WiFi password. But will Netflix be able to actually make a dent in curbing password sharing? Maybe but we doubt it because as history has taught us? Every tool that's ever been created to keep people from doing something they want to do or don't feel is a big deal will be hacked five minutes after it gets officially rolled out. We're just hoping that Netflix knows when to say when because there's nothing worse than an ex who just doesn't know when to stop.

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