Most specialists relate this phenomenon to the end of the ‘boom’ in streaming content consumption that the pandemic brought. Recently, the consulting firm Kantar found that households in the United Kingdom are doing a “cleaning” of subscriptions, canceling services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney + or HBO Max, due to the rationalization of their family spending.
But Netflix is targeting another cause of its negative subscriber growth: password sharing outside the home.
In the United States and Canada alone, 30 million subscribers share passwords improperly, and it is estimated that the number rises to 100 million households worldwide.
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings has admitted that the company has been allowing this behavior without cracking down. He argued that this “probably helped fuel the growth of the platform by getting more people to use and enjoy Netflix.”
It specified that this practice is inappropriate when used outside the home, but that it is legitimate when profiling family members and used within the same roof.
When will Netflix stop sharing?
But this is about to change and the streaming video company has announced the start of a global strategy against password sharing outside the home. And, although it did not detail what these changes would consist of, Netflix estimated that they will arrive as early as 2023, according to information revealed by CNBC.