Netflix Is Trying To Charge Extra For Password Sharing

The way we consume television and movies was forever changed in 2014 when the final 300 Blockbusters closed their doors. From that moment until recently Netflix was the king of streaming.

From the days of getting your movies in the mail to the Netflix and chill era, Netflix is a staple in the culture. One thing that is synonymous with Netflix and streaming services, in general, is password sharing and account sharing. Well, Netflix is testing out ways to end account sharing.

Netflix will charge account holders an extra fee to have extra people on the account who are not in the household of the account holder. They will have the ability for a fee to add non-household members to their accounts. Netflix will test out this idea in Chile, Peru, and Costa Rica.

According to Variety Netflix's director of product innovation Chengyi Long stated:

“We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account, with features like separate profiles and multiple streams in our Standard and Premium plans, While these have been hugely popular, they have also created some confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared. As a result, accounts are being shared between households — impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members.”

If you have had your ear to the streaming wars streets and just to the movie and tv zeitgeist then you know they have been floating around this idea for a while. However quite frankly its a load of garbage for the director of product innovation to blame account sharing stating that it is impacting their ability to invest in new tv and films.

No the reason why they are having trouble investing in the new material is that they keep dropping trash movies and tv shows and the investors are getting fed up. You couple that with the fact that HBO max, Amazon, Apple TV, Hulu, and Disney plus have all come in with better and more appealing content than Netflix. Netflix investors are seeing that the shows Netflix has been putting out have been average to trash. But enforcing this rule and raising the prices aren't going to solve their problems. Honestly, it will drive people away from an expensive service that doesn't have good enough content to justify the price. The era of Netflix and chill is over.

Social Media Reacts To The Netflix Announcements

Social media has not reacted well to the news of this test. And to be honest I agree with them. The quality of the content that Netflix is putting out doesn't justify the price. If it was Disney plus, Hulu, HBO Max, or even Amazon I could get behind it because the quality of the content is incredible plus they have a solid quantity amount. After Netflix lost the rights to their back catalog of NBC comedies, Warner Bros shows and movies, and Disney content they lost a lot of their luster. And you would think that the Netflix originals would be great and enough to justify the cost; however, that just isn't the case. Netflix has gotten progressively worse and at this point, the content they put out is subpar at best and trash at worst. If I cant share my account with others I will just end up canceling my Netflix account because there is better content elsewhere!