Netflix pulls the trigger of its password-sharing crackdown weapon

Netflix has implemented its long-anticipated crackdown on password sharing, with its 2017 social media comment about love being sharing a password becoming the first casualty.

Gone are the days when love meant sharing a Netflix password. Now, love means paying for your friend’s password so they can stream using their own account.

Starting May 24, if you hear Netflix’s famous ta-dum sound at the beginning of your binge, someone else will be paying for it. At least, that’s no longer the case in the United States.

While Netflix has been testing its anti-password sharing measures in countries like Portugal, Canada, New Zealand, and Spain for several months, the ban on sharing passwords outside of a single household is now being rolled out in the United States.

Netflix will send an email to its members in the United States who share their Netflix account outside their household, informing them about the password-sharing policies.

The original plan was to implement the password-sharing crackdown in the United States at the beginning of this year, but Netflix postponed it to May.

For Netflix subscribers in the United States with a Standard plan costing $15.49 per month, they will have the option to add one additional member who can use the service outside the household for an extra $7.99 per month.

Subscribers to the Premium package with 4K streaming can add up to two extra members, with each additional member costing $7.99 per month.

However, subscribers on the Basic or Standard plans with Ads, which cost $9.99 and $6.99 per month, respectively, cannot add extra members to their account.

According to a Netflix support page, the “extra members” will have their own password and profile, but the person who invited them will be responsible for paying for their access. Extra member accounts must be activated in the same country, and they can only stream or download content on one device at a time.

In April 2022, it was reported that over 100 million households were accessing Netflix through password sharing, coinciding with the company’s first decline in subscribers in more than a decade. As part of its strategy to revive subscriber growth, Netflix began cracking down on password sharing after April 2022.