Netflix users who have shared their passwords with friends and family members living hundreds or even thousands of miles away will no longer be able to do so, as the streaming service has announced its plans to prevent password sharing.
“Netflix wants to stop password sharing in order to get revenue from all these people who were getting free access,” said technology analyst Carmi Levy from London, Ontario.
“Later, in the first quarter, we plan to begin a wider introduction of paid sharing. At the moment, sharing is not implemented in Canada,” a Netflix representative said.
Some Canadian users who shared passwords with family and friends thought they had already been blocked after recently receiving a notification saying Netflix would no longer be available on their TV.
Netflix has 230 million paid subscribers worldwide, but it is estimated that up to 100 million people can watch movies with shared passwords.
Netflix announced the restrictions last year after losing subscribers for the first time in a decade.
According to a new survey conducted by Jefferies, 62 percent of those who share passwords said they would stop using Netflix because of the new policy. At the same time, 25 percent said they could not afford it, and 35 percent said they would use another streaming service.
It is known that countering the exchange of passwords will be widely organized in the 1st quarter of 2023.
