Will Netflix account sharing be restricted after all?

Bad news for all users who share a Netflix account to reduce the cost of subscription? What is certain is that Netflix wants to accelerate its strategy to limit the sharing of an account between several people.

Account sharing totals approximately 100 million free profiles currently on Netflix. This situation has significantly reduced the number of subscribers and the turnover of the American giant. To remedy this, Netflix has officially announced that account sharing will be prohibited from 2023. This new regulation aims to restrict account sharing with multiple profiles. However, it will still be possible to use the same account among family members.

Netflix pricing in 2023: new subscription regulations

Netflix is undoubtedly the video platform that offers the most competitive prices for quality services on the market. In 2023, the American giant does not intend to lower the price of its subscriptions. With the Basic offer with ads, you can expect to watch about four to five minutes of advertising per hour of film or series watched. This equates to approximately eight ad breaks, or an average of one minute of advertising for every seven minutes of video content viewed.

However, the advertisements will not affect “Kids” profiles. Also, certain Netflix original series and films, which have just been released, will not be cut by a commercial break.

A new service will be launched before April 2023

“Today’s widespread account sharing (100M+ households) undermines our long-term ability to invest in and improve Netflix, as well as build our business” wrote Netflix, planning to implement introduces its password sharing billing system before April 2023.

To identify misuse of an account, Netflix relies on the IP address of the internet connection, the ID of the device used to connect, and finally “the account activity”. For legitimate use outside of your current geographic location, Netflix may ask you, after a certain period of time, to verify your account by email or SMS. A procedure that will be repeated over time, to discourage potential fraudsters.

The end of account sharing on Netflix?

For users wishing to share their account on a regular basis with an acquaintance outside the home, Netflix will offer additional billing. In Latin America (Chile, Peru and Costa Rica), where the service has been trialled, the monthly additional cost is around $3/month. However, as stated in a recent article published by The Guardian, these guidelines have also been posted accidentally across its help centre pages (including in the US), but had since been taken down.

To share your password with someone, you will now have to pay an additional fee of around 3 dollars, or 2.81 euros. Although this measure has been tested in some countries, it is possible that the platform requires you to simply take another account with a flat-rate subscription to allow another person to take advantage of the Netflix subscription.

“Although Netflix has yet to unveil its plans to tackle account sharing worldwide, the trial is the closest indication to what a global approach might look like.”

What could be next for Netflix?

The fact that Netflix paused implementing these practices is clearly a win for consumers, but it looks like the battle won’t stop there. The company has made it very clear that they will continue to look for solutions to this “issue”. How that will materialize, we don’t know yet.

Perhaps the company could implement an additional fee for each home in addition to the main one, and ideally this fee should cost less than an entire subscription.

Alternatives to Netflix: a wide choice accessible with or without a VPN

Whether intentionally or not, Netflix users may need to switch platforms. For example, the service may not be accessible due to their location. Access to Netflix is indeed blocked in some countries, including China. One of the solutions is to download a VPN to bypass the censorship imposed by the Chinese government and other states.

However, some Internet users may seize the opportunity to change the referring platform. And why spend when you can access thousands of video content for free on some platforms? Let’s find out right away what the free alternatives to Netflix are.