Netflix Will Ask For Additional Costs Starting 2023 If Users Share Account Passwords With Others

Netflix has 223 million subscribers globally. (photo: dock.netflix)

JAKARTA - After months of testing, Netflix told its shareholders that it would charge additional fees if its users shared passwords or passwords with others starting in 2023.

The new rules will take effect globally from early 2023, where Netflix charges a little extra fees to major account holders for any user who accesses that account but stays in a different home.

Additional costs have not been revealed, but if it is similar to the trial programs carried out in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, the main account holders will have to pay around $3,000 per month to include up to two people who do not live in the same house.

Netflix announced the move during its latest quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, October 18 yesterday.

Under that rule, if the main account holders decide to stop sharing passwords, they can now integrate their profiles and all of their settings to new accounts using a migration tool launched by Netflix earlier this week.

Launching Digital Trends, Thursday, October 20, the video on demand platform is starting to test ways to get shared accounts to pay extra fees after noting the deepest customer losses ever to occur earlier this year.

The data disclosed during the shareholder meeting noted that Netflix had 223 million subscribers globally, showing a net addition of 2.4 million users during the July to September quarter.

After losing 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter and nearly a million in the second quarter, the company estimates 4.5 million new subscribers for the current quarter.

In addition to password sharing fees, Netflix plans to launch a cheaper subscription backed by ads early next month, namely Basic with Ads for IDR 108 thousand.

One of Netflix's big rivals, Disney+ also plans to introduce an ad-supported subscription package on December 8, costing $8 for IDR 124 thousand per month.