In Netflix They have been trying to find a way for us to stop sharing our platform account for quite some time and everything indicates that 2023 will be the decisive year for it. The goal is exactly the same as the recent ad-supported fee: to increase both the number of subscribers and, above all, revenue.
The previous steps
As you will remember, Netflix has already carried out certain actions to find the ideal formula to implement this important restriction. In several Latin American countries, one of the markets where the password is shared with other people the most, it gave the option of paying an extra so that those people who did not live at the address registered for the account could maintain access. The experiment did not go too well.
One of the main strategies for get that extra pay it was that those other people had to enter a code to continue using Netflix every time they entered and said code was received by the owner of the account. A nuisance that in some cases did lead to making that outlay and which, according to The Wall Street Journal, is a method that they are also considering implementing in the United States.
However, on Netflix they seem to be clear that not all forms of account sharing are equally harmfulsince it is not the same to do it between members of the same family than between strangers through dubious tactics to also register in countries where the cost of the platform is lower.
Among the steps it has been taking to facilitate the transition, the function “transfer profile“, designed for those who shared an account until then and who are now going to register separately. Easy to sell as a convenient way of not losing your data, but the motivation behind it has always been clear that it has been keep fighting against shared accounts.
The truth is that the company already made it clear a few months ago that 2023 was going to be the year in which this topic really went into series. The problem is in the details but it will not be for lack of effort, since in November he introduced a new measure that gives all the power over the account to the person who makes the payment at the end of each month.
This movement consisted in the fact that the owner of the account could block access to anyone else who is using it without the hassle of having to change your password. Again, there was a nice way to sell it: that allows you to add and remove devices if we are traveling and thus avoid inconvenience because Netflix thinks that the application is being misused. It is true, but it is also somewhat cumbersome and limits the comfort of its use, one of its great assets.
The doubts of Netflix
And it is that perhaps The biggest problem Netflix is facing With this initiative, it is aimed at those users who use the platform while traveling, whether during the journey or while staying at a second home or hotel. And then there are more complicated cases like what happens in India, where many people watch Netflix through their mobile phones and then stream it through other means.
What they do have clear from Netflix is that they want to avoid making it feel like a company imposition and that it be something that arises more or less naturally on the part of your clients. It may be that in some cases they succeed, but in many others it remains to be seen what the reaction will be. And it is that if they are too lax, the measure may end up having almost no effect, but if they go too hard, then do not be surprised if they get more unsubscribes from existing users than new customers.
For now, Netflix has not set a deadline to settle this matter, since it is likely that they themselves do not yet know what the star measure is to do so, but that it will be in 2023 is quite clear. And even more so if they want to continue breaking records like ‘Wednesday’ every so often, which would be impossible without more user growth…
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