Netflix to Crackdown on Password Sharing in 2023; New Ad-Supported Plan Has a Sluggish Start

Streaming giants Netflix will be making a major change next year, as the platform intends to stop password sharing among users.

According to a report on The Wall Street Journal, the new move will see more than 100 million users being affected, as Netflix continues to face subscriber losses.

The report suggests that the streaming platform tried its best to stray away from the idea, as Netflix continued to introduce new plans and methods to circumvent the losses they incurred from users sharing the same account with friends and family members.

Netflix originally had plans to crackdown on password sharing in 2019. However, the COVID-19 pandemic saw the platform receiving a major influx of subscribers, which essentially masked the problems they had been facing for several years.

As mentioned by Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s latest move will definitely see disappointing reactions from the platform’s users. “Make no mistake, I don’t think consumers are going to love it right out of the gate,” he said.

With users having more streaming platforms to experience than ever before, Netflix runs the risk of losing out loyal customers to its competitors, and it remains to be seen if this change will pay off in the end.

Netflix’s Basic with Ad plan doesn’t receive the best of starts

To attract new customers and keep existing ones, Netflix introduced a cheaper plan with ads for users to try. The new Basic with Ads plan saw customers receiving the benefits of the platform’s Basic subscription plan at a cheaper cost in exchange for some ads.

However, it seems like the new Netflix plan hasn’t really hit the ground running. According to a Variety report, only 9% of US signups on Netflix in November 2022 were with the Basic with Ads plan, which makes it the platform’s least popular subscription plan.

To put things into comparison, 15% of HBO Max users signed up for its plan with ads, when it was introduced earlier this year.

Following its release, the plan with ads on HBO Max eventually became more popular. In the end, it remains to be seen if Netflix’s Basic with Ads plan will also see a similar growth as well.