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Netflix said it will offer shareholders a paid sharing account by the end of March.
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This is because it tries to prevent users from sharing their passwords with people outside their home.
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It follows a trial period in Latin America where adding an extra member costs up to $3 a month.
You have less than 10 weeks to continue sharing your Netflix account with anyone outside of your home before the company introduces a paid system.
Netflix first hinted that it would take drastic measures against password sharing last July, after the first loss of subscribers to hit 200,000 total users in over a decade in the first quarter of 2022.
In its letter to shareholders on Sunday, Netflix said it will introduce a paid sharing system in the first quarter of this year. This means that you can no longer provide your password for free until the end of March at the latest.
Netflix said account sharing affects more than 100 million households and that it “undermines our ability to invest and develop long-term in Netflix.” While the terms of use already limit account use to a single household, “we recognize this is a change for members who share their accounts more broadly,” he said.
“As we’ve made paid sharing available, members in many countries will also have the option to pay extra if they want to share Netflix with people they don’t live with,” the letter states. Subscribers will also be able to transfer a user profile to a new account.
Paid sharing has already been tried out in Costa Rica, Chile, and Peru, and for someone living outside the household, adding an extra member account costs between $2 and $3. Peruvian Netflix subscribers told Rest of World the policy was confusing and they were not subject to any enforcement of the rule.
The letter to shareholders says that some Latin American users have unsubscribed due to the change. As such, Netflix expects short-term engagement to decline, but overall revenue will increase as borrowers begin to subscribe on their own.
This new subscription follows the November launch of an ad-supported tier that can see up to five ads per hour. At $6.99 per month, “Ad Basic” is $3 cheaper than the cheapest ad-free tier.
Netflix did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
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