Popular movie streaming platform, Netflix, is testing features that will require subscribers to pay extra costs for sharing their accounts with people outside their household.
The company is already testing the features in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru, where subscribers on its standard and premium plans are being allowed to add up to two people.
In a blog post on its website, Netflix Director of Product Innovation, Chengyi Long said the company’s allowance of its customers to share their accounts with family members has created “confusion” on how and when accounts can be shared and that it would now allow members who share their accounts outside their household to do so more securely at an additional cost.
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“We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account, with features like separate profiles and multiple streams in our Standard and Premium plans.
“While these have been hugely popular, they have also created some confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared. As a result, accounts are being shared between households – impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members.
“So for the last year we’ve been working on ways to enable members who share outside their household to do so easily and securely, while also paying a bit more,” the post read.
Long added, “Over the next few weeks, we’ll launch and test two new features for our members in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru:
“Add an Extra Member: Members on our Standard and Premium plans will be able to add sub accounts for up to two people they don’t live with – each with their own profile, personalized recommendations, login and password – at a lower price: 2,380 CLP in Chile, 2.99 USD in Costa Rica, and 7.9 PEN in Peru;
“Transfer Profile to a New Account: Members on our Basic, Standard, and Premium plans can enable people who share their account to transfer profile information either to a new account or an Extra Member sub account – keeping the viewing history, My List, and personalized recommendations,” the post said.
Password sharing outside households is probably one of the biggest issues that Netflix faces with little success in previous attempts to curb it.