It’s the news that none of us wanted to hear. Netflix has turned the computers against our socialist system of the rich sharing passwords with the poor. It has been perfectly apparent that Netflix hasn’t fretted much over password sharing in the past, but the streaming service has announced in a statement that the days of free-loading off your neighbour’s decorator might be about to come to an end.
“If you don’t live with the owner of this account,” the message reads, “You need your own account to keep watching.” This is part of a new policy that Netflix is trialling to ensure that those watching share a household with the account holder.
According to a spokesman, Netflix tries “hundreds” of tests a year on a selected sample size. “This test is designed to help ensure that people using Netflix accounts are authorized to do so,” Netflix said in a statement.
This recent test run comes after an independent review by research firm Magid found that one in three Netflix users share their account with at least one other person.
In January The New York Times revealed announced that Netflix will no longer borrow from the banks having ran up $10-15 billion dollars worth of debt over the last decade whilst amassing their content library. Along with more original content, they aim to recoup some of their outgoings with tighter password rules.
With competition rising from the likes of Disney+ the company will want to up its subscription numbers from their current peak of 200 million global subscribers to something more in-line with the number of people who actually use the service.
At this stage it is unclear when the algorithm control will be rolled out across the service or whether it has proved effective, thus you might still have a little time freeloading left before last orders are called.
