Currently, the streaming service has more than 220 million users
Sharing a Netflix account is a common practice, which is why the company wants to monitor it more tightly next year.
The company claims that it currently has 223 million users, but close to 100 million people use the streaming service without paying or sharing an account, which creates the need to stop this situation by thinking about the platform’s income.
Beyond sanctioning or canceling shared accounts, what the application seeks is to monetize this practice, taking advantage of the access it gives more people and not scaring away those who are already using it.
Netflix has been making efforts to control this situation. A few months ago, the ‘add home’ option was enabled in some countries, which would allow people who lived outside their main home to access the platform by paying a lower subscription fee.
This has been tested in Argentina, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic, but has been discontinued in order to organize a “simpler method” for next year.
To determine that a person was using the app outside of the primary home, the app implemented various tools such as account history, IP addresses, and device IDs.
Along with this, it created a system for main users to report a change of address or a trip and have the option of using the platform outside their home.
Given the completion of these tests, The Wall Street Journal assures that Netflix discovered several problems in this plan, but that did not end their efforts to act against shared accounts.
One of the problems that the company detected was the difficulty of accurately finding the location of users, in addition to finding solutions for those who use the app on mobile devices.
The sum of the efforts and the high level of people who access the streaming service without paying or without having a main account make the company focus its efforts for the next year on ending this situation and making a profit.
At the moment, the details of the plan and the changes that will be implemented are unknown, as well as the regions in which there will be a focus, as happened with the tests of previous projects that were carried out only in Latin America. The report only makes it clear that it will be carried out at “early 2023”.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the actions that Netflix will take will be the beginning of a position that other similar platforms would take, since it is a practice that is present in more applications, even marketing the same account to sell access to each of the profiles that are allowed.
The decision to fight against this situation comes just at the end of a year in which the loss of users has marked the platform, in addition to having added an economic plan with advertising, which has not had a good start because, according to data from Antenna, this option was chosen by only 9% of new users in the United States during November.
Trish Taylor is a renowned name in the world of entertainment. She covers all the major movements in the movies and anime world. She is the editor-in-chief at Global Web Wire.