Malcolm Owen
Netflix's move to try and reduce instances of password sharing has resulted in a rise in new sign-ups for the subscription video service, which may be a sign the program is working as intended.
On May 23, Netflix started to email accounts in the U.S. who are sharing their passwords and access to the service with others outside of their home. Weeks later, analysis indicates there is an uptick in new subscribers that seemingly correlates with Netflix's move.
According to Antenna, Netflix had the four single largest days of U.S. user acquisition in the last four and a half years, just after it started to warn account sharers. The analytics firm said Netflix enjoyed nearly 100,000 daily sign-ups on both May 26 and May 27.
Since sending warnings out, the average daily sign-ups for Netflix has reached 73,000, which is a 102% increase over the average for the previous 60 days. The spikes in sign-ups were also higher than those observed during the first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns in March and April of 2020.
While sign-ups rose, so did the numbers of those canceling their subscription, though not to the same level. Cancellations were up 25.6% compared to the previous two months' average.
While the figures are beneficial to Netflix, it is a collection of data that's produced externally to Netflix, rather than Netflix-supplied data, so there's a chance that the real numbers may be different.
Subscribers who received the email were given the option to add an extra member to an account for a $7.99 monthly fee, or they could potentially export a profile for an out-of-home user for them to create their own full account.
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3 Comments
This doesn't even make sense because while Netflix started threatening US users last month with emails saying the password sharing crackdown was happening (I received one of these emails); to my knowledge they haven't actually started implementing it yet in the US. I haven't seen any reports of users being kicked off or having issues with their password sharing yet in the US.
If just the mere email threat was enough to get people to make so many new accounts, then there is no hope of any consumer resistance against any corporate decision or greedy change. IF these analyst's numbers are even correct.
For years I haven't been seeing much interesting new content to warrant the cost for the service but hung around anyway. While we don't share our account password, Netflix making this change was enough to prompt me to revisit whether I wanted to continue with Netflix. I decided it was time to bail. Plenty of other services that are entertaining me more. Funny, if they hadn't made me think about them, I probably would have let them continue to take my money for years to come.