It’s Confirmed! Netflix Password Sharing To End, Says New CEO. How Will It Impact Indian Users?

Netflix will soo put a stop to sharing of passwords concept and everyone watching content on the site will now have to start paying.

Delhi: Sharing Netflix password was not just a gesture but more like an emotion of trust and more. The video-streaming app so far had been pretty lax about the concept of password sharing but after experiencing loss and losing subscribers, it announced last year that by 2023, the concept will be put to end. Recently, in an interview with Bloomberg, co-CEO -Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters divulged on end of password sharing

Peters said that the company will not sacrifice consumer experience, even as it controls password sharing, and this will be a “graduated approach.” Nonetheless, he added,  “the vast majority of people who are not paying for Netflix will have to pay for Netflix. It gets to a pretty firm kind of position.”

The CEOs agreed that this service will likely face some “unhappy customers” but believe that if they continue to deliver content like Wednesday, Glass Onion every week, they will get the vast majority of those viewers back.

They further highlighted that password sharing becomes a hurdle with growing competition. They are currently looking at increasing subscriber base to 15-20 million, especially with focus on countries like India. “India has an incredible movie culture,”  said Sarandos.

What it means for Indian users?

This initiative will be done in a phased manner and  will not a “a universally popular kind of event.” There is no information on a guaranteed date and procedure that will effect Indian customers.

But, according to a report by CNET, Netflix will start start launching the account-sharing fees beyond its test countries before the end of March and that a full, global rollout will take a couple quarters. That means, there is a possibility that India too comes into the loop by March 2023 but it is not confirmed.

The company also said the rollout would be progressive across its markets.

How much will it cost? How will password sharing be identified?

To go by reports, Netflix hasn’t given any numbers for Indian users yet, with an amount at par with global pricing can be expected.

On identifying of accounts sharing password, Netflix help-center pages say the service detects an account household by looking at IP addresses, device IDs and account activity from devices logged in to the same account, reported CNET.