Mistake, or backpedaling?
Netflix (NFLX) – Get Free Report has been all over the news for a not-so positive reason — as subscriptions slow and competition from platforms like HBO Max and AMC Plus (AMC) – Get Free Report steepens, the streaming platform decided to cut costs by messing with a feature that a majority of its customers consider untouchable.
Last fall, Netflix announced plans to crack down on password sharing and start charging those who let a friend or family member share their account. After telling shareholders that the practice “undermines our long-term ability to invest in and improve Netflix,” the platform began testing “paid sharing” in countries such as Chile, Costa Rica and Peru earlier this year.
Netflix estimated that over 100 million households currently share their account password with someone else.
The decision caused an outcry among customers who felt like they were being squeezed and scolded for something that the company once encouraged. A 2017 tweet in which Netflix said that “love is sharing a password” once again went viral in the wake of the announcement.
Netflix Makes Embarrassing Mistake With Password-Sharing Rules Letter
In what may be the worst possible time to send out mixed messages, Netflix accidentally posted the guidelines on how it plans to crack down on password-sharing earlier this week.
“A primary location is set by a TV that is signed into your account and is connected to your Wi-Fi network,” the guidelines that were posted on the Netflix Help Center before getting removed on Tuesday. “All other devices signed into your account on that Wi-Fi network will be associated with your primary location and will be able to use Netflix.”
As the leaked guidelines also started going viral, Netflix quickly removed them from its site and told media outlets that the guidelines were posted in error and only apply to the three countries where the paid sharing is being tested.
“For a brief time yesterday, a help center article containing information that is only applicable to Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru went live in other countries,” Netflix said of the guidelines. “We have since updated it.”
Netflix Is Still Committed To The Password-Sharing Crackdown
But despite the platform’s insistence that nothing posted in the guidelines currently applies to the United States or any other Western country, Netflix is still committed to starting its password-sharing crackdown.
At the end of January, representatives said that it plans to start blocking those who try to access Netflix outside a primary account without an expanded subscription “more broadly later in Q1.” This means sometime before the end of March 31, 2023.
The U.S.-based Netflix Help Center also currently states that “a Netflix account is for people who live together in a single household” while those “who do not live in your household will need to use their own account to watch Netflix.”
So far, this decision has not been going over well on the internet. Along with widespread mockery of the guidelines mistake, Twitter users pointed out that the policy will only serve to anger and further alienate subscribers already leaving in unprecedented numbers due to higher prices and wide availability of interesting content on various other platforms.
“LOL taking bets on how quickly they reverse this based solely on outrage generated before the policy even goes into effect,” wrote science journalist and frequent tech commentator Erin Biba.
