Pain. Just pain
The glory days of dodging having to pay for a
Netflix account may be coming to an end.
The steamer's director of product innovation, Chengyi Long, told
Variety that a test scheme will soon be put in place to crack down on Netflix account sharing - a fairly commonplace tactic the company has seemingly ignored for years.
Netflix's
terms of service actually spells things out pretty plain and simple, "any content accessed through the service... may not be shared with individuals beyond your household", but, by the sounds of it, they're now taking that more seriously.
Under the trial, account holders will be asked to pay an additional fee for users outside their households (not dissimilar to paying for more users when you exceed the limit), with the plan being rolled out in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru to start with before they decide whether to implement it as a permanent part of the subscription.
In the test countries, the cost for adding a sub-member is 2380 CLP (Chilean peso) in Chile, $2.99 (US dollars) in Costa Rica, and 7.9 PEN (Peruvian sol) in Peru. This works out at about £2-3 for Brits.
Writing in a
Netflix blog post, Long said: "We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account, with features like separate profiles and multiple streams in our Standard and Premium plans.
"While these have been hugely popular, they have also created some confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared. As a result, accounts are being shared between households - impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members."
The test period is due to begin in the next few weeks.
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