Netflix just raised prices to $20 a month for the HD plan, but now is doubling down on big changes, making subscribers who share their passwords with other people pay more.

They will effectively end password sharing. According to updated Netflix terms of service, a customer’s account “may not be shared with individuals beyond your household.” 


Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru will all be pilot countries for this program, which Netflix hopes to make global. 

Chengyi Long, director of product innovation at Netflix, said in a blog post, “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.”

They will also let people "transfer profiles to a new account," so members on the Basic, Standard, and Premium plans can enable people who share their account to transfer their profile information either to a new account or an Extra Member sub-account—keeping the personalized viewing history. 

There's no official word on how much more they'll charge you for sharing passwords in the United States, but it's 2,380 CLP in Chile, $2.99 USD in Costa Rica, and 7.9 PEN in Peru.

I wonder if they'll pivot and just have a flat fee you can pay with unlimited screens or users? Time will tell. What do you think of this?