Netflix, as a company, is really interested in making as much money as possible from its current users. This makes sense. Its plan to interest whole hordes of new users hasn’t worked out especially well so far. Might as well squeeze more out of the current crop, right?
One of the company’s plans was to introduce the ability to ‘share’ your password with someone who doesn’t live inside your home by paying a little extra. The initial experiment… didn’t go well. That’s not stopping the company from making the ‘feature’ more widely available anyway.
“Do it anyway” – Netflix
“While our terms of use limit use of Netflix to a household, we recognize this is a change for members who share their account more broadly,” said the company in its latest earnings report.
“As we roll out paid sharing, members in many countries will also have the option to pay extra if they want to share Netflix with people they don’t live with.” Netflix is spinning this like it benefits end users despite it representing a step back.
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And the company is well aware of this. In fact, it’s planned for it. Based on the company’s earlier experiments, “we expect some cancel reaction in each market when we roll out paid sharing.” But that’s apparently a contingency Netflix is okay with.
“[A]s borrower households begin to activate their own standalone accounts and extra member accounts are added, we expect to see improved overall revenue, which is our goal with all plan and pricing changes.”
In other words, it’s all about the money for Netflix. Not that anybody should have expected anything otherwise. Businesses are always run for the convenience of employees. Well, upper management and shareholders. The streaming game isn’t likely to be any different, just because they stuck Ryan Reynolds in a bunch of movies.