Netflix is finally following through on its promise of cracking down on password sharing in the global market. And after months of slipping under the radar, South Africa has been included in the streamer’s final push which implements the ‘new’ password-sharing rules in every country where Netflix operates.
That means accounts living outside of the primary account holder’s residence will no longer be able to access Netflix, with the streamer forcing those members to pay for their own accounts. Yeah, we’re not fans either. Netflix has already begun sending emails to those affected South African members, warning them of the new policy.
Pay it forward more money
You’ve got to hand it to Netflix. Despite massive pushback when Netflix first announced it would be making these changes, it forged ahead. Twitter’s most online servants threatened to cancel their subscriptions entirely in protest but a full-blown protest wasn’t able to take shape.
At least, that’s what the streamer’s most recent shareholder letter says, claiming the password-sharing crackdown massively increased the company’s revenue in the second quarter of 2023.
“In May, we successfully launched paid sharing in 100+ countries, representing more than 80% of our revenue base… The cancel reaction was low and while we’re still in the early stages of monetization, we’re seeing healthy conversion of borrower households into full paying Netflix memberships as well as the uptake of our extra member feature.”
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No extra members for you (or anyone, really)
To make matters worse, Netflix has said it won’t be rolling out the sub-account feature in many of the new markets, South Africa included, according to the shareholder letter.
That’s despite the apparent money-maker the feature is by Netflix’s own admission, which allows for certain markets (like the US and Canada) to pay a reduced fee to add new members outside of the primary household.
“In these markets, we’re not offering an extra member option given that we’ve recently cut prices in a good number of these countries (for example, Indonesia, Croatia, Kenya, and India) and penetration is still relatively low in many of them so we have plenty of runway without creating additional complexity.”
Notice anything funny there? The streamer said it cut prices of its subscription in “a good number” of these countries, justifying the lack of an extra member option. South Africa, however, was not one of the countries lucky enough to receive the cut. Hey, at least it didn’t raise them either. That’s a win, right? Right?
It’s worth noting that affected members (AKA leechers) do still have the option of migrating their profile to a brand-new account, one that they will have to pay for, a rather new feature that Netflix built to better accommodate the incoming crackdown.
We guess we’ll have to find some new way of expressing our love. Thanks, Netflix.