Do you share your Netflix account with friends and family? Be prepared to pay extra soon

We all know at least one good Samaritan who shares their Netflix account credentials with their friends and family and bears the cost alone. Some of us use one account that we use with multiple people. All that might change soon. The streaming giant suffered losses earlier this year when it lost a million subscribers, though as of this month, it has bounced back. It clearly intends to continue on this trajectory of growth as it may be considering monetising account sharing. In the quarterly earnings call on Thursday, October 18, in which the company boasted of reversing its losses, it also said it has "landed on a thoughtful approach to monetize account sharing and we'll begin rolling this out more broadly starting in early 2023."

"After listening to consumer feedback, we are going to offer the ability for sharers to manage their devices more easily and to create sub-accounts, if they want to pay for family or friends," it continued in a shareholder letter.

As per LadBible, the feature, called ''add a home' was tested in a few South American countries like Argentina, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The publication said the users had to pay a fee (one-quarter of the basic rate) to let others watch movies and shows using their accounts.

Chengyi Long, the Director of Product Innovation at Netflix, had earlier said in a statement: "Over the last 15 years, we’ve worked hard to build a streaming service that’s easy to use, including for people who travel or live together. It’s great that our members love Netflix movies and TV shows so much they want to share them more broadly."

She'd added, "But today’s widespread account sharing between households undermines our long-term ability to invest in and improve our service. So we’ve been carefully exploring different ways for people who want to share their account to pay a bit more. In March 2022, we launched an 'add extra member' feature in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru."

It remains to be seen whether Netflix's comeback was driven by shows like 'Stranger Things', or the streaming giant is really resurgent.

The troubles of the company really began when legacy film studios like Disney and Warner Bros decided to jump on the streaming bandwagon with services like Disney+ and Warner Bros and began to eat into Netflix's share. Unlike Netflix, these services come bundled with several decades of legacy content, including millions of hours of well-loved, and rewatch-friendly TV shows like Lizzie McGuire (in the case of Disney +) and 'Friends' (in case of HBO Max).