Netflix’s Password Sharing Crackdown Is Now Live In The US, Here’s What It Costs

At a certain point, it was starting to feel like Netflix’s proposed crackdown on password sharing was a bluff, that they would never actually go through with it, right?

Well, the time has come, and the new anti-password sharing system has reached the US at last. No more testing, it’s time to nuke those extra accounts.

There are currently four Netflix plans, and only two of them have the option to add on extra people for an extra cost, the other two will just block them entirely from the account with no recourse. We have:

• Netflix Standard with Ads – $6.99 a month (cannot add anyone)
• Netflix Basic – $9.99 a month (cannot add anyone)
• Netflix Standard – $15.49 a month (can add one person for $7.99 a month outside the household)
• Netflix Premium – $19.99 a month (can add two people for $7.99 a month each outside the household)

So yes it’s worse, a lot worse, than the old system. The restrictions on the lower tier accounts are because Netflix just wants people to sign up for their own accounts if the price is going to jump that much. And for Premium, you can now be paying up for $36 a month for Netflix with everything maxed out, which would dwarf the cost of every other streaming service, all of which do not have these password sharing measures in place, yet.

You may think “well I guess no more Netflix for me” after hearing this, whether you’re on someone’s account and will be kicked off, or if you will be the one charged extra for hangers-on. Netflix knows this will happen. They’ve said they view this as they would a normal price increase, that they expect some level of turnover and cancellation, but that in the long run, they think the benefits of new subscribers and additional payments for add-ons will outweigh whatever they lose from the initial blowback.

I’m not sure that logic holds. To me this all feels like when the music industry tried to argue against piracy by saying each downloaded song was a lost sale, which just clearly wasn’t true. Here, the fight may not be against piracy (well, it is, to some extent), but Netflix is facing more stiff competition than ever before from a whole host of streaming services, many with routinely better content than their own. So do you want to pay $36 a month for Netflix for 4-5 people or $7 a month for Apple TV Plus? Even if Netflix wins on volume, that’s…a big ask.

We will see what the end result of this is, but once that trigger is pulled, there’s no going back. The worst case scenario is if this does pan out, you will probably see every other streaming service follow, which may be what Netflix is banking on. We’ll have to see.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.