Netflix announced Tuesday that users in the United States, France and a hundred other countries will now have to pay extra to share their access codes to the service with people who are not members of their household, as part of its strategy to diversify its revenue.

The streaming veteran has been testing this new formula for a year, and has already implemented it in Canada in particular, after a difficult 2022, marked by subscriber losses in the first half, before bouncing back in the second.

"More than 100 million households share their accounts, which affects our ability to invest in great movies and TV series," Netflix said in a statement in February.

6 euros monthly in France

Prices vary by country: U.S. households will now have to pay nearly $8 more per month to allow a guest to use their account. In France, it will be 6 euros monthly, as in Spain but instead of 4 euros in Portugal, two countries where the measure has already been introduced.

"Your Netflix account is for you and for the people who live with you, which is your home," says an email from the platform that is to be sent Tuesday to all affected subscribers.

The message indicates the two possible solutions for those who already share their credentials: they can add an additional subscriber by paying the supplement, or transfer the profile of someone outside the household. The latter will have to subscribe to its own subscription but will thus keep its preferences. The Californian group also recalls that subscribers continue to be able to watch their programs when they are on the move.

Conclusive tests

Netflix, which has more than 232 million subscribers, added a cheaper subscription with advertising at the end of 2022, after years of reluctance. It now accounts for nearly 5 million monthly active users, according to the company.

The strategy of restricting password sharing had fallen behind. But testing and deployments in Latin America and more recently in Canada have been successful, according to Greg Peters, the company's co-CEO.

"At first, there are cancellations. And then people who used borrowed credentials create their own accounts and add profiles, and we're regaining ground in terms of subscriptions and revenue," he said at an analyst conference in April.

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