Netflix are making changes that may impact how we watch our favourite shows forever.
Basically, the streaming service are clamping down so that you can no longer share your password with another household for free.
So say goodbye to stealthily logging into a Netflix account belonging to your ex boyfriend, distant family member or old housemate. It’s going to be a lot more difficult to share accounts going forward.
These changes will be coming in imminently, and it remains to be seen what kind of impact this will have on Netflix’s membership levels – when similar rules came into force in Spain, the streaming service lost more than a million subscribers within three months.
Here’s what we know so far.
What have Netflix said about the changes?
The streamer has started sending out emails to UK customers who are sharing passwords, with the focus on restricting membership to one household.
‘Starting today, we will be sending this email to members who are sharing Netflix outside their household in the United Kingdom,’ the email says.
‘A Netflix account is for use by one household. Everyone living in that household can use Netflix wherever they are – at home, on the go, on holiday – and take advantage of new features like Transfer Profile and Manage Access and Devices.’
Restrictions have also been announced for Netflix users in the US, Chile, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico and Singapore.
The changes will reportedly be enforced by users checking in through their wi-fi every 31 days, and accounts being disabled if they don’t use their household wifi.
While Netflix has said we’ll still be able to use the streamer while travelling, it all seems a bit unclear how these changes will be enforced exactly.
If you want to carry on sharing passwords, how much will this cost?
Netflix will give you the option of ‘transferring a profile’ to a person outside your household that has been using your account, which would create them a new membership that they would need to pay for themselves.
Or, if you want to add an extra member to your own account, you will be adding their household, which will cost £4.99 extra month.
How have users reacted to the change of Netflix’s password sharing rules?
The changes have taken Twitter by storm, with one user resharing a 2017 tweet from Netflix’s account saying ‘love is sharing a password’, tweeting ‘love is dead’.
Others have called the change ‘greedy’ and ‘ridiculous’, telling Netflix to ‘stop forcing change on us’ and referring to this move as ‘pulling a Blockbuster’, the now-defunct video rental service.
Another user tweeted ‘Game over Netflix!’.