This post originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Cody Mello-Klein.
If Netflix was once the kind of streaming company to say “love is sharing a password,” it looks like the streamer is preparing for a breakup.
Netflix announced that it's bringing its new anti-password sharing measures to four more countries––Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain––after testing the waters in Central and South America last year. This all comes as the streaming company looks to roll them out more broadly in the coming months.
After learning more about the details via a mistakenly updated Netflix support page, users were outraged. There was almost unanimous agreement among many users, including Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, that the company's new rules were a net negative for users. But the widespread criticism of Netflix's next big move raises questions about whether these new measures are even good for Netflix.
According to Yakov Bart, associate professor of marketing at Northeastern University, Netflix's goal is clear: get as many paying users on its platform as possible. It's a challenge most major streamers are struggling with. Netflix is using both a carrot––a cheaper, advertisement-filled pricing option––and a stick––new password sharing rules––to accomplish that. But he says there is “definitely a possibility” that Netflix's plan could result in further loss of subscribers, at least in the short term.
