It’s been about 18 months since Netflix started enforcing its password-sharing ban, and the move was highly profitable for the company. While some subscribers canceled their accounts in anger once the streamer announced the measures, many others chose to keep their Netflix subscriptions.
Back in June 2023, I told you that Netflix would not do anything to you while enforcing its password-sharing ban. No one had to worry about being blocked or banned. Instead, you get Netflix household verification requests from time to time. You then have 15 minutes to complete the checks for people outside your household sharing your passwords.
Netflix has now ramped up its game when it comes to enforcing household verification checks in an effort to further punish people for sharing their passwords. Netflix appears to be much more aggressive with its checks, making it almost impossible to share passwords outside of your household.
In the 18 months since I made the first changes to my Netflix household, Netflix kept sending verification requests. These messages would pop up on TVs and other devices and require me to click a button in an email to confirm that the gadgets were part of the same household.
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It all worked great without any hiccups. Sometimes, the checks would come in every couple of weeks, and other times, they’d be much rarer.
There was even a point where I thought Netflix had stopped checking or that it no longer mattered. After all, Netflix added millions of new customers after banning password-sharing, so there couldn’t be that many people left using the same account from two different locations. That’s essentially what households boil down to.
Another reason for the less frequent checks might concern the actual use of the account. Maybe people were accessing the account less frequently than before.
Whatever the case, it’s been a while since I received multiple requests to verify my Netflix household on the same day. But then something unusual happened around the time Disney started enforcing its own password-sharing ban: Netflix became more aggressive.
Kristen Bell as Joanne and Adam Brody as Noah in “Nobody Wants This.” Image source: Adam Rose/Netflix
Say User A and User B simultaneously used the same Netflix login from two different addresses a few weeks ago. User A got a notification to verify the household, which I assisted with, expecting to be a normal check. As soon as I did that, User B got a verification prompt. That was new. I verified the household again, and guess what happened next? User A got kicked off, and Netflix requested another check.
Do this a few times, and you’ll end up with at least some devices logged out of the account. Again, I didn’t see that happen in the previous 18 months.
Also, it’s definitely not the kind of Netflix password-sharing experience you want. It would still work if you wanted to. You can plan your Netflix access to avoid being online on the same account from two different locations. But who wants to bother with that?
It’s also the first time I’ve seen Netflix being so aggressive. I joked that with 2024 almost over, Netflix is trying to improve its financials for the December quarter by signing up more subscribers. I imagine other users have dealt with similar scenarios in the past few weeks.
Regarding subscribers, Netflix had 282.7 million customers at the end of the September quarter, up from 260.38 million subscribers at the end of 2023. Interestingly, Netflix netted 30 million new customers in 2023, the year it announced the password-sharing ban and started enforcing it.
So what did I do when Netflix started cracking down even harder? Nothing. I didn’t cancel Netflix. I accepted it. I get why Netflix is doing it, and I know this is the way things have to work. If you want to stream Netflix, you have to pay.
You can easily get a new Netflix account. The cheapest ad-based tier is still relatively affordable. That’s probably the account Netflix wants you to get in the first place. Ads might benefit its bottom line even more than a more expensive subscription, depending on how much you watch.
Also, ad-based tiers are increasingly popular on streaming services. Disney’s Bob Iger revealed recently that some 30% of Disney Plus global subscribers are on the ad tier. That’s about 37 million accounts.
Netflix, meanwhile, recently reported 70 million monthly users on the ad tier. That’s almost double the 40 million mark it hit back in May.
