If someone has a Netflix account, there is a high chance that the account will end up being shared with more individuals – family, friends, or others. In fact, Netflix said that more than 100 million households are using accounts that are paid for by others.
While this does help more people have access to Netflix’s wide range of movies and TV shows, the streaming giant believes that this undermined its “long-term ability to invest in and improve service.” It has already made some progress to remedy things in this area – one can recall the “add extra member” feature which was tested by Netflix in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru this March.
The streaming giant is now testing a feature that will prompt users to pay more (an additional fee) if they wish to access their account on a device that is in another home. This “add a home” feature is currently being tested in the following Latin American countries – Argentina, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Latin America has been chosen as password sharing is very common in the region.
The company believes that the “add a home” feature will boost its revenue as customers will end up paying more if they wish to keep sharing their Netflix accounts with others and if they wish to use an account in an additional household for over two weeks.
The concept of “home” by Netflix is described as “a physical location, like the house of a user, where they can use their Netflix account on any of their devices.” Netflix will detect a home using IP addresses, device IDs, and account activity.
Let us see how the “add a home” feature will work. Regardless of the tier you choose, your Netflix account will come with one primary home, where you can access Netflix to your heart’s content across all of your devices. Starting August 22, you will see the option to add a new home for an additional fee if you access Netflix on a device outside of your home.
You can access Netflix at the new home for two weeks for free, following which you will have to pay the additional fee if you wish to continue accessing Netflix. The feature makes allowances for traveling as well – if you are traveling, then you can access Netflix and watch on your devices outside your home as well.
If you have subscribed to Netflix’s Basic Plan, then you can add one extra home, while Standard and Premium subscribers will be able to add up to two and three extra homes respectively.
The additional charge is as follows. Users in Argentina will have to pay an extra 219 pesos per month per home, while users in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala will have to pay $2.99 per month per home.
Ever since streaming giant Netflix clocked a drop in its subscriber base for the first time in a decade, it has been trying to regain lost ground with features such as a cheaper ad-supported tier and spatial audio for select original titles. It blamed the sharing of passwords as one of the key reasons behind the slow growth in its subscriber base, and forecast that it would lose two million subscribers in the second quarter of the year.
