Netflix is going to start charging you more if you share your login with people and people aren't happy

In news which looks set to put a strain on both family and romantic relationships, the streaming platform Netflix has announced it will be testing out a new paid feature to cut down on password sharing between households.

Sharing account details with those who you do not live with is not allowed under Netflix’s Terms of Use, but that hasn’t stopped users from allowing friends and family members to access accounts with their logins – especially during lockdown.

Clause 4.2 of their terms reads: “The Netflix service and any content accessed through the service are for your personal and non-commercial use only and may not be shared with individuals beyond your household.”

Now the platform has appeared to take a stronger stance against the practice, writing in a blog post published on Wednesday that account sharing between households is “impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members”.

In other words, they really think you should be paying for that.

“So for the last year we’ve been working on ways to enable members who share outside their household to do so easily and securely, while also paying a bit more,” Chengyi Long, the company’s director of product innovation, continued.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

They went on to add that Standard and Premium members in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru would be part of a launch and test of two new features – one of them being the option to add extra members to their account.

Ms Long explained: “[Members] will be able to add sub accounts for up to two people they don’t live with – each with their own profile, personalised recommendations, login and password – at a lower price.”

That’s an extra 2,380 CLP for Chileans, and $2.99 for Costa Ricans. If the same feature rolls out more widely at the same price, that would be around £2.27.

It’s not quite known how Netflix would track household logins, but Varietyreports Netflix may prompt a member to verify their account “only if a device outside of their household logs into the account”, sending a verification code to authenticate the login.

Needless to say, people aren’t happy, and are already willing to burn bridges to avoid paying the extra cash:

Thoughts and prayers to you all.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.