Towards the end of May Netflix began emailing users, who they identified were sharing their login with people outside of their households, stating that their sharing guidelines are changing.
“Your Netflix account is for you and the people you live with —
your household.”
They went on to say “If you want to share Netflix with someone outside of your household, you can use these features:
- Transfer a profile. Anyone on your account can transfer a profile to a new membership that they pay for.
- Buy and extra member. You can share your Netflix account with someone who doesn’t live with you for $7.99/month more.”
Netflix saw a large increase in subscribers towards the beginning of the pandemic lockdown, but over the years subscriber growth became stagnate. Looking to boost revenue, Netflix introduced a cheaper ad-supported tier, and began the crack down on password sharing.
We’re still in the early days, but it appears the password sharing crackdown had the effect Netflix was hoping for. Netflix had its four single largest days of signing up U.S. customers since the pandemic with nearly 100,000 daily signups on two of the days. Netflix’s stock hit a 52-week high and is up more than 40% year-to-date.
So what about College students?
Netflix is part of just about every college student’s daily life. Most students simply login to Netflix using their parents account, but with this password sharing crackdown, will they be locked out?
Netflix has not officially commented about how students will be handled, but they do have a definition for “household”.
“A Netflix Household is a collection of the devices connected to the internet at the main place you watch Netflix. A Netflix Household can be set using a TV device. All other devices that use your Netflix account on the same internet connection as this TV will automatically be part of your Netflix Household.”
Your home internet connection has a unique ID along with all of your devices, so Netflix’s system can identify what devices are connected to your account and from where. If they determine a device has logged in from another location they could lock it out.
Netflix has also said…
“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, and on holiday.”
…so you would think that a student living away at college would still be able to use their parent’s account? Well after a little more digging we found this help article…
Using Netflix outside of your home
Netflix is easy to use when on the go or traveling. Use Netflix as usual to watch on your portable devices – like a tablet, laptop, or mobile phone – or sign into a new TV, like at a hotel or a holiday rental.
Second home or frequent travel to the same location
If you have a second home or travel frequently to the same location, follow these steps:
- From the main place you watch Netflix, connect to the internet and open the Netflix app on your mobile device(s) once a month. Then take the same steps when you arrive at your second location to continue watching Netflix without interruption.
Based on this help article it seems that Netflix checks your location each time you login. If it finds that you have logged in from a remote location for more than a month it may lock you out. If your student is unable to come home once a month and login with their devices, they may be required to get their own account.
A student plan, similar to the cheaper plans offered by Spotify, Hulu and Amazon Prime, could be a good alternative, we’ll have to wait and see if Netflix offers this as a solution.
Hope you’ve enjoyed this article!
If you have any questions about technology, feel free to send us a message.
We’ll try to answer them in an upcoming article.
Members of Life In Sussex staff have contributed to this post.
