Netflix Causes Confusion With its Initial Password Sharing Crackdown Info

Following an announcement last month, Netflix confirmed that it was set to start rolling out its account-sharing crackdown at some point before the end of Q1 2023. Exactly when this would happen, however, remained something of a mystery.

Following an official update to their support website, however, it seems that even Netflix themselves may have had a temporary brain fart on the subject. – Why? Well, while the first official user information has been revealed regarding their hope to end en-masse account sharing, the initial details seem to be causing more confusion than understanding among its community.

Netflix Reveals Some (Confusing) Details on Account Sharing Crackdown

The main crux of the information is that Netflix is effectively cementing the fact that people who share an account must reside within the same household. This will likely be determined via your rough geographical location via your IP address, but ultimately, they’re making it clear that if someone is regularly using an account hundreds of miles away from its ‘household’ location, they will block access to that person.

Or will they? – You see, this is where things get a little vague as during the initial update to their website, Netflix strongly suggested that any access out of your ‘household’ would be permissible as long as a physically present device log-in was made from the ‘base’ address. A fresh update has, however, removed this information leaving a lot of the community more than a little confused. And especially those who may reside in a household, but live (or work) away from it for long periods of time.

And mobility is a key factor here. If you regularly work all around the country for several months at a time, could your entirely legitimate Netflix access get blocked simply because you haven’t been home in 30 or more days? – Well, the new update indicates that access can continue if the account is ‘authorised’ by the main associated holder (likely via email) which, if this then extends the access for another 30 days, does seem to make the crackdown a pretty moot point.

I mean, if people want to do this and seemingly bypass the restrictions, just create a new email address, set up a new account, give all your sharers access to both of them and away you go like nothing ever happened right?… Is there anything here that suggests you couldn’t do this as a workaround? If there is, I don’t see it.

Ultimately, I do get what Netflix is trying to do here. There are people out there abusing the functionality of their platform and doing so beyond any reasonable measure. I would personally consider it ‘ok’ to let your parents or sibling share your account. Some guy you hardly know in another part of the country though? That’s a step too far. – Based on this still vague information, however, (which you can check out for yourself here), I just worry that Netflix is, despite having all the right motives, opening a pandora’s box here that they’ll never be able to manage!

Yes, although they might not like account sharing (at least, not these days any more – and yes, they did once upon a time actually encourage it), it seems crazy that they’re apparently willing to potentially annoy many (by making access more bothersome) simply to target what I suspect is the relatively few numbers of people who do abuse this a beyond reason. – Netflix isn’t holding the subscribers it has, and if they think this will bolster their figures… Well, let’s just say as you can probably tell, that I have my doubts!

What do you think though? – Let us know in the comments!