While Netflix is threatening to take more significant action against users who share their accounts with friends and family living outside their homes, in some South American countries – Chile, Peru and Costa Rica – the company has been conducting an experiment for several months to persuade users In an account they do not own sign up for a discounted service. This experiment, it seems, is not a great success, and causes mostly confusion among the company’s existing subscribers.
According to a report by Rest of World, Netflix did not at any stage inform all users in those countries of any change in its policy. Since for many Peruvian residents the ‘household’ may also include family members living nearby, the rules are unclear, and it seems the company has meanwhile chosen not to confront paying customers, allowing them to continue sharing the password if they think they only shared it with close family members.
The level of enforcement also varies from user to user, with many users reporting that they simply ignored Netflix’s warning messages and continued to use the service as usual, free of charge. In general, it is not clear how many users in the countries participating in the experiment did respond to Netflix’s demand to start and pay, although the company itself claims that the experiment has been well conducted so far and that its results are “satisfactory.”
It should be noted that the subscription prices offered as part of the experiment are significantly lower than those of a completely new account on Netflix. In all participating countries, the company charges a nominal fee of about three dollars or less to extend the account to two additional users, outside the household of the original account holders.