10% of Netflix Users Are Still Borrowing Someone Else’s Password

Netflix’s password-sharing crackdown is working. Well, it is and maybe it isn’t.

According to a new study of more than 2,500 U.S. households performed by Leichtman Research Group (LRG), 10 percent of Netflix users are still borrowing the service. If that feels low, it is — according to recent history, at least. In 2022, LRG found that 15 percent of Netflix users were borrowing someone else’s paid account; the rate was 14 percent in 2020 and 16 percent in 2018.

Ten percent starts to feel less small when you do the math. Netflix has 260 million global paid users, which (basically) means that 26 million users are still not being monetized. Assuming they should be paying at least $7.99/month apiece — the going rate to share with an outsider — that’s $200 million-plus in monthly revenue not being collected.

A Netflix rep did not immediately respond to IndieWire’s request for comment on LRG’s findings.

No wonder Disney+, Hulu, Max, and certainly others are or will be following suit to block outside-the-home access to their platforms. Netflix’s “paid-sharing” (it’s internal, kinder term for the sting operation) started as a trial in Latin America before migrating to Canada. By May 2023 it had been rolled out in the U.S. and more than 100 other countries. It would go global that summer.

In that April-June 2023 quarter, the streamer added 5.9 million global paid subscribers, an eight percent improvement from the same three-month…