Employees are prepping for ads and the end of password sharing as we know it
Netflix might’ve been the company to bring us into the streaming-dominant landscape we all currently live in, but it’s not exactly thriving at the moment. On the heels of yet another price hike — one that pushed its top plan above the $20 per month mark — and a subsequent decline in subscribers, the service has been racing to find ways to boost its market share in the ongoing streaming wars. Some serious changes are coming to the platform, and they might arrive sooner than you’d expect.
Over the last couple of months, Netflix has floated introducing ad-supported tiers designed to reduce the blow from its latest price hikes, while also publicly acknowledging its intentions to crack down on password sharing outside a household. Neither idea seems particularly popular — especially limits on password sharing, something that could affect college students and other users temporarily living away from home — and yet, the company sees them as the best way to boost subscriber numbers in the short term.
According to a new report in The New York Times, those plans may come to fruition before the end of the year. Netflix is currently telling its employees to prepare for an ad-supported plan to launch in the last three months of 2022, with limits on password sharing to follow around the same time. Although details surrounding these changes are limited, Netflix has compared its concept for ads to Hulu and HBO Max in the past, implying a cheaper price model with ad breaks added in throughout a specific title. As for password sharing, those using an account with users outside of a designated geographic space may need to pay a few more dollars each month.
This move signals the company is working faster to implement both ideas, which were initially on track to launch sometime in the next year or two. Greg Peters, Netflix’s COO, had expressly noted limits on password sharing would go through at least a year of testing before a broader launch. Clearly, those plans have changed. Whether Netflix’s ever-growing lineup of original programming will be enough to keep subscribers around remains to be seen, but with Stranger Things returning with a new season in just a couple of weeks, it might be time to keep those fingers off the cancel button.
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