A New Dawn for Netflix and Streaming
Graphic by Anika Dua
Even if you've spent the last week on an alleged “social media cleanse,” you’ve probably heard the rumors about Netflix’s new password security policy. While it’s not in effect yet, the future looks bleak for all of us piggy-backing off someone else’s account. And even if Netflix isn’t your streaming platform of choice, there’s no denying the impacts that this policy change could have on all streaming platforms.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, Netflix has rolled out a new policy in South America, Canada, New Zealand, and Spain that is rumored to hit the US around March. The policy in question prevents account holders from sharing their accounts with people outside of their households. By using IP addresses, device IDs, and activity data, Netflix determines what the home wifi of the account holder is, and prevents people who aren’t regularly logging into it from using the account.
If you’re thinking, “that plan will never work,” we’re afraid, it’s here to stay. But there’s some hope! If you’re traveling, Netflix provides a temporary access code that can be used for up to one week! However, exact details about the code are still unsure, and there are already two big concerns: long-term trips and college students. If your trip is over a week long, we guess you’ll just have to forget about binging your fav shows. For college students, Netflix just announced that if people outside of the household use an account, an extra fee will have to be paid. The results of this will be interesting to see, since Netflix has now added two new tiers to its subscription model: a cheaper, ad-supported one and now this new extended members option.
“Love is sharing a password” used to be Netflix’s favorite little saying. Now it’s “screw you and your wallet.” Phase one of streaming was to get people interested, and now that everyone has a hundred and ten thousand subscriptions going and a raging dependency on streaming, companies can focus on securing the bag. It may be too soon to say, but this new change might be the beginning of a new era of streaming. An era determined to make our pockets much lighter. Whatever happens, just finish that show that you’re working through.