Today during the third quarter earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that Disney+ would soon be taking measures to crack down on password sharing.
“We are actively exploring ways to address account sharing and the best options for paying subscribers to share their accounts with friends and family,” Iger said. “Later this year, we will begin to update our subscriber agreements with additional terms and our sharing policies. And we will roll out tactics to drive monetization sometime in 2024.”
Netflix has long been lenient with users sharing their accounts with friends and family. This strategy was born out of the hope that these shared users would eventually be persuaded to sign up for their own accounts.
However, the company recently observed a decrease in the number of subscribers. As a response to this downturn, they decided to implement stringent measures to curb account sharing.
This initiative proved fruitful, as evidenced by an increase in Netflix’s revenue, profit, and overall number of paying subscribers. This was confirmed by the company’s latest quarterly report.
During the period of implementing the crackdown, Netflix’s subscriber count saw a significant surge. Specifically, there was a global increment of 5.9 million subscribers. This hike brought the total number of subscribers to an impressive 238.4 million.
Given the success experienced by Netflix, it’s unsurprising that Iger described cracking down on password sharing as a priority for Disney+.