Surely you have already experienced that moment. You arrange everything to be comfortable, you do your usual routine, you grab the remote control… and the horror: “Your TV is not part of the home page for this account with Netflix.”
This is what Netflix is telling you on screen: Our show, as you've known it up until now, is over.
How could he do this to you? Here you are, who consume one series after another, comment on them with seriousness and skill almost as if you were being paid, and even create threads on Twitter, which become a revelation for your friends who ask for guidance, and who make Instagram videos with your reviews . In any case, You who were so loyal… and Netflix goes and leaves you on the street…
You're going through this grief. But you should know something: it's your fault. It's ours.
1- Netflix warned about it
In 2022, the company's management reviewed its numbers and was not very happy. Decisions had to be made, cost structure adjusted and some things resolved to change the trend towards business stagnation. This means the same thing as always: they laid off about 300 employees, for starters, and opened the door to advertising on the platform. One detail remains outstanding: More than 100 million families shared their accounts. This means that there were crowds of people enjoying the service in different homes far, far away…
2- We don't pay attention, how annoying it is
Netflix announced that shared accounts will end in 2023, and that from then on, each household will have to pay for their own subscription. But you, living in Caracas and using the account of your sister who immigrated to North Carolina, assumed that this was a First World thing and that Latin America—poor thing—would receive more considerate treatment. Or, worse yet, you completely ignored her due to pain and too many texts. Or maybe you think it was a bad decision and that they will have to correct it.
3-Do you want Netflix? You buy!
The fact is that they have begun to apply it to regions of the world. Although they initially faced many problems with the geolocation system, they were able to solve them and move forward. And now it has reached you. It has already reached us in Venezuela.
Sisters and uncles in the US receive our messages: “Damn, what happened to Netflix?” Well nothing, You have to pay your own account for the service. Or for your user, because there is the possibility for a family that has subscribed to certain plans to pay a monthly fee to add one or two additional users, who will have their own separate password and will not have to be under the same roof.
4- Do not get your hopes up: you have succeeded with them
Of course when they announced this move, we all thought the same thing: they're going to lose subscribers, and that's very ugly. But the world cannot adapt to our state-controlled interests and economies in Latin America.
In June 2023 consulting company It was reported that Netflix increased its number of subscribers in the United States Just by enacting what was thought to be an unpopular measure. The report showed that new users reached an average of just 73,000 per day in that country, with a growth peak matched only by that witnessed by the Covid pandemic.
Of course, that was in the United States. Bloomberg showed that, for example, in Spain they lost more than a million users in three months, after the measure came into effect in February 2023. It is assumed that in any of the regions where something like this happens, it will be corrected later because the alternative is to live Without Netflix… sooner or later, the rest of the competing platforms will move this way.
5-What should I do?
Every Netflix account is now designed for a single household. This is the first thing you need to understand. You can of course access using the option the main user has while he travels, but that means annoying your aunt by giving you the temporary password and getting in from the app, and as you just saw, it's temporary.
The solution is the same here and in Chicago: Either you sign up separately or they open a 'sub-account' It is allowed for people who do not live under the same roof. In both options you have to do something basic: put your hand in your pocket.
