Towards the end of last year, we reported that Netflix is losing subscribers due to everyone sharing accounts. Thanks to the ability to add profiles to an account, many households and friends are giving their passwords away and sharing the cost of the streaming service. While the company already made plans to combat this issue, it’s now added the Profile Transfer feature.
The thinking behind this new Netflix feature is that people will be encouraged to create their own accounts if they can transfer their profiles. That means your show history, favorites, and recommended shows will move over. It still hasn’t found an effective way to convince account sharers to rather have their own memberships.
Let’s look at what Netflix has done so far. The first step was to increase membership costs if different households were sharing accounts. Then, it made different payment tiers where you deal with ads and only a few shows at the entry-level to see what’s available. Now, you can transfer your profile to your own subscription and not lose your history.
It’s actually quite handy in a few ways. If you’ve separated from your partner, they can transfer their Netflix profile to a new account. Also, it helps when your children finally move out at the age of 32 and want to keep watching their shows on a new subscription. Yet, I’m not really sure how much this encourages anyway to pay for a new account. The flat rental, electricity, and rates are already so high, it’s just easier to keep sharing.
Well, at least the cheaper tier of Netflix is finally here for those of you who want to test the streaming service out. I’ve been on full membership for so many years now, and I’m happy to remain there. I’m also enjoying the content wars between Netflix and Disney+, as I have so many shows to enjoy now thanks to their competitive natures.
