Netflix's deeply unpopular plans to charge for account sharing could make it lose its place among the best streaming services: it's already one of the most expensive streamers out there, and if like me you don't have a conventional household - as Netflix imagines it – then it's about to get even pricier.
Netflix has now published its prices for Canada, Portugal, Spain and New Zealand. In addition to your normal account fee, the extra fee will be CAD$7.99 a month per person in Canada, NZD$7.99 in New Zealand, Euro 3.99 in Portugal, and Euro 5.99 in Spain. So realistically UK users are probably looking at an extra £5 or more per person per month, taking the cost of a Premium subscription beyond £20 per month. And for me, a parent of two kids, it'll be over £25.
That's a big nope as far as I'm concerned, but even if money were no object this isn't looking good.
What are the rules for Netflix account sharing?
Netflix is limiting your account to a "single household", which is tied to one building that everybody lives in. The official post promises that you can "watch while you travel" in a hotel TV or holiday rental, but previous leaks suggested that was just for a week – so that's going to be a pain for people who travel for longer periods, or who move around frequently for work and will need to keep re-authorising their accounts.
The "single household" means that if like me your kids have two homes – because you're separated or divorced, because they're at uni somewhere else, because they're on a gap year or any other reason they might not be with you all the time – you'll have to pay up if you want them to use your account.
I've been considering binning Netflix for a while now after more than a decade of subscribing, and this has convinced me to pull the trigger: there just isn't enough content that I want to watch, and the imminent restrictions make it an even worse deal. Netflix already costs me more than Apple TV+ and Disney+ combined, and unlike Netflix they don't care which roof my kids are currently under.
