And Here Comes The Backlash To Netflix Trying To Play Password Police

Karl Bode recently wrote about Netflix's new password sharing policy, which mostly amounts to test-running an upcharge should Netflix discover that passwords are being used outside the home" of the subscriber. While this pilot program is only going to be run in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, Netflix's announcement was completely silent on how it's going to track this sort of thing. Most assume it's by IP or MAC addresses, though that obviously opens up a whole host of other questions. What about mobile devices? What about if you have a display at your workplace you want to stream to? What about VPNs? What about if you travel?

In other words, there is a ton of uncertainty here thanks to Netflix not bothering to share the how" for its program. What was never uncertain, however, was that the public wasn't going to like this new program.

Netflix will lose a lot of customers if they do this password sharing crackdown they plan to do," said one Twitter user.

How do you expect families to handle password sharing in the case of divorcees, their children, or college students away from home?" another user said. We already pay a lot for it, now you're just milking us for every dollar spent."

There is more where that came from. And, sure, it would be quite easy to look at all of this and see it as a bunch of people complaining about what has mostly been a multi-household password sharing habit. Through that lens, perhaps you might think that Netflix has every right to police passwords in this fashion. And, sure, it does. The question is whether the backlash is worth whatever income the company thinks it's going to get out of this.

You will note, for instance, that Netflix isn't going for a lockdown here. Instead, it's attempting to get small time payments for sharing passwords. Those payment amounts were almost certainly designed to be in a sweet spot: too small to suddenly keep people from sharing their passwords at all, but big enough to bring in some significant income for Netflix.

Seen through that lens, Netflix actually wants password sharing to occur. Why? Because the company knows that those using shared passwords wouldn't sign up for Netflix themselves if somehow password sharing was nixxed entirely. If Netflix believed that, then it would simply nix password sharing, rather than trying to turn it into a cashcow.

And that, I submit, the public will never like.