Streaming services cracking down on password sharing

The days of streaming services looking the other way while you share your passwords with friends are coming to an end.

On Wednesday, both Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery made it clear that they’ll begin cracking down on password sharing in the coming months.

Both companies had very different earnings calls on Wednesday, but the one area they were aligned with was the success and growth they’ve been seeing with streamer subscriptions. Disney revealed that its streaming arm had turned a profit for the first time , led by ESPN+’s revenue growth. Meanwhile, while WBD announced some rather severe overall losses, their bright spot was Max, which added 3.6 million new subscribers last quarter.

With Wall Street breathing down the necks of every streaming service to prove themselves profitable, and prices continuing to rise accordingly , it only makes sense that both companies would finally begin cutting off the practice of sharing passwords instead of signing up for your own account.

Disney announced plans for a paid sharing option in February and even launched it in a “few countries” in June but has so far been mum on when that would officially begin in the U.S. On Wednesday, said password-sharing crackdowns will officially begin “ in earnest ” this September. Presumably, this will apply to all Disney streaming services, including ESPN+.

“We’ve had no backlash at all to the [paid sharing] notifications that have gone out and to the work that we’ve already been doing,” Iger said .

Meanwhile, WBD made a similar announcement on their call, saying they planned to begin cracking down towards the end of the year . They had also previously announced such plans but hadn’t provided any timeline until now.

It’s obvious as to why these streamers would want to put these plans in place, but just in case you needed hard data, look no further than Netflix. They began implementing a password-sharing crackdown in 2023 , charging $7.99 per month to add a new person to your account, and have only seen their subscription numbers rise since then , even as they’ve raised prices as well.

Unfortunately for consumers who got used to certain prices and certain leeway with passwords, the corporate behemoths have wised up and so far they’ve been given no reason to stop.

[ Alex Sherman , The Verge ]

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