After
Netflix
,
Disney
is going tough on
freeloaders
, ending
password sharing
beginning this summer. During an earnings call Wednesday, Walt
Disney
Company's chief financial officer,
Hugh Johnston
, stated that Disney+ accounts that are “suspected of“improper sharing” with multiple households will be presented with the option to purchase their own separate
subscription
.
"We're looking forward to rolling out this new functionality to improve the overall customer experience and grow our subscriber base," Johnston said.
Disney Plus and
Hulu
updated their terms of service to prohibit subscription sharing with people outside one's household, effective January 25 for new users and March 14 for existing users. The new terms require each household to have a subscription and not allow sharing with friends or family living elsewhere.
"We're still in the early days" of limiting password sharing, and Disney does not anticipate "notable benefits" from the paid-sharing initiatives until the latter half of 2024, he stated. "We want to reach as large an audience as possible with our outstanding content."
While restricting password sharing, Disney also introduces a paid option for users to share subscriptions outside their households, similar to Netflix's add-on approach. Users can add users outside their household for an extra, yet unspecified fee.
Netflix, which now limits subscribers from sharing their accounts, has also introduced a paid sharing plan, which costs subscribers an extra $7.99 per month to add someone living outside their home
“It’s one that our competitor is obviously taking advantage of, and one that sits in front of us ... We’ve got some very specific actions that we’re taking in the next couple of months,” Johnson said, hinting at Netflix, which put its plan to curb password sharing last year.
In the last quarter of 2023, Netflix added 13.1 subscribers, the most for any quarter since 2023. Meanwhile, Disney+ lost 1.3 million subscribers in the US and Canada.
English (US) ·