Disney+’s password crackdown
Disney is coming down hard on users that share accounts across households, with the company forcing users that are doing so to add a paid sharing add-on to their account.
Streaming services often miss out on subscription revenue because of the common practice of password sharing. Families often use the same account credentials between houses, which saves them money.
However, Disney has decided to try and recoup the missed-out subscriptions for Disney+, by clamping down on the practice.
In a notification released on Wednesday, Disney+ is bringing its paid sharing program live in the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region. This follows limited testing of the feature in select markets over the summer.
Disney explains that the main subscription is meant to be used within a household, defined as a “collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence that are used by the individuals who reside there.” That also covers devices like the iPhone and iPad, which can often leave the home but frequently return.
Family members using the same account but in a different household should either pay for their own subscription or be added as an “Extra Member” to the account. This latter option is a chargeable extra.
There are some more limitations to the Extra Member add-on, such as you can only add one such add-on to a subscription. The Extra Member account must also be used by someone aged 18 or older and is limited to using Disney+ on one device at a time.
There is a limitation requiring the Extra Member to be based in the same country as the main account holders. However, they can still go abroad and access the service while traveling.
As an alternative to the add-on, Disney adds that users can transfer their profiles to a new subscription. This can be useful if they wish to retain settings like their watch history, instead of starting from scratch.
The new restrictions on usage arrive at a time when Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN are set to raise their prices. For Disney+ specifically, prices will go up by $2 per month or $20 per year in October, with similar rises for the other services.
The password-sharing crackdown isn’t an entirely new experience for streaming service users, as Netflix did it too.
Netflix started to implement its own program the United States from May 2023, emailing users it suspected of sharing accounts outside of their home. Within weeks, the move was considered a success, with a 102% increase in average daily signups over the following 60 days.
