Netflix’s password crackdown worked

The moochers did, in fact, have the moolah to pay for their own Netflix accounts.

Netflix recently began enforcing its one account per household password policy, anticipating a “cancel reaction” following the crackdown. But, based on numbers released last Friday by data analytics firm Antenna, it looks like the new policy had the opposite effect (aka the “fine-just-take-my-money reaction”).

🧮 By the numbers… Netflix began rolling out its new policy in the US on May 23. The very next day, daily sign-ups skyrocketed, starting what went on to become the company’s biggest four-day stretch of sign-ups (May 24-27) since Antenna started measuring this data four years ago.

• May 26 and 27 each saw ~100k new sign-ups per day. The only other time the streamer recorded daily sign-up numbers nearing 100k was in April and May of 2020, during the beginning of COVID lockdowns.

Cancellations were also up, but not as much as sign-ups. Antenna’s data showed that the ratio of sign-ups to cancellations increased by over 25% when compared to the previous 60-day period. Meaning, there were 25% more sign-ups per cancellation than before the password clampdown began.

📸 Big picture: According to Doug Anmuth, an analyst from JPMorgan, about 14 million password borrowers could become paid Netflix subscribers by the end of 2023, 26 million by the end of 2024, and 33 million by the end of 2025. The streamer currently has ~232.5 million subscribers.