Netflix's new 'Profile Transfer' tool foreshadows password crackdown
Netflix-style plot twist: Profile Transfer debuts ahead of password crackdown finale
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Netflix Profile Transfer
📁 Export your individual Netflix profile to a new account soon
🙌 Keep recommendations, viewing history, My List, saved games, etc
😇 Good: helps when you move on to a new account (i.e. after a breakup)
😈 Bad: Probably means the password-sharing crackdown is imminent
Netflix will soon be rolling out a helpful “Profile Transfer” tool that will allow members of its streaming service to export their personalized data to a new Netflix account.
You’ll be able to transfer your personalized recommendations, viewing history, My List, saved games and other settings, according to Netflix. This means if you start a new account – say, if you end a relationship in which you shared a Netflix account – you won’t have to start from scratch. The all-knowing Netflix algorithm that powers your recommendations list will pick up where you left off.
The Profile Transfer feature will roll out soon (you’ll get an email about it from Netflix) and it’ll show up under your profile icon on the homepage dropdown menu.
End of story, right?
Plot twist: Netflix password-sharing crackdown
There’s no secret that a Netflix password-sharing crackdown is being beta tested in Latin America. Netflix is poised to charge $2.99 per month for outside-the-household usage (this excludes on-the-go devices like phones, tablets and laptops).
Netflix has gone on the record to say that this extra household fee will roll out in 2023, but it hasn’t specified a date for the US and other countries. It’s still coming, though: company executives have cited password sharing as a top issue for why Netflix lost $50 billion in value in a single day and why it lost 1.3 million subscribers last quarter.
This new export tool seems like a helpful way to usher in the uncomfortable change, and maybe sway some of the estimated 100 million freeloaders to its commercial-filled $6.99/mo plan. Stay tuned for our Netflix Basic with Ads review to see if it’s any good on November 3 at 12pm ET.
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