Netflix wins the battle: subscriptions double after banning account sharing

Netflix took a risk and won. The controversial decision to ban account sharing seemed unlikely to succeed, with many thinking it would lead to a loss of subscribers. This was not the case; in fact it was quite the opposite. According to a survey conducted by analytics company Antenna, the number of American users who decided to join the streaming platform increased by 102% during May.

Several of the best days for the platform took place during that month, with the outright best being May 26 and May 27. On those dates, the streaming platform registered almost 100,000 subscriptions in the United States. This was just three days after Netflix banned password sharing.

The trend continued in the following days. As revealed by Antenna, after announcing the end of shared accounts, Netflix gained an average of 73,000 new subscriptions per day. This was an increase of 102% over the previous 60-day average and represented one of the best post-pandemic figures.

The number of users who left the platform is also revealing. Antenna said there had also been an increase in the number of de-subscriptions. However, the increase in these cancellations was only 25.6%, a much lower percentage than the 102% increase Netflix achieved by eliminating shared accounts.