When Netflix first announced plans to crack down on password-sharing in an effort to squeeze even more money out of its subscriber base, people were naturally outraged. After all, there are only so many streaming services anybody is willing to shell out for on a monthly basis at any given time, leading to much fury from those currently piggybacking someone else’s account.
As often tends to be the case when these sort of things happen, there were calls for people to simply abandon the platform altogether, showing the boardroom that trying to impose such draconian rules would only end up hitting the company square in the pocket. According to the latest data, though, the complete opposite appears to have been true.
As per research company Antenna (via Variety), Netflix has enjoyed its four biggest days of brand new signups since January of 2019 after the mandate was unveiled to the world, with the average across the period of May 25 to 28 tracking 102 percent higher than the 60 days beforehand, solidifying the sentiment that folks were simply panicked into purchasing their own premium package.
In fact, that’s higher than the numbers racked up during the initial COVID lockdowns in March and April of 2020, a period of time when nobody had anything better to do than stay indoors and binge-watch. Cancellations did go up, to be fair, but it was still lagging way behind the new accounts being registered.
At the end of the day, then, it seems as if Netflix is luxury we as a society simply can’t live without.
