A few years ago, no one was watching TV. But once some content streaming services emerged, TVs became popular again. Well, these two are not associated because you can watch your favorite movies, TV shows, and other content on other devices as well. But agree when there is a new blockbuster that has a budget of a few hundreds of millions of dollars, and you’ve been waiting for it for a few years, no one will watch it on a smartphone lying in the bed. In this sense, competition between various streaming services is too fierce. And though Netflix dominates the niche, it is feeling the breath of other companies on its neck. There are various factors affecting the firms in this niche – subscription plans, content, availability, account management features, etc.
Netflix Plans
At the moment, there are three subscription plans on Netflix:
- Basic – $9.99/mo
- Standard – $15.49/mo
- Premium – $19.99/mo
As you understand, every subscription plan has a concrete set of offers. For instance, the Basic plan doesn’t allow users to watch videos on HD. What’s more important, only one device can stream the Netflix content for a moment. The rest two support HD viewing and the main difference is the number of simultaneous streams – 2 and 4, respectively.
How Many Profiles Does Netflix Allow?
In order to allow your family member to watch Netflix via your account, you have to create a Netflix profile for them. However, the maximum profile number is five. For each of them, you can set language preferences as well as the maturity level, the activity log, and subtitle settings. You should also know that each account can be created using a separate email address.
Note: Up to five profiles doesn’t mean they all can stream Netflix content simultaneously. As said above, the number of accounts that can stream Netflix videos at a time depends on the subscription plan.
Gizchina News of the week
By the way, when using Mobile Plan, Netflix allows you to stream one mobile at a time.
Once you see a message on the screen “Too many people are using your account right now”, you have reached the maximum limit of your account.
New Rules, New Plans
The last report from Netflix showed the company is losing many subscribers. According to various predictions, Netflix will lose 2 million subscribers by the end of 2022. To somehow combat the situation, Netflix is actively working on a new privacy policy, new plans, and a few other measures.
For instance, by the end of the year, Netflix will launch a new subscription plan. The latter will be an ad-supported low-cost plan. But if a cheaper plan is logical and expected, the industry was surprised to hear about ads on Netflix. We mean this streaming service has constantly been proving it will never display ads.
Apart from this, Netflix is faulting the “large number of households sharing accounts” and also the “competition”. According to its estimations, its 222 million paying users are sharing accounts with an additional 100 million householders. It’s hard for Netflix to restrict users from doing this. So it has decided to find ways of monetizing account sharing.
Soon, Netflix will implement “more effective monetization of multi-household sharing”. At the moment, the company has piloted the feature in select countries such as Peru, Costa Rica, and Chile. Subscribers have to pay an extra fee to share their accounts with two people outside of their household.
The new feature allows Standard and Premium plan subscribers to create sub-accounts for up to two people they don’t live with. Each of them will be a standalone profile with personalized recommendations.
Though Netflix has not announced the price for this feature, in Chile, it’s around $2,99.