An experiment by Netflix to cut down on password sharing has been met with confusion in the countries it’s been rolled out in, according to a new report.

The new scheme, which charges users for sharing passwords outside of their household, has been trialled in Peru, Chile, and Costa Rica in March.

In Peru, for example, a subscriber will need to pay around $2 per month to add a user from outside of their own home, up to a maximum of two people.

However, according to a report from Rest of World, many Peruvian Netflix subscribers had complained of mixed messaging and a lack of uniform application around the changes.

Some people cited in the report said that they had not been notified of the policy, while some had ignored it without suffering penalties.

With users unsure of what Netflix considers a household and how the charges work, many involved in the trial have complained of being confused.

In fact, the report cited people saying that the changes had driven them to cancel their subscriptions altogether.

Rest of World noted that the different user experiences suggested that Netflix was testing different versions of its password sharing scheme.

This drove Peru’s consumer agency to state that Netflix should communicate its new policy more clearly and define what constitutes a household.

Netflix previously hinted that it may crack down on password sharing in the wake of it suffering its first net loss of subscribers in a decade earlier this year.

After years of growth, including a significant increase during the pandemic, the company’s customer base fell by 200,000 people in the first three months of the year.

Coupled with a forecast for around 2 million more users leaving the platform in the months ahead, the news knocked around $90 off price of the company’s shares.

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This has driven Netflix to take action to increase profitability and add additional subscribers. It has cut employees and revealed plans for cheaper packages that include advertising.

But central to its plans is cracking down on password sharing. The company has said that 100 million households around the world share passwords, potentially costing the company billions in lost revenues.

While the three South and Central American markets where the password sharing scheme is being tested is far from Netflix’s core markets, it is widely expected that the company aims to rollout a similar scheme around the world.

As such, the results of the experiment will likely dictate the shape of Netflix’s attitude to the practice.

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