The State Of Netflix Password Sharing [Mapped]
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University of Surrey Sacha Fournier is the founder and CEO of Techelate with 18+ years' experience in the tech space. He writes about consumer tech with a focus on data and numbers. |
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Table of Contents
In this article, we take a look at the state of Netflix password sharing across the US.
We’ve also mapped the findings of the study by state, to highlight areas rampant for ‘mooching’.
The full methodology and sources are included at the bottom of this article.
Let’s jump right in.
Key findings
- 44% of Netflix users watch Netflix on an account owned by someone they don’t live with. This works out to be around 32 million users, which is in line with Netflix’s own estimation of 30 million.
- This percentage is over 50% in 17 US States.
- The top 3 worst offending states are Ohio (59%), Illinois (58%), and Massachusetts (57%).
- Utahans are clearly sticklers for the rules…. with only 23% of Netflix users watching on someone else’s account.
- Kansas and Tennesse are the next most honest states, with only 29% of Netflix users violating the streaming services’ terms.
| wdt_ID | State | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | 50 |
| 2 | Alaska | 50 |
| 3 | Arizona | 41 |
| 4 | Arkansas | 45 |
| 5 | California | 55 |
| 6 | Colorado | 44 |
| 7 | Connecticut | 33 |
| 8 | Delaware | 33 |
| 9 | District of Columbia | 50 |
| 10 | Florida | 41 |
So lots of people use Netlflix without paying for it.
There’s no real surprise there, and Netflix has turned a blind eye to it for the most part.
But with the recent downtrend in Netflix popularity, they’re starting to crack down on password sharing.
One thing they’re testing out (in Latin America) is asking people to pay extra if they want to share their accounts.
In light of this, we decided to look at how many of the current Netlflix moochers would actually pay for their own account.
If Netflix bans account sharing, would you pay for your own subscription?
Not that many!
Only 21% – which would be just over 6 million extra accounts.
More Netflix facts
- The average person shares their password with 2.3 people.
- Baby boomers are the most likely age group to use someone else password, while Gen-Z are the most likely group to give out their passwords. This suggests there are lots of younger people giving their passwords out to the older generation (maybe their nan!)
- Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022. This was its first subscriber loss in over a decade and in the second quarter, things have got even worse, with Netflix reporting a subscriber loss of 1 million.
- Netflix is still currently the biggest streaming service in the USA with 39% market share, but this is falling at an alarming rate.