Netflix is changing how households log into shared accounts, and you probably won't like it

Sharing your Netflix accounts with friends and family members living at a different address isn’t quite as seamless as it was a few years ago, thanks to Netflix’s location-based crackdown on password sharing. But instead of driving frustrated users away, the move reportedly helped the platform gain more subscribers. And now, it’s doubling down with a move that could frustrate users.

Over the last few weeks, Netflix has been asking users to assign individual emails to individual user profiles in the same account. For some context, Netflix lets you have up to five different user profiles in the same account so that each user can have different recommendations.

According to multiple reports on Reddit, the video giant is now showing users a screen that informs them of “personalized new ways to enjoy Netflix.” The step requires users to add email addresses for an individual profile, and the screen reportedly doesn’t close if the step isn’t completed. Doing so, the alert says, makes it easier to log in, recover your account, and get better personalized suggestions.

The new screen does not seem widespread at the moment, especially as, according to one of the posts, Netflix support is seemingly clueless about it. The support advised the user to uninstall and then reinstall the app to make the alert page disappear. While that seems to work for the first few times the app is opened, it appears shortly after.

In theory, the login aspect makes sense, as you don’t need to bother the owner of the main email ID every time you log in. However, the other two reasons, i.e., easy recovery and better recommendations, don’t sound convincing, especially as the former is a byproduct of separate email IDs, whereas the latter already exists.

In practice, it’s also a bit of a headache on shared devices, such as tablets or TVs, and we’re unsure whether Netflix plans to limit this to small screens or extend it to all devices. The move also poses challenges for people who use separate accounts for kids and elders to prevent recommendations from filtering into their own accounts. We’re unsure of how Netflix plans to address those challenges.

If you’re facing the issue, there’s currently an option to disable it, as highlighted by Reddit user goodashbadash79. Go to Account settings on Netflix (you can also access them at netflix.com/account), head over to Security, and then opt out of Feature testing.

It’s unclear when Netflix plans to roll the change out widely, but according to one comment, the feature could roll out starting July 7. It will also allegedly stop supporting 2FA codes via SMS. Until then, we’re waiting for an official confirmation. We’ve written to Netflix for a comment and will share an update when we know better.