After losing 200,000 subscribers, Netflix will crackdown on account sharing

After losing 200,000 subscribers, Netflix will crackdown on account sharing
FILE PHOTO: The Netflix logo is pictured on a television in this illustration photograph taken in Encinitas, California, U.S., January 18, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

According to a statement Tuesday, Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter, and this is just the beginning. This is the first time the streaming giant has lost subscribers in around a decade, and it missed Wall Street expectations, which had the company with a sluggish gain of only 2.5 million subscribers in the first quarter.

If you share passwords with your friends and fam, Netflix is blaming you, by the way. You and Jeff Bezos, Disney, Warner Bros and all the other players saturating the space. The company also wants to manage expectations, saying that next quarter will probably be even worse, with around a loss of 2 million subscribers.

Key comments:

“Since launching streaming in 2007, we’ve operated under the firm belief that internet-delivered, on demand entertainment will supplant linear TV, and that this transition represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a highly popular and profitable entertainment company,” the company wrote in a statement to shareholders.

“In the near term though, we’re not growing revenue as fast as we’d like. COVID clouded the picture by significantly increasing our growth in 2020, leading us to believe that most of our slowing growth in 2021 was due to the COVID pull forward,” Netflix said.