Earlier this year, Disney CEO Bob Iger spoke during a quarterly investors call about how the company is going to be starting to crack down on how many Disney+ subscribers are sharing their passwords with people outside their household. This comes after Netflix was able to add millions of subscribers when it implemented its own password-sharing crackdown, resulting in other studios, like Disney taking notice.

With a push by Wall Street to make its streaming services more profitable, we are likely to see more pushback by the Hollywood studios over people sharing their passwords. Recently, Disney+ subscribers in many countries, including Canada and the UK, received an updated terms of service email, indicating that Disney+ accounts shouldn’t be shared with people who don’t live in the same household.

As you might expect, many Disney+ users have been upset over the pushback by studios on friends and families sharing their passwords for different streaming services, but according to some new data from JustWatch, which surveyed over 3000 users at the end of October, over 20% of users are accessing Disney+ via a shared account.

While the studios turned a blind eye to the situation in the past, with some companies like Netflix actively promoting it on their social media, things have now changed. Trying to get new subscribers is always difficult, but targetting people who are already using the service, is likely to be a much easier option, since those users are already used to the platform.

This chart also shows how the number of users accessing Netflix on a shared account is much lower than any other streaming service, proving that their clampdown is working.

Disney hasn’t revealed how or when it will be cracking down on sharing accounts, but with the recent shift internationally, to offering fewer concurrent streams for some tiers, this is likely going to be the first method to restrict how many people are accessing an account at once.

Do you think more people will stop sharing their Disney+ account? Let us know on social media!

Roger Palmer

Roger has been a Disney fan since he was a kid and this interest has grown over the years. He has visited Disney Parks around the globe and has a vast collection of Disney movies and collectibles. He is the owner of What's On Disney Plus & DisKingdom. Email: Roger@WhatsOnDisneyPlus.com Twitter: Twitter.com/RogPalmerUK Facebook: Facebook.com/rogpalmeruk

View all posts