Netflix’s brand-new feature ‘Profile transfer’ is now here! 

Is Netflix your go-to OTT platform? Do you spend a lot of time on it? Well, so do most people worldwide, as it continues to rule as the most popular online streaming platform. Recently, Netflix has come up with another new feature called ‘Profile transfer.’ Its unveiling quote reads as follows: “People move. Families grow. Relationships end. But throughout these life changes, your Netflix experience should remain the same.”  

Before we delve into it, let us share a surprise information. Around June this year, Netflix lost more than 1 million subscribers, the largest quarterly loss in the firm’s history. Wondering how is this possible? After all, if so many people are watching Netflix, the number of subscribers should go up, right? Turns out that more people are streaming web series and movies on this platform, by sharing passwords.  

This means that someone is creating an account and then sharing the password to his or her entire gang and they watch it during their available hours. The same applies for a family. One of the parents is the account holder, while the kids and others share the password to stream across the platform. Now, this sounds like a smart option to you and us, but if you think from Netflix’s point of view, it is ruining their profits.  

Keeping this in mind, recently, the OTT company has launched a brand-new feature called ‘Profile transfer.” This feature will enable the user of an existing account to start their new account without having to recreate their profile from scratch. Can you guess what this implies? Yes, that’s right; all your personalised recommendations, saved shows and games, viewing history and all other user settings will be retained, even if you begin a brand-new membership.  

This means that while Netflix earns money from another user account, the user himself doesn’t have to put too much effort into setting up his fresh account. Sources cite that this initiative by the streaming platform comes at a time when they are desperately trying to restrict account and password sharing, and is looking to monetise.  

As a matter of fact, Netflix’s latest survey has also revealed that over 100 million households are freeloading into Netflix simply through the practice of password sharing, something that they wish to do away with. Instead, with this newly-presented ‘Profile transfer’ feature, Netflix can now ensure that freeloaders who use family of friends’ account details can access the platform directly while paying for their own subscription. Now, whether or not this feature will be widely accepted remains to be seen.  

As per Netflix, the feature has already been rolled out and existing users will soon be notified via emails about it. Here’s how one can avail this feature. A member needs to go to the “Transfer Profile” option that will be available on the dropdown menu on their homepage and then follow the instructions one after the another. Interestingly, one can also turn off their ‘Transfer Profile’ by going to the account settings anytime they want.