That's a pass

Time to check out the streaming competition now that Netflix has cut one of its best features.

- Peter Griffin

Netflix, the country's most popular video streaming service, is taking away one of its best features: password sharing.

The mean-spirited move will affect, by Netflix's own estimate, 100 million people globally who use a login and password from someone who is actually paying the monthly fee to Netflix.

My father, living in a retirement village up the coast from me, will have to buy his own Netflix account to continue his B-movie action/thriller fetish, or I'll need to pay an additional $7.99 a month to add him as an "extra member sub-account".

Netflix became a global streaming goliath on the back of its generous password-sharing policy, which became the best marketing tool in its arsenal. It has always limited how many people can stream Netflix at the same time. Currently, a premium account (NZ$24.99) allows you to stream on four devices at once, and the standard account (NZ$18.49) allows two simultaneous streams.

But the streamer now says the policy means it is leaving vast sums of cash on the table, cash it needs to fund the production of TV shows and movies to swell its already vast content library.