Since Disney+ launched a few years ago, people have been sharing their passwords with family and friends, letting them log in and watch Star Wars and more at no extra cost. But those days are coming to an end, according to Disney CEO Bob Iger during a recent earnings call.
In 2019, Disney+ launched and quickly grew into one of the biggest streaming platforms around. Over time, Disney has continued to raise prices for the service as it worked toward making it a profitable product. (Something that just recently happened, actually.) And one tactic Disney’s been mulling over for some time has been cracking down on password sharing. Disney first threatened to do this in 2023 and then started cracking down in June of this year, but only in some countries. Now, it seems like everyone is going to be barred from freely sharing their account with friends and family members.
As reported by IGN on August 7, Iger talked openly about its plans to ramp up its password crackdown efforts in September while also claiming to investors that the company hadn’t received any “backlash” from customers.
“We’ve been talking a lot about adding the technology features that we need to basically make it a higher return, higher margin business, and a more successful business. And we’re doing that right now,” said Iger during the recent earnings call.
“We started our password-sharing initiative in June,” mentioned Iger. “That kicks in, in earnest, in September. By the way, we’ve had no backlash at all to the notifications that have gone out and to the work that we’ve already been doing.”
Earlier this week, Disney announced it was raising prices on Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+. This is the fourth price increase the service has received since it launched, and it means that starting in October the ad-free version of Disney+ will cost you more than double what it cost back in 2019. Back then Disney+ was just $7 a month. Today, it’s $16 a month. Yikes.
But hey, Disney is actually making money off its streaming services now, which is something other companies like Paramount can’t claim. All it took was doubling prices, cracking down on people sharing their accounts, and likely angering a lot of folks in the process. But number go up, so who cares?
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