Netflix · Strategy · Mid · 45 to 60 minutes

How should Netflix respond to account sharing?

Netflix is a global subscription streaming service for TV shows, films, and other video content. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Product strategy
Monetization
Tradeoff analysis
Experiment design
Stakeholder judgment

The situation

It is early 2022. You are a PM in Netflix's consumer product organization, and the VP responsible for core subscriptions has asked you for a strategy recommendation on account sharing. For years, Netflix publicly treated password sharing as normal because it helped the service spread quickly, but the business context has changed. Netflix has just reported its first subscriber loss in over a decade, growth is slowing, ARPU is under pressure in some regions, competition from Disney+, HBO Max, and others is rising, and content investment remains very high. Internal estimates suggest that around 100 million households worldwide are watching using someone else's account, including about 30 million in the U.S. Leadership sees a major monetization gap, but any move to limit sharing could trigger cancellations, bad press, confusion about travel and multi-device use, and a backlash against a brand that has long seemed consumer friendly. Your job is to recommend what Netflix should do over the next 12 months, whether to act now, how aggressive to be, and how to balance revenue, churn, and trust.

What to produce

Write a 1 to 2 page strategy memo.

Your answer must

State the core problem and rank the business goals you would optimize for, such as revenue growth, paid memberships, churn, and user trust.
Lay out 2 to 3 strategic options, including keeping the current policy and at least one path that changes how shared use is handled.
Recommend one approach and explain which user segments are most affected, including primary account owners, borrower households, and legitimate edge cases like travelers or multi-device users.
Propose a rollout plan that covers testing, market sequencing, user messaging, and what the in-product experience should be if Netflix changes the policy.
Define success metrics and guardrails for the first 6 and 12 months, including how you would tell the difference between healthy conversion and harmful churn.

Constraints

Do not assume a major change in Netflix's content slate will solve the problem.
Any recommendation must work within Netflix's existing account and streaming product surfaces, without depending on new hardware, telecom partnerships, or third-party identity systems.
The policy must still support legitimate use across multiple devices and short-term travel.
Leadership wants a material business signal within 12 months, not a multi-year bet.

Format

Use sections for problem, options, recommendation, rollout, metrics, and risks. A simple comparison table for options is encouraged.

How Netflix actually played it

Explains the shift from encouraging password sharing to paid sharing, the soft landing rollout, timeline and results in subscribers and revenue. Includes user reaction and industry ripple effects.

Reverse a long-held policy with a staged rollout
Give users an easy path to comply, not just a block
Measure the change against both churn and new paying accounts

Built from Steal This Playbook: Netflix's Radical Path to 13M New Subs by Sid Arora (JAPM).