If you’re like millions of other users across the country, you’ve probably been binging Netflix dramas from someone else’s account. Well, this just in: a recent study actually found that Ohio is the state with the highest percentage of streaming swindlers, A.K.A. people who watch Netflix from someone else’s account.
The study, conducted by time2play, found that a whopping 59% of Ohio residents watch Netflix on someone else’s account outside of their household. States behind Ohio in terms of Netflix-sharing were Illinois (58%), Massachusetts (57%), Wisconsin (55%) and California (55%).
The states with the lowest percentage of residents sharing their Netflix accounts with outsiders include Utah (23%), Tennessee (29%) and Kansas (29%).
While users are free to share a Netflix account with other members of their household, Netflix is looking to barre its users from sharing accounts with people outside of that household. Until earlier this year, Netflix had not taken any action to prevent this account sharing among its users. However, in March, the streaming giant revealed that it will be tacking on an additional fee to those supplying their Netflix passwords to people outside of their homes. This new effort to crack down on password sharing has not yet taken effect in the United States.
As you might imagine, Netflix users are quite unhappy with this new policy. Of the 1,523 Americans polled in the study who watch Netflix from someone else’s account outside of their household, 79% said they would not get their own Netflix account if the streaming giant effectively bans subscription sharing.
How many people are mooching Netflix subscriptions, exactly? On average, time2play study participants reported that they share their Netflix subscription with 2.3 other people outside of their household. If that is an accurate representation of the rest of the country’s streaming habits, that means that millions of people will be impacted by Netflix’s sharing ban.
Netflix’s impending sharing ban isn’t the only streaming service drama taking place in Ohio right now. Cleveland suburb Maple Heights filed a class action suit in federal court in August 2020, stating that streaming services like Netflix and Hulu provide content that reaches customers through DSL and fiber optic cable lines along public rights of way, just like cable providers do. Those cable providers must pay a tax of up to 5% of their gross revenue in an area as a “video service provider” fee. If cable companies must pay, Maple Heights argued, then so should Netflix and Hulu. The Ohio Supreme Court is currently hearing oral arguments in the case.
Find out more about the time2play study by visiting time2play.com.
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This article appears in Apr 6-19, 2022.
