Netflix wants people to pay their fair share to access its streaming service, but top honcho Reed Hastings wants to go slow on cracking the whip on illicit password-sharing, which is a common practice globally.

“We’ll test many things, but we would never roll out something that feels like ‘turning the screws’ on people who enjoy the service,” Variety quoted Hastings, Netflix’s co-CEO and co-founder, as saying on the company’s Q1 2021 earnings interview earlier this week.

“It’s gotta feel like it makes sense to consumers, that they understand,” Hastings added.

To date, Netflix hasn’t taken broad steps to shut down password-sharing activity aside from the restrictions in its terms of service, which spell out that any sharing of account credentials outside of the primary account holder’s household is prohibited.

In march 2021, Netflix had rolled out testing of a feature to limit the practice of password.

A small number of Netflix users are receiving a message asking them to confirm they live with the primary Netflix account owner by entering details from a text message or email sent to the owner, according to a Reuters report. Viewers can delay the verification and keep watching Netflix.

The message may reappear when they open or log into Netflix again, and eventually they could be required to open a new account to continue streaming.

“This test is designed to help ensure that people using Netflix accounts are authorized to do so,” Reuters had quoted a Netflix spokesperson as saying.

Netflix, the world’s largest streaming service, constantly tests new features with users and it is unclear if the household verification requirement will be implemented more widely.

The Netflix terms of service say that users of an account must live in the same household, though the company and other streaming services have declined to broadly crack down on such sharing.

Indianbroadcastingworld.com is not clear whether Netflix would put a stop to password sharing in India too, which is a big market for them in terms of eyeballs and a market where the streaming platform has tried out untested subscription plans.

Media reports have also said that Netflix was testing a new INR 299 per month Mobile+ plan in India that allows members to stream high-definition (HD) 720p video and also access the streaming service on computers (including PC, Mac, and Chromebook).

For the first quarter of 2021, Netflix fell short of expected streaming subscriber gains — adding about 4 million, compared with its previous 6 million forecast — while it topped Wall Street financial estimates.