Netflix’s password-sharing crackdown calculus

Is Netflix's password crackdown a cynical cash grab? Surely it is -- and to the same extent as any revenue-accretive initiative from a for-profit company. But that is a much less revelatory question in the case of the new password policy from Netflix than is: could the policy have been as effective absent the ad-supported tier? The answer to that is almost certainly not. The ad-supported tier provides password sharers with a more economically-palatable alternative to simply abandoning the service that, critically, generates almost as much revenue to Netflix as its highest-priced subscription tier.