Netflix is testing a new pilot program involving shared password fees, and it is not sitting well with subscribers. Users in Chile, Peru, and Costa Rica are reportedly perplexed by the policy, which only permits free password sharing among members of the same physical household, meaning a group of roommates could use one Netflix password free of charge, but relatives who do not occupy the same living space would have to pay extra to do so, according to The Verge.

“While we started working on paid sharing over 18 months ago, we have been clear for five years that a Netflix account is for people who live together in a single household,” a company spokesperson told TechCrunch. “The millions of members who are actively sharing an account in these countries have been notified by email, but given the importance of this change, we are ramping up in-product notifications more slowly.”

Users are objecting to the additional costs, with some going so far as to cancel their subscriptions entirely.

Technically, Netflix has always prohibited password sharing among viewers in separate homes, but the company had not strictly enforced the policy or even threatened to do so until now.

Apart from program testing participants, the vast majority of Netflix’s nearly 222 million global subscribers have not yet encountered pushback for password sharing. However, the streaming giant could soon implement the policy more broadly. If that happens, the shift may reflect corporate uncertainty following the loss of 200,000 subscribers in Q1 of 2022 – the first time that Netflix viewership has decreased in the last decade.