Cable companies are fed up and are putting an end to password sharing.
According to an article from Bloomberg Technology, an estimated 1/3 of people who stream cable services do not pay for their own accounts. Instead, they share passwords with friends and family to stream for free.
Charter Communications Inc. is a New York and Los Angeles based company that is taking a hit with all of the 'stolen' sharing. CEO of Charter Tom Rutledge said that one person had 30,000 live streams at a single time from one account. People who abuse the system are contributing to cable and satellite companies' loss of 3 million customers this past year. This results in big monetary losses for the companies.
Many companies are referring to the password sharing as piracy. Companies are urging programmers to help put an end to the sharing by making adjustments to the technology. Typically, people only have to re-enter their passwords for each device once a year. Companies are considering requiring more log-ins and putting restrictions on the amount of devices streaming on one password at a time.
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Netflix has already begun to crack down by limiting simultaneous streams to two, or charging for an upgraded plan. ESPN now only allows five streams, half of the 10 they used to allow.
This isn't just for the betterment of the cable and streaming companies. There have been cases of people stealing people's log in information, without their knowledge.
