We’ve all heard about Netflix and Disney+ cracking down on their users sharing account access with friends & family that aren’t in the same household. Why aren’t we hearing about the same for Apple TV+?
Apple is in an advantageous position, offering much more than streaming TV shows. Sharing one’s Apple ID Password means not only sharing access to one’s library of streaming content, but also their email, Goldman Sachs savings account, e-book Library, App Store purchases, Photos… By adding very personal services like financial services and tying them all to the same account, Apple makes the idea of giving a third party access to your account extremely unattractive.
In addition, Apple’s operating systems are designed around this ID. login takes place centrally instead of in every individual application like Books or TV. Logging into an account for the purpose of one thing will also log you into the same account for other things.
Apple does allow 5 family users to access the same subscription services without accessing each other’s personal data, but even then Apple protected against abuse by design. Any family member added will use the same payment method for purchases as the family manager. Want to share your apple TV+ subscription with your college roommate by adding them to your family? This means whenever they purchase something in the App Store it’ll bill your credit card.
Through all this, Apple is able to not crack down on password sharing, but, even better for them, stop it before it even begins – in their user’s minds. It’s simply so unattractive that users don’t even bother.
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