Skip to main content

This is when the Hulu, ESPN+, Disney+ password sharing crackdown starts

The Disney Plus sign-up menu is displayed
Marques Kaspbrak / Unsplash

The era of password sharing is slowly but surely coming to an end. Netflix has already begun cracking down on people sharing passwords across households, and now, other streaming services are following suit. Before 2024 is over, Disney Plus password sharing will be a thing of the past.

Disney’s streaming services are now preparing to crack down on those who are sharing passwords, and the consequences for doing so could be severe. Users across Hulu, Disney Plus, and ESPN Plus will be warned about password sharing, and if they don’t Disney CEO Bob Iger even laid out a timeline for when the crackdown will start, although he didn’t get into too many specifics.

Bob Iger says Disney will start its password-sharing crackdown over the summer

A remote with Disney Plus in the background.
Disney

In an interview with CNBC, Bob Iger said that the company will “be launching our first real foray into password sharing” in June of 2024. Iger added that the initial launch would be “just a few countries in a few markets” and did not specify which countries the crackdown would start in. Iger said that the program “will grow significantly with a full rollout in September.”

Initially, users who are sharing the account of someone else will be prompted to start their own accounts. Eventually, though, account holders who want to share their accounts with someone outside of their house will be asked to pay an additional fee for the privilege. Disney has already made this update in their terms of service, which now explicitly forbids users from sharing their passwords with anyone outside their home. This is, of course, a page right out of Netflix’s playbook and one designed to ensure that streaming can be a profitable product for Disney in the long run.

Iger said that he wants Disney to achieve “double-digit margins” in its streaming business over the long term. Disney has previously said that it expects Disney Plus to achieve profitability by the end of the 2024 fiscal year (which ends in September). The company’s streaming business posted a loss of $138 million in the year-end 2023 quarter, which was a sequential improvement of $300 million. That means that although Disney Plus is still operating at a loss, it is improving its margins and inching closer and closer toward profitability.

Hulu and Disney Plus are becoming one thing

During the interview, Iger also reminded the public that Disney is hard at work on combining Hulu and Disney Plus into a single interface so that users have access to their bundle subscriptions inside a single app.

“We need the technological tools to lower churn, create more stickiness,” Iger said on CNBC. “It’s things like recommendation engines, getting to know our customers better. We need to reduce the cost of marketing. We need to reduce the cost of customer acquisition to get the margins up, obviously.”

Editors' Recommendations

Joe Allen
Contributor
Joe Allen is a freelance culture writer based in upstate New York. His work has been published in The Washington Post, The…
Will the new sports streaming service from Disney, Fox, and WBD mean you can finally cut the cord for good?
Is this the ultimate sports streamer?
The Washington Commanders take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Aside from the NFL's Super Bowl, the big story of the month is a new sports streaming service coming from three of the major studios: Walt Disney Company, Fox Corp, and Warner Bros. Discovery. The new streamer will combine content from Disney's ESPN and ABC, Fox Sports, and WBD's TNT and TBS for a one-stop service that features NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, college football, and NCAA March Madness, FIFA World Cup, three Grand Slam tennis events, UFC, Formula 1, and NASCAR.

On the surface, it sounds like the ideal cable killer that sports fans and cord-cutters have been waiting for years to see. And it will likely hasten the departure of a significant amount of subscribers who have only stuck with cable for the sports channels. However, there are several questions that remain, which even the three partner studios haven't fully addressed yet. And we're going to dive into some of those issues now.

Read more
Ranked: The best Disney movies of all time (for kids of all ages) – Up, Toy Story 2, and more
Does your favorite Disney movie make our list of the best Disney movies?
The cast of Coco

As the old saying goes, Disney is for both the young and the young at heart. Although the studio continues to deliver great new movies for the kids of today, kids of days past still have fond memories of their days spent watching the movies that the studio used to make. Now, with the advent of Disney Plus, watching those beloved classics is easier than ever.

Because the best Disney movies are so wrapped up in what you loved as a kid, everyone's list is going to be different. And now that Disney owns mega properties like Marvel and Star Wars, the roster of available movies now on Disney+, continues to grow. You might not agree with this list, and there are plenty of great Disney movies not on it, but if you're looking for some other options, we also have a list of the best Disney Plus movies to stream right now.

Read more
The ultimate guide to Disney Plus
Disney+ cover on a blue background

Disney Plus has grown into one of the biggest streaming services since its launch in November 2019. It's been around long enough that most people know what it's all about, but if you aren't overly familiar with the streamer, read on while we narrow down everything you could need to know about Disney Plus.

What is Disney Plus?
As the name suggests, Disney Plus is the streaming service from The Walt Disney Company. Originally set up in November 2019, it now has over 150 million subscribers. It primarily distributes films and TV shows produced by Disney but it also has dedicated content hubs for brands such as Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, and other major names.

Read more