Netflix says it is rolling out a feature to cancel your Netflix account automatically if you don’t use it. However, you’ll have to show inactivity for quite a long time before the feature will kick in.
TNW reports that the streaming service will initially email subscription holders to check whether they still want it, and then will cancel their subscription if they don’t respond. However, Netflix will still be able to milk at least a year’s worth of subscription charges from each user before anything happens, as mentioned in the email that’s sent.
So we’re asking everyone who has not watched anything on Netflix for a year since they joined to confirm they want to keep their membership. And we’ll do the same for anyone who has stopped watching for more than two years.
While the feature could be helpful to some Netflix subscribers, very few will actually be affected. Netflix says that inactive accounts such as this represent less than half od one percent of all users, or merely a few hundred thousand accounts out of its 182 million subscribers.
However, any progress toward resolving the issue of users paying for subscriptions they no longer use or have forgotten about completely is to be applauded. Companies should monitor account usage and then proactively contact subscribers to check if they would still like to keep their service. They just shouldn’t let a year or two go by before doing so.