Finder reports half of Australians not paying for Netflix, Stan, Disney+

A change in consumer behaviour shows Australians can’t get enough of these services – as long as someone else pays for it.

A new report has split Australians into two groups: Those who actually pay for a subscription to services like Disney+ or Netflix – and the rest who mooch off of them.

Consumer comparison site Finder has found around 8.5 million Australians are relying on someone else to pay for their streaming video services.

Out of the 88 per cent of Australians who watch streaming services, half of them admitted to using someone else’s account.

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Half of Australians who watch streaming television do it on someone else’s account, according to Finder research.

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Unsurprisingly, Gen Z were the biggest freeloaders, as many in the cohort still live at home with their parents.

Almost three-quarters of Zoomers said the service they use isn’t in their name.

Gen X were the next biggest freeloaders, with 51 per cent, while 38 per cent of Gen Y said they use someone else’s account.

Only 20 per cent of Baby Boomers said they used an account that wasn’t theirs.

While half of Australia was mooching off someone else, the other half could be racking up big bills on their behalf.

“Having multiple Internet TV accounts can easily add up and given you’re not going to watch more than one service at a time, account sharing is a great way to save money,” Finder’s streaming editor James Dampney said.

“Just beware of always being the default account owner and keep track of who owes what.”

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Netflix remains the most popular of the streaming services.

Netflix remained the country’s favourite streaming service, scoring top scores for value, quality and range.

A whopping 98 per cent of Australians recommended the service according to Finder, and 69 per cent were subscribed.

That’s almost double the next most popular service Stan, which launched in Australia before Netflix but which only 36 per cent of Aussies subscribe to.

Amazon Prime was the second most recommended with a score of 90 per cent, followed by Stan (87 per cent), Kayo (85 per cent) and Binge (83 per cent).

Binge and Kayo are both owned by News Corp which also publishes this website.

Netflix has threatened to clamp down on account sharing in the past. Picture: Olivier Douliery/AFP

While Aussies are happy to recommend more streaming services and even let friends and family piggyback on their own, there are still plenty of reasons they might want to later take that privilege away.

“If you discover that old house mates or friends are freeloading off your account there are ways to remove devices that shouldn’t have login privileges,” Mr Dampney said.

“There’s also no point paying for a service you don’t use, even if you’re splitting the cost with someone else. So it’s worth doing a quick review of your subscriptions.”

Services like Netflix have previously promised to crack down on users sharing accounts.

Separate research conducted by ad-supported streaming service Tubi found 40 per cent of viewers considering cancelling at least one of their subscriptions.

It comes on the back of an uptick in streaming video adoption during the pandemic, which led to 63 per cent of Australians watching more or considerably more streaming content.