Netflix's password-sharing crackdown is coming. It already looks grim.

Netflix, the streaming giant headquartered in the Bay Area, has been threatening a substantial password-sharing crackdown for months. This week, the company finally started to roll out some of its changes. As expected, they are gobsmackingly awful and indeed reviled by everyday users, privacy advocates and even famed musicians. Rightfully so: The new policies represent an invasive, unsustainable solution to a “problem” other streaming services don’t seem too worried about solving.

Netflix’s latest changes, which are currently on trial in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru (where it has tried to enforce other troubling password measures), would require you to log into your account from your “household” — basically, the place you primarily use the service — at least once every 31 days. Attempting to sign in from a location other than your household could result in your account being blocked unless you pay more to add extra users.

These updates were posted on the company’s U.S. help page this week, causing an instant uproar. A spokesperson for Netflix later told the Streamable that the guidelines had been posted by accident, but it is more than likely that this change will come for users stateside too.

The naivety on display here from Netflix executives is truly remarkable. Users who already refuse to pay a mere $10 per month for the service’s ad-free experience won’t be inclined to start paying now just to appease the bottomless maws of shareholders and C-suite execs. People online have already started deliberating the merits of returning to torrenting and shady streamers to avoid having to pay for multiple Netflix subscriptions.

Today’s users also probably recognize that their precious dollars may be better spent on streaming services that don’t regularly produce exceedingly mid content; in fact, the existence of shows like “Hype House” or the upcoming “Avengers”-style mashup of characters from the service’s various romance reality shows should form the basis of some type of formal inquiry into what exactly is going on inside Netflix. Frankly, the company is overestimating what it brings to the table in terms of content, and its shift from being a service that once encouraged people to share their passwords to one that’s cracking down on the practice reeks of a shameless pursuit of capital, to the detriment of its loyal users.

It also raises privacy concerns. Netflix says it will make use of information “such as IP addresses” to enforce the new protocols, and the company already blocks users from using virtual private networks to access content that’s not available in their area. Together, these two practices imply that Netflix may start keeping close tabs on when and where, specifically, users are accessing the streaming service — a rather Orwellian notion that will surely give pause to some TV watchers.

Simply put, the new rules seem unsustainable, especially when one considers what counts as a “household.” People travel for work and stream Netflix from their hotels, while others watch during their regular commute. Kids move out or go off to college. People log into Netflix while sleeping over at a friend’s or partner’s house. The company’s definition of a household seems to be fashioned after the archaic “nuclear family” model, which again speaks to the out-of-touch element on display here.

Streaming competitors like HBO Max and Hulu also have rules around password sharing, but they’re not strictly enforced. Anyone with one user’s login information can access their account from anywhere and, in some cases, use it at the same time as another logged-in user. While that’s not exactly the most profitable way to do business, it has fostered a sense of goodwill among users who are now seeing Netflix do the opposite to protect its bottom line. That goodwill may pay off more than Netflix might have imagined: Hulu was trending on Twitter shortly after the Netflix news came out.

While Netflix seems to have taken a step back after experiencing swift backlash to the rule change, that the new protocols are now active in other countries hangs ominously in the air. If these rules ever do take effect for the millions of U.S. users, it will almost certainly be ruinous for a company that — almost by accident — revolutionized the way we consume media.