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This site makes you money for sharing your streaming accounts

Pretty sure this goes against just about everyone’s terms of service.

Gowd subscription sharing
Image: KnowTechie

Sharing passwords has always been a thing with subscription services, but one company is hoping to expand on that by connecting people all over the world.

Gowd is a new website dedicated to sharing your subscription accounts with random people to try and make back some of that money you’re spending.

You can list those subscriptions on Gowd’s website to sell access to your accounts for fractions of their overall costs. The idea is that you continue to use the account while giving access to someone else and recouping some of your costs.

Conversely, if you’re looking to sign up for a subscription, like Netflix or Walmart+, you can head to Gowd and look for a discount. You’ll pay a fraction of the original cost to buy access to another user’s account.

On top of that, there’s little to no commitment when signing up for a subscription on Gowd.

The company’s CEO, Vivek Shah, told us that “Unlike mainstream subscription services, we don’t have any contracts. Both buyers and sellers can cancel at any time without any reason.”

Gowd video stream subscription sharing
Screenshot: KnowTechie

Gowd already has listings for tons of different types of subscriptions. There are options that let you access a VPN subscription for less than $2 a month and streaming services like Netflix for less than half price.

You can even share a subscription to your favorite adult website with strangers on the internet on Gowd. What a time to be alive.

But how do the subscription services feel about account sharing?

Gowd streaming share service on
Image: KnowTechie

At a base level, this seems like a really neat service. People are spending tons of money these days on subscription services and only using a portion of them.

Why not have a platform that lets you share that subscription and recoup some of your money?

But Gowd is directly taking money out of the business’s pockets. Every person that shares their account on Gowd is another sale that the original company is potentially losing out on.

In fact, most platforms have a clause in their terms of use that prohibits users from sharing their accounts with others.

A recent article from The Washington Post confirms that the majority of streaming subscription services prohibit sharing your account with anyone other than family. And many of them don’t allow you to share with anyone outside of your household.

However, the penalties for this are generally pretty mild. There hasn’t been much evidence at all of any streaming service taking legal action against users who share their accounts.

Starz subscription sharing
Screenshot: KnowTechie

But this is a massive scale of subscription sharing that’s earning a profit for Gowd. That’s an entirely different story and one that most companies likely won’t be too happy to hear.

When asked about this, Gowd’s CEO Vivek Shah told Protocol that subscription services’ rules essentially aren’t Gowd’s problem.

“We rely on our sellers’ knowledge for the listed account’s limitations and restrictions, including the ability to sublicense or resell another’s services, prior to posting,” said Shah.

When we asked Shah how other companies feel about Gowd, it was more of the same. “We can’t speak on behalf of third-party companies,” was the only answer provided to us.

Gowd certainly seems like a good way to share some of that subscription expense that we’ve all been racking up.

But if it’s taking money out of other companies’ pockets, the platform could find itself in hot water. We’ll keep an eye on Gowd to see how things work out in the future.

Have any thoughts on this? Carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Staff writer at KnowTechie. Alex has two years of experience covering all things technology, from video games to electric cars. He's a gamer at heart, with a passion for first-person shooters and expansive RPGs. Shoot him an email at alex@knowtechie.com

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