Charter CEO Tom Rutledge Hates Password Sharing

Quit sharing your passwords, filthy criminals, you’re pissing big cable companies off.

Password sharing is running rampant, especially with the younger crowds and Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge hates it.

During their earnings call, Rutledge stated: “The lack of control over the content by content companies and authentication processes has reduced the demand for video because you don’t have to pay for it. That’s going on in the college market.”

His logic isn’t off, certainly the easier it is to access TV shows through apps and web logins, the more likely it is that there are countless people using one another’s logins.

He generally attacks TV networks that now offer their own apps and customer logins. As most are likely aware, most of these apps require a cable subscription. But with a login to one of the major cable providers easily passed around, it’s pretty difficult to regulate the sharing of these logins with friends and family. And their friends and families.

Ironically, services such as HBO and Netflix have argued that password sharing likely isn’t some terrible epidemic, and in fact has been one of the best marketing tools for each respective service. For example, the odds are pretty good that most folks who have access to someone else’s HBO account often end up subscribing to the service themselves, at least at a rate that HBO finds beneficial enough to keep the reigns loose on password sharing.

Regardless, password sharing isn’t going to stop anytime soon unless drastic measures are taken by the major companies offering such services, but the streaming video industry has certainly reached a level where if one stops, three more are created. It seems far more important for traditional cable and TV to adapt as opposed to try and stop this modern consumption.