The cost of subscriptions keeps rising, so Americans are joining family plans with friends, acquaintances, and even strangers to stay on budget.
The Big Picture: The average American adult is staying single longer, has a 20% chance of still being on their parents’ phone bill, and pays for five premium subscription services each month — on top of extras like music streaming and fitness content. For many, bending the rules to join a “chosen family” plan may be the only way to keep up with the subscription economy’s rising prices.
Behind The Sharing: Insider’s Emily Stewart calls this new trend “friend socialism.”
Most “family plans” don’t explicitly require members to be related, so users are adding anyone who will responsibly pay the bill on time.
Other family plans require everyone to share the same address, but without active verification, people often just list themselves under one roof in their settings.
Some companies, like Peloton, are aware of the practice and don’t discourage it — seeing it as a low-effort way to draw people into their ecosystem or boost ad exposure.
Other companies, like Netflix and Disney+, prioritize average revenue per user (ARPU) and actively crack down on password sharing or fraudulent family plans, banking on the idea that users will pay full price once caught.
Checkout: Robbie Kellman Baxter, a consultant for subscription-based companies, told Insider that allowing family plans with friends is “a useful strategy to build usage, understanding, and habit formation.” Cutting off that access could trigger a domino effect of group cancellations and drive customers toward competitors. To avoid that, some providers are making sharing even easier — AT&T, for example, rolled out a tool to split payments between members.
Future Renewal: Considering the loneliness epidemic facing America, family plans with friends could offer a small way to build a consistent community — and may even spur some companies to roll out features that boost engagement among account sharers.
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