This paper studies the effect of allowing sharing on the profitability of OTT companies. We establish
a simple theoretical model in which firms decide whether to allow password sharing and consumers
decide whether to share and how to share. Especially the search cost, which is paid when searching
for sharing partners outside households, plays an important role which determines the optimal sharing
policy. As a result of the optimization of the model, it is found that allowing account sharing when only
sharing between households exists adversely affects the profitability of the company. On the other hand,
sharing within a household contributes to enhancing profitability both when sharing between households
is possible and when not. This theoretical analysis provides theoretical logic as to why recent OTT
companies are trying to prevent sharing between households.