After grinding through tough A/B tests of new password-sharing policies in the Latin American markets of Peru, Costa Rica and Chile that started in March, Netflix expanded its testing in July to Argentina, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. 

So how's that going?

At least anecdotally in Argentina, once again ... the process seems to have been tough. 

The tech publication Rest of the World has tracked Netflix's testing in the region over the last six months. In its latest report on the matter, the pub spotlights the emergence of a backlash in Argentina, which seems to be corroborated, at least somewhat, by all the "#ChauNetflix" (bye Netflix) protest posts we found on Twitter. 

Rest of the World concedes that it has found no evidence of a third-quarter mass subscriber exodus in Argentina, one of Netflix's most densely penetrated markets with 4.5 million subscribers as of 2020. 

And even though Netflix is charging affected Argentinian users in pesos instead of U.S. dollars, insulating the test from currency dynamics that are particularly volatile right now, any consumer unease portrayed on social media is complicated by the complexity of local economic environment.

“I think Argentina is a really bad country to explore this [policy] as our economy is completely crazy. It’s not going to make sense for other countries,” Guillermo Mastrini, a professor specializing in mass media policies and economics at the National University of Quilmes and the University of Buenos Aires, told Rest of World.

Still, after experiencing turbulence amid testing in Peru earlier this year, Netflix seems intent on charging on.  

“We want to get it right,” Kumiko Hidaka, director of global product and technology communication at Netflix, also told the tech pub.   

Netflix said that as many as 100 million of its users globally are sharing passwords. 

Time Warner Inc.’s Home Box Office unit, less than a year after launching its over-the-top HBO Now service in the United States, is expanding its OTT reach to Brazil and Argentina later this year.

HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler made the announcement at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom conference in San Francisco Wednesday.

“We’re going to go OTT in Brazil and we’re going to go OTT in Argentina as well this year, which is just a further expansion of our international growth,” Plepler said.

Plepler said Brazil is probably HBO’s biggest market in Latin America with about 30 million broadband homes and 70 million TV homes. Although HBO has about 30% penetration in Brazil, Plepler said the addition of the OTT offering will bring a “new dimension,” to the business.

“I think you are going to see more of that going forward,” Plepler said, adding that the Brazil and Argentina launches are being done with partners but declined to name them.

HBO Now launched in the U.S. in April and has since accumulated about 800,000 subscribers. It previously announced plans to launch the product in Spain and currently operates standalone streaming services in 9 countries – the U.S., Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Colombia, Mexico, Hong Kong, Singapore.

Domestically, Plepler said HBO Now is working on becoming available on more platforms, and will gain carriage on Sony PlayStations later this year.