The wholesale store Costco has announced that sharing membership cards will no longer be permitted.

Costco Wholesale has started strictly prohibiting customers from sharing their membership cards at the self-service checkout.

After realizing non-members were using the non-transferrable cards to enter the warehouse, the big box retailer has demanded that customers use the self-checkout kiosks before displaying their membership cards with their photos.

Employees at Costco routinely scan membership cards at the traditional checkout, so the policy is not brand new to them. Since more self-checkout lanes have recently opened nationwide, the company has decided to enforce the policy.

The least expensive Costco membership, which costs $60 a year and allows you to add one additional person who lives within the same address, is available to over 69 million households.

Other major corporations, apart from Costco, have recently tightened their rules on membership sharing. The world's largest streaming service, Netflix, has restricted account sharing to use within a single household only, suspending service for anyone trying to use the account across multiple locations.

Customers voiced their concerns when Netflix first confirmed the changes, but in the days that followed, they spent more money on new subscriptions than they had in the early days of the pandemic. The price of Netflix rose by 15%.

Rebecca Jarvis, chief business and technology reporter for ABC News, says it's unclear whether Costco or other businesses that are taking action will experience the same boom.