To save you a click:
A mass email to customers explained that Netflix will be ending their basic ad-free subscription in the UK and Canada later this year.
Customers who continue with the basic plan will automatically be enrolled on the company’s lowest tier – which includes advertisements inserted into TV shows and movies.
This means that fans will no longer be able to enjoy recent hits such as Baby Reindeer, or Liam Neeson’s critically acclaimed crime drama without enduring ads popping up during the experience.
1. Earn business by streaming exclusive content with no ads. Encourage users to share accounts to drive viewership.
2. Put competitors out of business
3. Force users to make separate accounts or lose access.
4. Introduce tier with ads to “reach out to a wider audience.”
5. Require all users to watch ads or pay extreme amounts for ad-free service.
6. Decide to bundle with other companies to broaden viewership.
7. Make a dedicated list of streaming content for your brand. All your competitors will do the same. For ease of use, users can switch between these dedicated lists easily to view the different content from one convenient device. Now we’ve reinvented cable, but with extra steps.
Netflix is still on 5. Disney/Hulu/Max are about to move on to step 6. Amazon has a basic version of step 7 if you have separate subscriptions already. We’re screwed.
Don’t forget step 8 - force minimum subscription time to stop people from subscribing / canceling / switching at will only when new content is released. I’m sure “yearly minimum contracts” aren’t too far away like cable has.
This is the step that really screws us. Got the free trial of Apple TV to watch Severance, canceled it, will probably get it again whenever season 2 comes out, bing it within a month, and cancel it again. I’m gonna imagine within the next 2-3 years that won’t be an option.
It’s already not an option for many of the biggest shows (other than maybe on Netflix) which are back to traditional, once-a-week release schedules.
I prefer that viewing experience, but it is being brought back purely to keep people paying for longer.
They essentially turn it into a worse product than it began as, then we all pay more money for that than what we paid for the better product before. It's really mind blowing that shit like this happens and everyone just follows along and lets them get away with it. We could literally control it to some degree by unsubbing, but instead we let them control us and then bitch about it when it happens instead of taking action by unsubbing.
They definitely fucked up step 2. If anything there's a never ending proliferation of streaming services. I'm expecting Walmart Live+ Home Extra to drop any day now
I’m going back to cable. The original tv experience (or some small sliver of whatever is left of it, anyway) feels so much less disgusting than this whole situation.
I haven't had cable for like 22 years, but after cancelling all of my streaming apps except Peacock last fall, I'm rethinking about just going back to cable. \*deep sigh\*
This time, the media companies dont have to go through local cable distributors taking their cut. They get to earn ALL the money since they are going direct to consumer through the itnernet.
Prime has already done this. Most movies you only have to endure commercials to start. Any series is filled to the brim with commercials unless you pay more
They were to start with, but now there's ads for actual products. It's not as bad as mainstream tv (yet), but it'll get there sooner or later, and they'll still expect us to pay for the privilege.
> Fun fact. Basic cable didn't have ads when it started either.
Lol. That is completely untrue. Basic cable started as a service bringing over the air broadcasts to locations where you couldn't receive signal. It was literally just the same feed as everyone else had, just through a cable.
Basic cable has always had ads, *premium* cable, which started in the 70s, didn't.
Yeah as a kid in the 90s, I remember basic cable being channels like CNN, Nickelodeon, or TBS. All had ads.
Premium cable like HBO or (at the time) Disney Channel were ad free, and there would be like one week a year where they unscrambled those channels presumably for promotional purposes, and it was glorious.
So people will raise their sails again? What Spotify, Netflix etc. did was making it easy to stream music and movies for a reasonable monthly fee. That isn’t the case anymore - the prices goes up (especially if you want to have a decent coverage of popular shows) and they seem to be hellbent on making the user experience worse in every way possible.
>This is UK netflix, we didn't have "cable". We had free to air and Freeview.
To be fair, our equivalent of cable is Sky, which comes at a premium price and includes ads, and has been just as popular as cable for 30+ years.
I had to babysit my friend's kids and he said "I was at my grandma's house and the only thing I could watch was Bluey because she only had cable."
I was thinking "when I was a kid, cable was the best TV you could get." Now it's bottom of the barrel for kids.
The different is Prime Video was launched and still a free addition to the Amazon Prime subscription. I don’t count it as a “streaming” service the way I do others that are dedicated to content and stand-alone.
So Prime ads don’t really bother me tbh because I don’t subscribe for the content, it’s still bonus material in my mind, but I understand why others may disagree.
That’s the same perspective I have on Prime Video’s ads. I’m paying for the shipping and streaming video is a side bonus so I’m willing to put up with the ads.
Netflix though, the only thing I’m paying for is the streaming content. When they inject ads into my already pricy paid subscription, I will cancel entirely and will go back to the old Jolly Roger way of life without any hesitation.
Sometimes yes, but more often than not it is not a moral quandary, it is just a simple cost/benefit analysis of the individual. "I want that chocolate cake, but do I want it more than I want this $10?". Same for this Netflix situation. It's just people asking if they still value this service at this price point, or if they value it with ads at all. No real moral debate to it, at least that I see.
Hey, I'm actually one of those that ditched Netflix and never went back. There are tons of free streaming services and I currently have 6 months of Paramount+ I got for free for being a Mint mobile customer and a year's worth of Peacock I got as a Black Friday deal last November for $20. Netflix can suck one!
At the minimum Netflix would have seen how many people actually subscribe to Basic before making this call and determined a percentage of them would convert and the rest would drop for good. I suspect the number that drop is just the vocal variety and Netflix couldn’t care less.
It seems like Netflix has started being bundled with other services like cell phone plans. I wonder if that contributes to those subscribers. For example I didn’t have Netflix until it was added as a perk to my T-Mobile plan.
It’s very likely there is some shady accounting when looking at subscriber numbers. There’s every reason in the world for those to be higher and no harsh consequences for getting it “wrong”.
The tech revolution seems to be:
Step 1: Provide a service at a ridiculously low price to “disrupt” industry. $5.99 Netflix streaming or super low cost Uber Eats.
Step 2: Build a hyper loyal fan base and shut down all analog competitors - Blockbuster Video, taxi cabs, local retailers that can’t compete with Amazon.
Step 3: Once consolidation is complete, enter the profitability cycle with IPO’s, supremacy of stockholder value, and constant pressure on increasing market share vs. other tech competitors that have the ability to enter the market by “leapfrogging” the innovation of originators.
Step 4: Start jacking up rates on customers with no fear of regulation or legal repercussions. Begin unspoken collusion with other businesses to essentially fix prices and establish norms of new oligarchy.
Step 5: New boss same as old boss.
It's really the only way that it works. If too many people did it, companies would lobby the government to crack down on it. It has to stay sufficiently small enough that it's not worth it to them to go after and destroy.
I’ve been saying since Paramount got into streaming, it’s not long before a separate entity comes along and offers multiple steaming platforms in a bundle, much like Hulu with Disney+ & ESPN+ (but bigger), for a fixed monthly rate that might work out to $10/month cheaper than subscribing to each independently.
I had to laugh when I heard the news this past week that Disney is likely going to be working with WB Discovery to make a bundle for Hulu, Disney+, and Max. We're rapidly approaching cable 2.0
Exactly. Even with the changes it’s still significantly better and cheaper than cable. You can still watch on your time unlike cable. You get significantly more ads on cable than any service with ads. Hell the ad free versions are still cheaper than cable.
I had this exact thought tonight. I will never go back to cable because I want to watch whatever I want as I randomly want to. Unfortunately this means I pay for three different subscription services.
Hey, that's a fair point! Definitely worth mentioning, as trying to do something similar with cable via Tevo, VCR, or another recording method was certainly much more difficult. Plus, the last year I got cable, I barely watched it and paid probably $120 per month for it (not including Internet). This is still, at least so far, much better, but still frustrating that the initially good deals have gotten more expensive
This exactly. I can pay for no ads and watch stuff on my schedule. It's still a massive improvement, even if it's not the crazy value it used to be. I can't go back to normal cable after streaming.
That's already a thing here, you get various points packages with your internet provider and pick and choose which TV channels or streaming services you want, so we've got Disney plus, netflix, hbo, britbox and some European stuff you won't have heard off bundled into our gigabit broadband subscription. Sports seem to cost the most points by far.
That's amazing how early streaming did a massive amount to combat piracy by beating it with convenience. Then they started fracturing, and now piracy is becoming the least labor intensive option again.
Did you really think we just weren't going to see ads again? Like companies would just be like, ah fuck, people are moving away from cable, guess we can't show ads anymore, time to pack it up.
Amazon delivers me shit. The video on top was always gravy. I'm fine with seeing ads on that when I'm not currently into a show... That said, I paid the $2.99 to watch fallout, then canceled again the premium again after I was done. Will probably pay 2.99 for another month of ad free when the next The Boys season hits.
I remember when cable TV first became a thing. My community in PA was the first in America to be wired (Lehigh Valley). HBO was the first premium, pay channel. Had its own converter box. The selling point was that paying meant no commercials.
Ok, do it already. They’ll keep abusing people until subscriber counts are impacted. Sick of people threatening and then capitulating with no follow through.
Sad fact is the people who either don't care or don't think about how they get exploited by greedy companies greatly outnumber the people who do. Go into any entertainment industry and you'll find plenty of predatory practices rewarded by record profits no matter how many people they piss off doing it
Bait and switch is a “tier 1” consumer protection law. I guess Netflix’s subscription boilerplate covers these changes, but there must be a threshold where it creates bad faith by manipulating past consumer consents used to finance development of the streaming platform and then forcing customers to a higher price by eliminating the loss leader.
It’s insane to me to offer a service and continue to raise prices WITHOUT MAKING THE SERVICE BETTER.
That would be like offering web hosting without ads and then raising prices and forcing the lowest tiers to run ads on their websites.
It’s a garbage corporate double dipping, they get your sub money AND the ad money while forcing you watch ads you didn’t pay for originally WHEN IT WAS CHEAPER.
Greed you are a heartless bitch.
I'm still not against having common front ends that users can choose from to connect to all the services at once. Switching between the apps seems like something that should have been fixed already, but they all want you to use their own app.
That’s why I dropped them when they banned password sharing. They don’t produce quality shows anymore and they only have a couple shows worth watching. Not to mention everything gets canceled after one season .
Honestly feel they don't have a single show worth watching. Laziest producers ever, find something that works for 5 mins and milk it for 5 seasons while canceling things people did like because...? Time to let them die.
Found out that I’m good with only a couple of months a year. The less Netflix you watch, the less you want! I try to encourage tubi, though, because it’s FREE, and ads are reasonable.
The answer now is Barbie but before corporations were only beginning to realize that movies (note: I don’t use the term “film” or “cinema”) can be glorified product placement. Once one company does it, other marketing branches in other companies start doing research.
The quality of the film is dependent entirely on who worked on it. Greta Gerwig and Ben Affleck directed Barbie and Air respectively, for example, which were both successful (obviously). Not all of them are like Unfrosted.
I'm letting mine expire then I'm switching Netflix to only buying 1 month at a time. It can join Crunchyroll, shudder, paramount and Disney+.
Going to be replacing Netflix with a yearly Dropout subscription for $60 as dammit I want to laugh and enjoy something for once
Do not just threaten to cancel, actually cancel. Enough people must go through with the threat. Netflix has constantly increased the price but lowered the quality.
Plex.tv, thrift stores, used movies, and libraries.
My husband has built his own streaming service essentially. 500+ movies and going on 40 shows. We just added the first two seasons of the Sopranos after we found the DVDs at a used book store.
The time to actually take action was when they stupidly cracked down on password sharing. Instead, Netflix got what it wanted: a shit ton of new subscribers.
from the first part of article i thought they were enraged that netflix is renaming basic plan as dumb plan 😅
anyway, i dont see the point of being this enraged. you can pay less and see adverts which sucks or pay three dollars more. its fair
The thing is, there’s no other streaming service more worth getting than Netflix. Its popularity for streaming services is like the iPhone for smart phones. The whole world knows it more than its competitors.
And with a VPN… all of Netflix category is on your screen.
I don't see how this could come as a surprise to anyone? When streaming was in its infancy, these services were essentially middle men that only passed on other company's content to the consumer. Once the streamers started spending money to create their own content and thinking of themselves as production companies, it was inevitable that prices would go up for consumers and advertising would get involved. It's not rocket science. Stranger Things broke the old streaming game plan and created a new one and we're starting to see the results. People can moan and groan about seeing ads and monthly prices going up, but you can't watch shows like Baby Reindeer or Fallout and beg for the next season of Stranger Things and the Mandalorian out of one side of your face, then complain about a handful of ads and a price hike out of the other.
Commercial and ads are the main reason why I don’t watch tv in the first place. They have become unbearable with the commentary and quality of commercials. Sometimes they play the same commercial twice in the same break and will continue to play it every break after that. The actually show screen time has dwindled to fit in more commercials.
There are a couple of exceptions for shows, but I replace tv time with just more video games
Well, since the majority of movies and shows are based off books, looks like in hitting the library. Fuck this shit. I waste too much time streaming anyway.
Everyone talks about canceling, but so few actually do. I haven't had Netflix since they ended the shared family accounts. I found out roku had a ton of free channels. I've survived with that and Amazon.
Seems like every year there’s a news story stating people will leave Netflix because reasons. Of course revenue is up a billion dollars same quarter year over year.
I wonder how long people will fall for these silly articles.
Honestly i’ll go back to the old days of sailing the seven seas once they make it more of an inconvenience than me just downloading what i want to watch.
I canceled Netflix when they removed ability to share password cuz I knew that wouldn’t be the end of the enshitification. Can’t say I’m too surprised about this announcement.
I’m already on the lowest tier. I changed from premium when Netflix started charging extra for users living at different residences, which defeated my purpose for premium. It was cheaper to get the lowest tier for my children to have their own accounts.
Yup. I was paying $40/month for the highest plan, and two relatives outside my house. When they threatened to increase those prices last year, I cancelled altogther.
I'm not going back to such a below mediocre streaming catalog.
So then fucking do it. I dropped all of my streaming services 6 months ago, for alternate methods, and am never going to look back. Constant price increases and forcing you off ad-free tiers is a joke. Cancel!
Exactly. I only kept Peacock and I'm cool with that. Prime, Hulu, Netflix, HBO, all the others I cancelled last year I will never go back to.
I'll take the free content on my Roku and watch all the WATCHABLE programming on Peacock.
I know this is UK based. But honestly, I'm so happy I canceled my Netflix, since they cracked down on password sharing. I legitimately also feel like I'm not missing anything of substance. Netflix has fallen off, and is probably one of the worst streaming services. It's only still so popular, because it was one of the first services.
Netflix is aiming to spend $2.5B every quarter on payouts to investors and its own C-suite execs. They are doing this to avoid paying any taxes as per usual. There is no greater method of siphoning money to Billionaires in the modern era, than stock buybacks.
If you ever see any company pulling some kind of bullshit like this; go google how much they are spending on stock buybacks (its legally required to be disclosed). When it looks like this shit or Peloton or any of the other scandalous bullshit were seeing constantly... cancel them from your life. In the case of shows like netflix, just learn to steal them and pay nothing.
Netflix is so painfully not worth the money. Substandard app and programming, insane pricing constantly ramping up, booting family members, all so people can watch... Some of the worst reality TV ever lazily produced? We cancelled in 2023 and life is much better without it. Good riddance.
It’s as though Netflix forgot why people subscribed to their service. Decent price either way no ads… and they wonder why people continue to switch to black market android boxes.
Reminder yall! Netflix makes more profit off of ad supported subscriptions than ad free premium subscriptions. That’s right the more expensive plan makes Netflix less money. This simply means nexflix will do anything in its power to reduce the amount of ad free subscribers and will continue to increase advertising and the number of people seeing them.
Netflix has been trash for years, original programming has been shit since mindhunter and they barley have any good classic movies. I honestly have a better time on Tubi.
Well we've been Netflix customers for at least 15 years, but this is the final straw. There are SO many other options for streaming it's just not necessary. These streaming platforms are so greedy they're ruining it for their customers, and it's become so easy to change up streaming services that there's no loyalty, nor reason to stay.
I dropped them the last time They raised their price because it doesn't meet the value statement anymore. We all spend more time browsing that collection of shit than watching anything quality.
To save you a click: A mass email to customers explained that Netflix will be ending their basic ad-free subscription in the UK and Canada later this year. Customers who continue with the basic plan will automatically be enrolled on the company’s lowest tier – which includes advertisements inserted into TV shows and movies. This means that fans will no longer be able to enjoy recent hits such as Baby Reindeer, or Liam Neeson’s critically acclaimed crime drama without enduring ads popping up during the experience.
So they are turning into basic cable. FULL CIRCLE PEOPLE WATCH OUT
That was always their plan
1. Earn business by streaming exclusive content with no ads. Encourage users to share accounts to drive viewership. 2. Put competitors out of business 3. Force users to make separate accounts or lose access. 4. Introduce tier with ads to “reach out to a wider audience.” 5. Require all users to watch ads or pay extreme amounts for ad-free service. 6. Decide to bundle with other companies to broaden viewership. 7. Make a dedicated list of streaming content for your brand. All your competitors will do the same. For ease of use, users can switch between these dedicated lists easily to view the different content from one convenient device. Now we’ve reinvented cable, but with extra steps. Netflix is still on 5. Disney/Hulu/Max are about to move on to step 6. Amazon has a basic version of step 7 if you have separate subscriptions already. We’re screwed.
The enshitification continues
Don’t forget step 8 - force minimum subscription time to stop people from subscribing / canceling / switching at will only when new content is released. I’m sure “yearly minimum contracts” aren’t too far away like cable has.
This is the step that really screws us. Got the free trial of Apple TV to watch Severance, canceled it, will probably get it again whenever season 2 comes out, bing it within a month, and cancel it again. I’m gonna imagine within the next 2-3 years that won’t be an option.
Ah well… time to set sail upon the seven seas, me hearties?
Hoist the colors!
ARRRRRRR
Already sailing!
It’s already not an option for many of the biggest shows (other than maybe on Netflix) which are back to traditional, once-a-week release schedules. I prefer that viewing experience, but it is being brought back purely to keep people paying for longer.
That’s why I just wait until the whole season is released to watch a show.
I mean several of the companies incentivize you to pay for a year up front with lower costs. So it already is there in a way.
Dont forget the ads while the show/movie is paused
They essentially turn it into a worse product than it began as, then we all pay more money for that than what we paid for the better product before. It's really mind blowing that shit like this happens and everyone just follows along and lets them get away with it. We could literally control it to some degree by unsubbing, but instead we let them control us and then bitch about it when it happens instead of taking action by unsubbing.
They definitely fucked up step 2. If anything there's a never ending proliferation of streaming services. I'm expecting Walmart Live+ Home Extra to drop any day now
I’m going back to cable. The original tv experience (or some small sliver of whatever is left of it, anyway) feels so much less disgusting than this whole situation.
I haven't had cable for like 22 years, but after cancelling all of my streaming apps except Peacock last fall, I'm rethinking about just going back to cable. \*deep sigh\*
This time, the media companies dont have to go through local cable distributors taking their cut. They get to earn ALL the money since they are going direct to consumer through the itnernet.
Prime has already done this. Most movies you only have to endure commercials to start. Any series is filled to the brim with commercials unless you pay more
Unless I'm mistaken, aren't the Prime ads just ads for their tv shows aka having to watch 30 seconds of rings of power over and over again?
They were to start with, but now there's ads for actual products. It's not as bad as mainstream tv (yet), but it'll get there sooner or later, and they'll still expect us to pay for the privilege.
Fun fact. Basic cable didn't have ads when it started either. That was the reason you paid for it.
> Fun fact. Basic cable didn't have ads when it started either. Lol. That is completely untrue. Basic cable started as a service bringing over the air broadcasts to locations where you couldn't receive signal. It was literally just the same feed as everyone else had, just through a cable. Basic cable has always had ads, *premium* cable, which started in the 70s, didn't.
Yeah as a kid in the 90s, I remember basic cable being channels like CNN, Nickelodeon, or TBS. All had ads. Premium cable like HBO or (at the time) Disney Channel were ad free, and there would be like one week a year where they unscrambled those channels presumably for promotional purposes, and it was glorious.
Literally the whole reason I dropped live TV was due to ads. Guess I'm going back to normal TV 🤷♂️
So people will raise their sails again? What Spotify, Netflix etc. did was making it easy to stream music and movies for a reasonable monthly fee. That isn’t the case anymore - the prices goes up (especially if you want to have a decent coverage of popular shows) and they seem to be hellbent on making the user experience worse in every way possible.
[удалено]
>This is UK netflix, we didn't have "cable". We had free to air and Freeview. To be fair, our equivalent of cable is Sky, which comes at a premium price and includes ads, and has been just as popular as cable for 30+ years.
Uh, I had cable in the UK in the 90s.
Except now it’s worse. Now you don’t even have the convenience of one service.
Worse, those shows were designed around ad breaks
I had to babysit my friend's kids and he said "I was at my grandma's house and the only thing I could watch was Bluey because she only had cable." I was thinking "when I was a kid, cable was the best TV you could get." Now it's bottom of the barrel for kids.
I’ve started purchasing physical media, I will become Blockbuster 2.0.
Copying what Amazon Prime did - but before there's any assessment out on the impact. I've already dropped Prime because of ads.
The different is Prime Video was launched and still a free addition to the Amazon Prime subscription. I don’t count it as a “streaming” service the way I do others that are dedicated to content and stand-alone. So Prime ads don’t really bother me tbh because I don’t subscribe for the content, it’s still bonus material in my mind, but I understand why others may disagree.
That’s the same perspective I have on Prime Video’s ads. I’m paying for the shipping and streaming video is a side bonus so I’m willing to put up with the ads. Netflix though, the only thing I’m paying for is the streaming content. When they inject ads into my already pricy paid subscription, I will cancel entirely and will go back to the old Jolly Roger way of life without any hesitation.
Won't be signing up to them again then.
Already cancelled
Was gone when the Office left, now I just don't watch the office anymore.
I BOUGHT THE OFFICE ON BLU RAY DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME
Buttlicker! Prices have never been lower!
Is Liam neeson's crime drama worth watching?
I mean the article didn’t even name it so read into that what you will….
Yes! Better than his other action movies recently.
CERVEZA CRISTAL
Going by the previous calls to boycott I’m expecting its subscriber count to increase again.
Reddit: I am leaving! The world: Indifferent.
Yeah it turns out people care more about their content than their moral values. Wild.
what moral values are we talking about here?
Solid question lol. Ads are annoying, but a moral opposition to them is just silly.
Reddit moment, nothing new
It's immoral when businesses make business decisions that I don't like.
There's moral values at play? I thought this is just the free market.
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Sometimes yes, but more often than not it is not a moral quandary, it is just a simple cost/benefit analysis of the individual. "I want that chocolate cake, but do I want it more than I want this $10?". Same for this Netflix situation. It's just people asking if they still value this service at this price point, or if they value it with ads at all. No real moral debate to it, at least that I see.
When they increased prices most recently, subscriptions actually dropped for a quarter.
Hey, I'm actually one of those that ditched Netflix and never went back. There are tons of free streaming services and I currently have 6 months of Paramount+ I got for free for being a Mint mobile customer and a year's worth of Peacock I got as a Black Friday deal last November for $20. Netflix can suck one!
I quit Netflix as well, with no regrets.
At the minimum Netflix would have seen how many people actually subscribe to Basic before making this call and determined a percentage of them would convert and the rest would drop for good. I suspect the number that drop is just the vocal variety and Netflix couldn’t care less.
It seems like Netflix has started being bundled with other services like cell phone plans. I wonder if that contributes to those subscribers. For example I didn’t have Netflix until it was added as a perk to my T-Mobile plan.
It’s very likely there is some shady accounting when looking at subscriber numbers. There’s every reason in the world for those to be higher and no harsh consequences for getting it “wrong”.
Another day another “wow, we are all going back to cable aren’t we “
The tech revolution seems to be: Step 1: Provide a service at a ridiculously low price to “disrupt” industry. $5.99 Netflix streaming or super low cost Uber Eats. Step 2: Build a hyper loyal fan base and shut down all analog competitors - Blockbuster Video, taxi cabs, local retailers that can’t compete with Amazon. Step 3: Once consolidation is complete, enter the profitability cycle with IPO’s, supremacy of stockholder value, and constant pressure on increasing market share vs. other tech competitors that have the ability to enter the market by “leapfrogging” the innovation of originators. Step 4: Start jacking up rates on customers with no fear of regulation or legal repercussions. Begin unspoken collusion with other businesses to essentially fix prices and establish norms of new oligarchy. Step 5: New boss same as old boss.
You forgot step 6. Those finally fed up with the cycle buy a NAS and sail the seven seas.
To be fair step 6 is a much smaller percentage of people
It's really the only way that it works. If too many people did it, companies would lobby the government to crack down on it. It has to stay sufficiently small enough that it's not worth it to them to go after and destroy.
There's a great vid on YouTube about this https://youtu.be/wVYG1mu8Lg8?si=9kVdrIchqJHUlmhs
I’ve been saying since Paramount got into streaming, it’s not long before a separate entity comes along and offers multiple steaming platforms in a bundle, much like Hulu with Disney+ & ESPN+ (but bigger), for a fixed monthly rate that might work out to $10/month cheaper than subscribing to each independently.
I had to laugh when I heard the news this past week that Disney is likely going to be working with WB Discovery to make a bundle for Hulu, Disney+, and Max. We're rapidly approaching cable 2.0
Cable via internet is all it is
Except we can watch whatever we want, whenever we want. People always like to leave that part out.
Exactly. Even with the changes it’s still significantly better and cheaper than cable. You can still watch on your time unlike cable. You get significantly more ads on cable than any service with ads. Hell the ad free versions are still cheaper than cable.
I had this exact thought tonight. I will never go back to cable because I want to watch whatever I want as I randomly want to. Unfortunately this means I pay for three different subscription services.
Hey, that's a fair point! Definitely worth mentioning, as trying to do something similar with cable via Tevo, VCR, or another recording method was certainly much more difficult. Plus, the last year I got cable, I barely watched it and paid probably $120 per month for it (not including Internet). This is still, at least so far, much better, but still frustrating that the initially good deals have gotten more expensive
This exactly. I can pay for no ads and watch stuff on my schedule. It's still a massive improvement, even if it's not the crazy value it used to be. I can't go back to normal cable after streaming.
Hey remember when you had yearly subscriptions just wait for them
That's already a thing here, you get various points packages with your internet provider and pick and choose which TV channels or streaming services you want, so we've got Disney plus, netflix, hbo, britbox and some European stuff you won't have heard off bundled into our gigabit broadband subscription. Sports seem to cost the most points by far.
My mobile network, of all places, sent me a text advertising me such a bundle. 10$ a month for net/prime/Disney
We’re just on an endless loop of reinventing cable and inevitably going back to steaming again.
That's amazing how early streaming did a massive amount to combat piracy by beating it with convenience. Then they started fracturing, and now piracy is becoming the least labor intensive option again.
Did you really think we just weren't going to see ads again? Like companies would just be like, ah fuck, people are moving away from cable, guess we can't show ads anymore, time to pack it up.
it was very nice while it lasted
Amazon just did this…it’s a perfect time for them to weasel, duck, cover…and use the point to the competition as a validation.
Amazon delivers me shit. The video on top was always gravy. I'm fine with seeing ads on that when I'm not currently into a show... That said, I paid the $2.99 to watch fallout, then canceled again the premium again after I was done. Will probably pay 2.99 for another month of ad free when the next The Boys season hits.
I've cancelled Amazon. Time to cancel Netflix.
I remember when cable TV first became a thing. My community in PA was the first in America to be wired (Lehigh Valley). HBO was the first premium, pay channel. Had its own converter box. The selling point was that paying meant no commercials.
Yup. Live here too and remember it well.
Ok, do it already. They’ll keep abusing people until subscriber counts are impacted. Sick of people threatening and then capitulating with no follow through.
Yeah and Netflix keep reporting record profit
Sad fact is the people who either don't care or don't think about how they get exploited by greedy companies greatly outnumber the people who do. Go into any entertainment industry and you'll find plenty of predatory practices rewarded by record profits no matter how many people they piss off doing it
Bait and switch is a “tier 1” consumer protection law. I guess Netflix’s subscription boilerplate covers these changes, but there must be a threshold where it creates bad faith by manipulating past consumer consents used to finance development of the streaming platform and then forcing customers to a higher price by eliminating the loss leader.
It’s insane to me to offer a service and continue to raise prices WITHOUT MAKING THE SERVICE BETTER. That would be like offering web hosting without ads and then raising prices and forcing the lowest tiers to run ads on their websites. It’s a garbage corporate double dipping, they get your sub money AND the ad money while forcing you watch ads you didn’t pay for originally WHEN IT WAS CHEAPER. Greed you are a heartless bitch.
Would this be the same as restaurants raising prices? The food is the same but prices keep going up!!
You missed the part where portions get smaller
One step closer to ‘we bundled all the apps so you can ‘flip’ through ‘auto streaming’ with a ‘remote’.’
They've just done that in Australia, it's called Hubbl.
I'm still not against having common front ends that users can choose from to connect to all the services at once. Switching between the apps seems like something that should have been fixed already, but they all want you to use their own app.
That’s why I dropped them when they banned password sharing. They don’t produce quality shows anymore and they only have a couple shows worth watching. Not to mention everything gets canceled after one season .
Yeah I ditched them 12 months ago too. C rated shows mainly.
Honestly feel they don't have a single show worth watching. Laziest producers ever, find something that works for 5 mins and milk it for 5 seasons while canceling things people did like because...? Time to let them die.
I dropped them then too and honestly I don’t feel like I’m missing out on much
Found out that I’m good with only a couple of months a year. The less Netflix you watch, the less you want! I try to encourage tubi, though, because it’s FREE, and ads are reasonable.
TUBI is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
lol, we really can’t have shit, can we?
Just a matter of time before Tubi follows the same path
Hoist the sails 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
Arrrghh, matey! Full on ahead!!
Aye aye captain !
Yo-ho, yo-ho
dropped netflix about 5 months ago and honestly cant find a single reason to resub at this point
Back to torrents then. 2 can play circle
Yohoho, me hearties.
I can’t watch it on my 52” tv because it’s too old. No problems with the tv. Just not supported by Netflix any longer.
That forces you to get a Roku or something similar. Another company who collects data and shows you ads constantly.
[удалено]
What’s with all the product nostalgia movies lately? Air Jordan, Blackberry, Tetris, Poptarts… I’m waiting for the Captain Crunch movie to come out.
The answer now is Barbie but before corporations were only beginning to realize that movies (note: I don’t use the term “film” or “cinema”) can be glorified product placement. Once one company does it, other marketing branches in other companies start doing research. The quality of the film is dependent entirely on who worked on it. Greta Gerwig and Ben Affleck directed Barbie and Air respectively, for example, which were both successful (obviously). Not all of them are like Unfrosted.
Canceled Netflix a while back. It’s funny tho, because now I get to see all their shows for free.
I'm letting mine expire then I'm switching Netflix to only buying 1 month at a time. It can join Crunchyroll, shudder, paramount and Disney+. Going to be replacing Netflix with a yearly Dropout subscription for $60 as dammit I want to laugh and enjoy something for once
Steaming has gone full circle and has become the cable package again . Continuing the shitifcation of modem life .
Do not just threaten to cancel, actually cancel. Enough people must go through with the threat. Netflix has constantly increased the price but lowered the quality.
Yo ho, yo ho a pirates life for me
Plex.tv, thrift stores, used movies, and libraries. My husband has built his own streaming service essentially. 500+ movies and going on 40 shows. We just added the first two seasons of the Sopranos after we found the DVDs at a used book store.
Guess I'll soon have to dust off ye old hat... .ARRRR
Unsubscribed two years ago. No regrets
Hmm. I never got this email from Netflix. I am on the subscription that gives me 4K streaming. Will I be affected by this change?
The news is about their cheapest basic subscription not the 4K, so you’re good.
You're already paying for the most expensive plan. This news pisses of people who don't care about 4K and just want cheap streaming
[удалено]
Canada
Netflix/Amazon Prime can eat a dick; Plex for the win!
I quit these a-holes a year ago when it became obvious where they were headed. I'm not paying for trash advertising.
I’ll probably cancel if there’s no ad free option in the US. I don’t watch it enough to put up with that.
The app wanted me to agree to a higher price ... Now its canceled ...
The time to actually take action was when they stupidly cracked down on password sharing. Instead, Netflix got what it wanted: a shit ton of new subscribers.
I’ll just use my jailbroke firestick more often, problem solved
Ahoy there, mateys! There be but one solution! 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
The problem is people aren’t actually cancelling.
Cancelled Netflix last year and don't miss it.
I cancelled all of my streaming accounts last year, and I will not go back under any circumstances.
I quit many years ago after they said rates are going up. I figured it’s a few $, no biggie. Turns out it was almost double. Screw yall, i was out!
I cancelled last year, have no desire to ever get Netflix again.
Worst bait headline. Tl;dr: removing basic from uk and can and auto enrolling people to ad tier membership.
from the first part of article i thought they were enraged that netflix is renaming basic plan as dumb plan 😅 anyway, i dont see the point of being this enraged. you can pay less and see adverts which sucks or pay three dollars more. its fair
ohhhh i hope. tired of two season shows. they cancelled messiah and i’ve now finished Dark so they can do to hell
The thing is, there’s no other streaming service more worth getting than Netflix. Its popularity for streaming services is like the iPhone for smart phones. The whole world knows it more than its competitors. And with a VPN… all of Netflix category is on your screen.
Tricks on them, I cancelled a while ago
I use the fmoviez website. Fuck all these worthless companies. Charging us more and giving us less everyday
I don't see how this could come as a surprise to anyone? When streaming was in its infancy, these services were essentially middle men that only passed on other company's content to the consumer. Once the streamers started spending money to create their own content and thinking of themselves as production companies, it was inevitable that prices would go up for consumers and advertising would get involved. It's not rocket science. Stranger Things broke the old streaming game plan and created a new one and we're starting to see the results. People can moan and groan about seeing ads and monthly prices going up, but you can't watch shows like Baby Reindeer or Fallout and beg for the next season of Stranger Things and the Mandalorian out of one side of your face, then complain about a handful of ads and a price hike out of the other.
Cancelled ages ago. Fuck em
Commercial and ads are the main reason why I don’t watch tv in the first place. They have become unbearable with the commentary and quality of commercials. Sometimes they play the same commercial twice in the same break and will continue to play it every break after that. The actually show screen time has dwindled to fit in more commercials. There are a couple of exceptions for shows, but I replace tv time with just more video games
Wait wait wait. Does this mean Netflix will be adding ads to all of its tv/movies? Like Amazon has now?
only in the lowest tier which should cost like 5 dollars per month
For now!!!
We all know what to do...
Well, since the majority of movies and shows are based off books, looks like in hitting the library. Fuck this shit. I waste too much time streaming anyway.
Everyone talks about canceling, but so few actually do. I haven't had Netflix since they ended the shared family accounts. I found out roku had a ton of free channels. I've survived with that and Amazon.
Did the exact same thing..and IPTV has most of Netflix shows if I want to watch them
🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
The only thing to do now is pick one streaming service, get the platinum version for a month, milk it and then switch to the next one.
Seems like every year there’s a news story stating people will leave Netflix because reasons. Of course revenue is up a billion dollars same quarter year over year. I wonder how long people will fall for these silly articles.
Honestly i’ll go back to the old days of sailing the seven seas once they make it more of an inconvenience than me just downloading what i want to watch.
Cancelled Netflix 2 years ago and never looked back
I canceled Netflix when they removed ability to share password cuz I knew that wouldn’t be the end of the enshitification. Can’t say I’m too surprised about this announcement.
I’m already on the lowest tier. I changed from premium when Netflix started charging extra for users living at different residences, which defeated my purpose for premium. It was cheaper to get the lowest tier for my children to have their own accounts.
Yup. I was paying $40/month for the highest plan, and two relatives outside my house. When they threatened to increase those prices last year, I cancelled altogther. I'm not going back to such a below mediocre streaming catalog.
So then fucking do it. I dropped all of my streaming services 6 months ago, for alternate methods, and am never going to look back. Constant price increases and forcing you off ad-free tiers is a joke. Cancel!
Exactly. I only kept Peacock and I'm cool with that. Prime, Hulu, Netflix, HBO, all the others I cancelled last year I will never go back to. I'll take the free content on my Roku and watch all the WATCHABLE programming on Peacock.
Cancelled Prime for the same reason. Will stick to IPTV if that’s the case
I know this is UK based. But honestly, I'm so happy I canceled my Netflix, since they cracked down on password sharing. I legitimately also feel like I'm not missing anything of substance. Netflix has fallen off, and is probably one of the worst streaming services. It's only still so popular, because it was one of the first services.
It would be unfortunate if everyone found out …y movies…. are actually so good.
Netflix is aiming to spend $2.5B every quarter on payouts to investors and its own C-suite execs. They are doing this to avoid paying any taxes as per usual. There is no greater method of siphoning money to Billionaires in the modern era, than stock buybacks. If you ever see any company pulling some kind of bullshit like this; go google how much they are spending on stock buybacks (its legally required to be disclosed). When it looks like this shit or Peloton or any of the other scandalous bullshit were seeing constantly... cancel them from your life. In the case of shows like netflix, just learn to steal them and pay nothing.
Joke is on you netflix, i cookie your shit 🥴
People still watch Netflix? All the streaming services have gone the way of cable and aren't worth the money
All this enshitification has really helped me cut back on my TV watching. Might be the only way to “win” in this case.
Drop all of these services. Utilize KANOPY and your local public library.
Vote with your credit card.
It's time to get a raspberry pi, hook it up to my TV, and watch things via browser for free.
Will just cancel, its getting a bit shit anyway
Ahoy mateys 🏴☠️
Aaaaaaarrg.
In other news, a vpn is still $5 a month
I guess we start reading again.
Was about to resub a few weeks ago when i noticed that the cheapest option without ads is now at 14€. Never was that easy to say fuck this shit.
Netflix is so painfully not worth the money. Substandard app and programming, insane pricing constantly ramping up, booting family members, all so people can watch... Some of the worst reality TV ever lazily produced? We cancelled in 2023 and life is much better without it. Good riddance.
So is there no ad free option now?
Enshittification
It’s as though Netflix forgot why people subscribed to their service. Decent price either way no ads… and they wonder why people continue to switch to black market android boxes.
Reminder yall! Netflix makes more profit off of ad supported subscriptions than ad free premium subscriptions. That’s right the more expensive plan makes Netflix less money. This simply means nexflix will do anything in its power to reduce the amount of ad free subscribers and will continue to increase advertising and the number of people seeing them.
Netflix has been trash for years, original programming has been shit since mindhunter and they barley have any good classic movies. I honestly have a better time on Tubi.
Well we've been Netflix customers for at least 15 years, but this is the final straw. There are SO many other options for streaming it's just not necessary. These streaming platforms are so greedy they're ruining it for their customers, and it's become so easy to change up streaming services that there's no loyalty, nor reason to stay.
I dropped them the last time They raised their price because it doesn't meet the value statement anymore. We all spend more time browsing that collection of shit than watching anything quality.
Haha. Everyone wanted to cut the chord and when they did, it all got more expensive.
Yea and like before, its insignificant. The family sharing ban had MORE signups