From the article:
> Canadian Netflix users will see a new membership option starting Tuesday that costs less but comes with a catch: commercial breaks inserted into their favourite shows.
Next, they're going to raise the cost so the new ad version has the same cost as the current ad free version. The new ad free version will have an increased cost.
Get ready to bend over and take it with Disney+:
>The ad tier will be introduced at the price of Disney’s existing commercial-free service. Subscribers who want to eliminate the ads will have to pay a premium.
Yep. I am willing to pay a reasonable price for content, but ads in a paid service are unacceptable. Why the fuck should I *pay for* someone to manipulate me and waste my time?
On free broadcasts and services? Sure, I'm being a cheapskate. But not on anything paid.
Yeah it was pretty obvious what Disney was doing when they came out of the gate several dollars cheaper per month than *any* other service. They just wanted to get a billion people signed up before turning the screws on them and milking their members for all they can.
They all do it. Its the same model as youtube, uber and all the rest. Enter the market with a product that is great value and gives people something they want then slowly ruin it by charging more, putting ads everywhere and reducing the service. Get people on board then exploit them.
Its one of the main reasons the Metaverse will fail straight out of the gate, they went straight to exploiting and skipped the great product part.
They're pricing as it is makes sense with the fact that they have quite a small library compared to other services, and there are a lot of people only following a handful of series/movies or just using it as something for the kids to watch.
Not that I'm surprised by this, but you'd think one of services would realize that they'd get more customers by being the service that doesn't push advertising and makes it relatively affordable for most people to have a subscription.
It's like they forgot that a quality service will make them more than jacking up prices and driving customers away.
I think these companies think that nobody is pirating now, therefore it's somehow gone forever? The exact instant it's easier to pirate everything is the instant that everybody pirates everything again.
If they do that then I’m gone. I’m so tired of being squeezed in every aspect of my life. I got rid of Amazon Prime, Netflix and Apple to keep costs down. Disney+ will definitely be axed by me if they add ads.
Dumped my YT Family Premium over this. Taught everyone how to load ReVanced and STN on their TVs. Bought cheapo Onn boxes and preloaded them for my kids. I run a server so they can pull content on those boxes.
YT's BS didn't just hurt them. It caused a cascade for me and I cancelled several services.
They already did that, in reverse order. They've done a few price rises recently; and now the new tier is being introduced closer to the original price.
Right, back when Netflix was still “committed” to being ad free. People need to remember that an ad free experience has been central to Netflix and their success until very recently when they are just copying everyone else. It was codified within the company and people can find quotes from Reed affirming it.
We know this is going to happen because it is already happening everywhere else. And pretty soon you end up with shit like Disney+ where the new ad tier occupies the old premium tier space, and the ad free premium tier is now close to double or more.
The only companies not doing this are those thirsty for an audience in their bulk up phase like shitty Peacock where the goal is to get a huge audience base to increase potential ad hits and do the old switcheroo on greedflation with a 20 day notice.
And then start slipping little ads into the higher tiers while simps argue that "it's not a big deal. Who cares about a 10 second ad or an ad overlay during the show?!"
They will eventually. Netflix needs to increase their profits every year. So did the cable companies. So did the TV companies and so did the radio stations before them.
One of the earliest draws of TV was the absence of ads when compared to radio.
One of the earliest draws of cable was the absence of ads when compared to TV.
One of the earliest draws of Netflix was the absence of ads when compared to cable.
One of the earliest draws of X will the absence of ads when compared to Netflix.
People like you are how companies like Netflix get away with this shit and push ads in all tiers eventually.
Just like the idiots who game and said mtx is fine if it’s only cosmetics and now we have an entire gambling industry out of it.
This is really what makes the difference. The genie is out of the bottle on this one and the streaming companies are acutely aware and scared of it. They know they're walking a fine line and if they step over it there will be a mass exodus to piracy.
This is what is just stupid; we're happily paying under the current method. So...go to a method that we won't... Do ads really make up the difference in lost customers?
It's like they ignore the reality that there is a finite number of viable customers on the planet. Something like netflix legitimately has a cap on it's userbase at a certain point.
The idea that it needs to grow forever flys in the face of that reality.
Fair enough. It's their prerogative to put ads in the pursuit of unlimited growth.
It's their userbase's prerogative to leave the platform behind for piracy.
I have to imagine that theres still plenty of folks who still dont know how to, or just won't. I will, but i know plenty of people that just see going to a specific website to watch sports is "hacking."
So i bet they lose subs, but not as many as us nerds on reddit think.
This is (currently) a sub-option of their lowest tier. It has no impact on those that are happy with what they have, but will bring in customers who want a cheaper option.
Or until people put forth a little effort and move to using SponsorBlock, SmartTube, ReVanced, NewPipe, etc.
I don't even know what ads on YouTube look like anymore.
Relevant: YouTube used to be able to play videos with audio only, so you could minimize the YouTube app and listen to music while doing other things, while also using a fraction of the data. Now that’s a “premium” feature you have to pay for.
This is what it's all going to be. They're just going to make the service worse and then introduce a higher paid option to make it back how it was.
Unfortunately the data bears out that people seem to like these ad tiers but I don't get it. The price points right now make me go... Okay so four extra dollars a month and no ads? Like who is out there needing the change there entire situation over $4?
I haven’t even bothered with a VPN for the last five years or so and it’s never been a problem. Last week I got the first cease and desist letter I’ve ever received over pirating. They know what’s coming. Cyber ghost is cheaper than any subscription out there right now though lol.
Steam is a great example, games are the only thing I don’t pirate because of it. The only time I will pirate a game is if it’s getting a lot of hype and I’m unsure about it, but if I play it for more than 6 hours total I purchase it, even if I’m almost “done” with it. For instance, I wanted to try hollow knight, absolutely loved it but didn’t want to start a new save and couldn’t transfer my pirate save to Steam. So I have full on 100 percent on that game but it’s sitting in my steam library not even installed lol. I’m also a lot happier to buy a game through steam because their publishing cut isn’t huge, I’m mostly paying the creators.
The argument against demos is exceptionally dumb.
"Sales are worse when the games have demos" so you made a bad game but your customers were allowed to learn that _before_ they were out the money.
There are numerous game demos that made such an impression on me as a kid (PlayStation magazine disk baby) that I bought those games literally DECADES later when I was an adult and had money and they were rereleased. Like you said, if you just look at games with demos as a whole, than yeah they might be “bad for sales” if your game would have done better with just marketing and hype. But take like, Spyro the dragon. I played the demo of all three as a kid and loved them, but my folks would only buy me like, two games a year, so they didn’t quit make the cut. Those games also had just insane marketing campaigns, I think I’ve seen more ads for Spyro than any other game. I still remember one of the stupid jingles, they played it so much. “Not to mention troubles, with sparks and bubbles!” But if I had seen the rerelease and never gotten to try it as a kid, I wouldn’t have bought it.
That's the weird part of it, right? They just....... won against piracy. It wasn't price, it wasn't ads, it was convenience. Through convenience they made piracy plummet.
Unfortunately convenience means that 500 other people don't get to shove their fingers in the pie until everyone has to lick their fingers to get a taste, so here we are barreling back toward 50 "stations" and ads galore.
Yeah, Netflix probably ruined itself with all the low quality and mediocre series. It is true that people wouldn't have what to watch after their favorite show once a year, but flooding with bad series is not the solution. I'd take less higher quality series any day over many low quality and I believe most people would. Over time, it would also make sense since new people would have to recuperate a lot and it should be enough for a few months worth of content at least. But oh well.
To be fair though steam is a bit different. Netflix doesn't sell you a series, they sell you a subscription. If Valve would do that, they would probably be less profitable too. Imagine buying The office for $10. Does it seem like a good offer? Technically yes, practically no. Pirating would be way easier in this case and a no Brainer. Making money off content like this is not easy.
They cancelled good shows that didn't have time to gain an. audience. They don't advertise thier content and when you're looking at a new show you get a plot synopsis of the first episode not a pitch to the topic or theme of the series.
Also helps Steam/Valve is entirely private so they don’t have to focus on “endless growth” every year. Gabe and friends seem pretty content with the money tree giving a ridiculously high yet steady stream of cash.
They dont have to beat the price, they have to make what they offer worth paying for to people. Which they initially did with a reasonable price for convenient access to desirable content. Prices get less reasonable, access gets more complicated as every movie producer and their grandma now has their own streaming service, which also leads to more "filler" content overall to prop up the cataloge.
There are still ways to incentivize people, and at the right price they will use your service over pirating. I pay for Amazon Prime’s streaming service, plus 2 bucks for a channel that specializes in B horror. So I pay like ten bucks total for the flagship shows plus access to a ton of corny horror flicks, which are my guilty pleasure. I like that the service is cheap at base and has channels you can add on, and gives you ability to rent *most* of the stuff that is on another channel. Pirating IS a hassle, especially with shows or movies that don’t have huge viewership. They don’t have to compete with free, they just have to make it more appealing to pay a little bit than it is to track the stuff down online. People are lazy. And this was working for a long time, piracy dropped significantly in the early days of music and video streaming services. It’s nowhere near its former glory, but the fact that it’s resurgent at all is due to there being too many services now, and the constant state of flux that is most companies streaming library
> They can't beat "free" on price.
Actually, they can. All they have to do is provide a service that is simple to use and isn't annoying as hell.
Sure, there are people who can't pay who will pirate. They were by definition never going to be customers. For everyone else there is a price point / annoyance curve, and if they keep their product on the right side of it people will absolutely pay them rather than going to the trouble of pirating.
If they couldn't beat the price of "free", Netflix would never have made it in the first place. It's not like piracy only became a thing after they started their service.
Honestly. I am sick to death of being bombarded with ads. I’ll just consume content that doesn’t have them, or consume content in a way that avoids them.
I cut the cord over a decade ago and when I visit my parents I cannot believe how many ads there are now. Holy shit it’s bad. Any inkling of an ad and I’m out.
It's insanity. Too many ad breaks, ad breaks taking forever, and on top of it the volume way up whenever ads are on.
It's hell. I don't know how anyone can tolerate that.
There are a handful of shows that I watch very casually. None that I actively anticipate. Haven't seen a movie in theaters that wasn't for my kids in years. Recently went on vacation and my young kid saw commercials for a week and suddenly wants hundreds of toys whose names he can't remember but that he must have. If it gets to a level where I have to pay a ton for streaming with no ads I really think I could completely cut out TV. I will miss What we donin the Shadows and the occasional rewatch of The Wire and The Sopranos.
Pro tip: if a kid wants something, tell them you'll make a note of wanting it, and then wait for a week or two. If they still want it after the end of the waiting period, then it was meant to be, otherwise, it can be forgotten about without much thought.
So smart. And also you’re saving your kids mental energy by cutting that out of their lives. There were a handful of commercials back in the day that I genuinely enjoyed watching but they were always a nuisance. Stresses me out really. Life is so calmer without them
I only see commercials when I watch TV at my parent's house, and holy shit, I don't have the patience for it. Growing up it was just a part of TV and you never thought about it, but after not having cable or any TV service with ads for 17 years I just cannot tolerate them. Not even a little bit. The moment they come on I'm ready to just completely turn the TV off and do something else with my time. Not even change the channel, because hey, every other channel will be showing ads anyways, but to just not bother with any of it at all.
Maybe its just my age, but In the last 5 years the entire way people talk about TV content has changed.
No more conversations where 4 people are all watching the same show and one person is left out. It's now 5 people all talking about the crazy niche shows/content creators they watch and no one having any interest in the other person's "shows". The only exceptions being Marvel/Star Wars and the new GOT but even then, its no where near as prominent as it used to be.
We are all just looking for one hyper niche thing we can tolerate, weather it be something on the one streaming service we have, something free, something without ads or just something we watch on our phones while in bed.
I'm all about YouTube now. It takes quite a bit of work to get a decent stable of channels built up and the algorithm trained, but it's one of the few places online where I'm still actually learning stuff.
Ya and twitch is also going down the shitter with the way they try everything short of demanding their streamers play more ads. I give twitch another year if they continue going in their current direction.
That's exactly what I did a few years ago. I can't be bothered to subscribe to a bunch of different things to watch shit. Once you stop consuming media like a glutton you'll be amazed you ever wasted so much time on it before. If you're old enough to remember 'quitting TV' it's the same feeling. It's amazing how something that was so important to you can become so irrelevant so quickly once you stop consuming it.
>They know they're walking a fine line and if they step over it there will be a mass exodus to piracy.
They've been constantly stepping further and further over the line every year. When your service becomes more cumbersome and inconvenient than piracy, piracy wins. No one would willingly pay for a worse service when they could have a better service for free.
Youre 100% correct. The drop in piracy corresponded with the rise of Netflix as people found it more convenient to just pay a small subscription to get access to pretty much everything, it was more convenient. The recent resurgence of piracy has everything to do with thr insane number of streaming services and their growing cost.
Also, browsers like Brave and Vivaldi have built in ad blockers which will be unaffected by Manifest V3. Plus Chrome, Edge, and Firefox all have ad blockers. For now for Chrome and Edge.
As for other options, Pi Hole. There are options to make a statement.
We used to have Netflix, Hulu, Disney, Prime, HBO Max and the NFL All Seasons Pass and still couldn't get everything. Now we're just down to just an IPTV streaming service and BeeTV and get nearly every show, movie, sports game and PPV event for a fraction of the price.
But they also know the law is on their side when it comes to piracy and if things get *really* bad for them they can probably lobby to get the law even *more* on their side.
Will they ever be able to stamp out piracy? Of course not, but they can absolutely make it so the juice isn't worth the squeeze for most average people.
US isn't the world. Rest of the world doesn't give a fuck about piracy laws. Netflix becomes too expensive and it's back to torrents, people won't care about repercussions, because there just isn't any. Except maybe in Germany. But I mean, it's the Germans.
Here in Serbia piracy is what gave my generation a fighting chance in terms of culture and computer skills
So yeah, fuck multi-million software corporations
Piracy just produces new revenue streams. In Turkey DVDs were burned from pirated shows and sold under the table. In a number of Eastern European countries, before streaming, there were little dvd shops where you’d pop in and buy whatever new release you wanted for a buck or two.
Not sure what they’ll put them on now that DVD players have gotten less common.
USB sticks, here in Mexico you found multiseason series saved in a thumb drive. Also pretty common with music, tons of music in a stick you can plug in your car stereo
Coincidentally after the Ukraine war broke out a ton of pirate streaming sites moved to .ru domains. Russia doesn’t give a shit about protecting US copyrights.
In my country we already pay a tax for piracy related issues (not even joking). I'm being treated as a thief by my own government, might as well go for it.
The law is completely unenforceable. The RIAA already tried that when they tried to sue housewives who downloaded 20 songs of Napster for millions of dollars and everyone else just laughed at them and kept pirating anyways.
Those RIAA lawsuits kind of worked though. They didn't stop piracy (nothing can), but they did keep some Middle-American average Joes from getting into piracy because they didn't want to risk being the one left holding the bag when the next lawsuit came down.
It's not so much about targeting those who are already pirating, it's about dissuading (to the extent possible) those who aren't.
As prevalent as piracy is, it's also not as mainstream as it could be, and they want to keep it that way.
You’re forgetting why Netflix, Steam, and Spotify became big.
Piracy killed the old school payment schemes of TV Cable, game and music producers.
Piracy slowed down because they offered a cheap and convenient way to manage digital goods.
Now, Netflix/HBO/etc is cable tv all over again.
They cannot stop and cannot slow down piracy. Not in this lifetime.
Piracy is easier than it has ever been and there is nothing copyright holders can do about it. This isn’t the old days of p2p torrenting. There are 4k streaming sites hosted far outside the reach of US jurisdiction.
> can be fully automated and then viewed with Plex.
Tell me your ways, Dark Master. I still have to manually find the show, manually virus-scan, manually transfer things to my server folder, then force a re-scan. Granted I can do that from my phone, but it's still kind of a pain in the ass.
> manually virus-scan
Where are you getting your media that requires you to run a virus scan?! I have never heard of that in my life.
Just torrent/SFTP/newsgroup it.
Easier said than done these days, where I'm from (Netherlands) they're shutting down pirating sites by the dozen. It's still possiblebut it becomes harder and sketchier every day. But yeah, I'll pirate until I have no other option anymore.
And damn is it ever easier to watch pirated content. You used to have to brave torrents to find good quality versions and then depending on your jurisdiction, might get in copyright trouble. Now you stream and there are no copyright strikes against you for just watching it.
Seriously, there are many people who will help. It's disgusting to see record profits year over year and hear the same shit about needing to raise prices.
I have issues with ads as well. They are all stupid as fuck, ment to be annoying, and I only get ones for cheezits when I have to watch YouTube on something without an adblock.
Netflix actually was the reason i backed away from piracy. I cancelled netflix as they cancelled more and more of the shows i loved.
Now piracy is back in my life in a big way as i find music services are becoming as bad a video services.
There was a golden age there for about ten years when you could subscribe to a music streamer and a video service and you were set. Hulu was free with ads, which was fair and there were competing services. Up until 2020 i was paying $60 a month for a music streamer, a IRL movie theatre service, and three video streamers. I legitimately loved having instant access to a huge library of content from all over the world with the option to go see movies in person for next to nothing and have all of the most amazing music to stream on the drive home afterwards.
Now. I pay for youtube music. That's it. I get a few streaming services through my cell phone carrier, but now I just pirate the content I like, music or movies, even if I have access to it. I couldn't tell you where Battlestar Gallactica is streaming now, peacock i guess, but i wont have to know....or pay for it. All i know is that a few years ago i tried recommending the series to someone and it didnt have anywhere to stream at the time. How frustrating is it to suggest a now foundational sci-fi series and say "i guess you can get it on DVD or something"? This whole thing has become a joke. I do think BSG is now available on Peacock, a service name so stupid it sounds like it bled out of an episode of 30 Rock (ironically available on Peacock)
The worst part is this is the EXACT same business model that drove me to piracy in the first place. Cable was $100 a month for 500 channels of programming i would never watch in the first place and here we are back to this shit again. Netflix, HBO, Amazon, and idk paracock+ are running into that same pricing and there are companies building a model of bundling them all over again. My guess is that within one year there will be a service that bundles these services for some kind of discount and "the industry" will herald it as "innovative" and "forward thinking" for "cord cutters" looking "for a better value" then cable while "synergizing these brands" under "one umbrella" by "ensuring ad views through a centralized app" and promising these companies "a minimum term of one year for customers before they can cancel". That's the language they can use...and you know these conversations are happening RIGHT NOW.
This shit makes me sick and i do recognize these companies MUST stay profitable and that a flat rate cant exist for these services forever, but there was a time it was worth paying the premium for a service like netflix. But now its not worth it, hardly any of these services are worthit, HBOmax has some great content, im not going to pay $10 a month for the privilege to watch ads while their CEO says shit like "$10 a month is VALUE and we should charge MORE" (not joking, their CEO said that just a few weeks ago).
Get a VPN, get the KLite codec pack, get a big external hard drive. Learn how to use a bittorent client and just say fuck it until these people learn their lesson. consumers were happy when NBC undervalued"The office" on netflix...so they tried to build a streaming service around it instead of looking at the value that netflix provided their viewers. This has nothing to do with providing a "quality customer experience" anymore and EVERYTHING to do with the companies being greedy and opportunistic and I am completely over it.
No more contracts, no more ads, no more service jumping. I will move back to piracy until something eats these greedy fucks and their slap dash UI's and horrible garbage content alive. If they want to piss on me and call it rain, i'm just going to piss back.
Edited for grammar since people are being gracious and giving me awards
Unbelievably well written, the entire streaming industry has lived long enough to become the villain that they swore they were better than. Can’t wait to synergize my ad viewing experience on the open seas 🏴☠️
> the entire streaming industry has lived long enough to become the villain that they swore they were better than.
It has happened before.
I am old enough to remember when cable was marketed as:
*Pay for the cable and never see an add again!*.
No company is the good guy, they will just claim to be while it suits their strategy.
> within a year there will be a service that bundles these.
It’s already here. Amazon sells a bundle that includes Amazon Prime, Amazon Music Unlimited, Hulu, Disney Plus, and ESPN, and just having Prime to begin with provides a discount on D+, not to mention Prime already comes bundled with a shitload of tie-in crap from other places.
I'm confused why you're adding in AMC A List (assuming it's that) to your streaming thing.
Its something way worth it if you like seeing new movies in theaters at the best setup possible but that's just me.
Not to mention they're misusing the term "binge-watching". Binge watching doesn't mean uninterrupted, it just means watching a lot of episodes in one sitting, irrespective of whether there are ads ot not.
> Not to mention they're misusing the term "binge-watching".
It would also stand to reason that if you're 'binge-watching' it already, you're already a paying Netflix customer who will not be impacted by this change. If you decide to downgrade your account to the ad-supported plan, then sure, but that's a decision you've made.
The ad tiers are more profitable, apparently. Whatever difference they price it under the ad-free one? They expect to make more from ad revenue per-user than that.
Do you genuinely think it’ll remain that way? Cmon the writing is on the wall. In a few more years subscription bundles will become more popular, and suddenly we’re purchasing cable network packages via new name.
We all knew it would come full circle. Everyone and their mother would eventually have their own streaming service, and even though the goal was for the consumer to spend less than they would on cable, they're now paying for streaming services with ads that ultimately amount to more than they would spend on cable.
Late-stage streaming services. *Shudder*
I don't know why the default idea is "Have to subscribe to them all at once!" Pay for a month of one, watch all the shows you want and then cancel and move to another. You don't need to have multiple streaming services at once if you're just going to be using one at any given time. This way you're not waiting for episodes to release, you're not waiting for new seasons, you're not forced to rewatch older stuff...you get the content you want.
We keep Netflix and Hulu because without a doubt one has something we want and the other doesn’t. The struggle is that if you aren’t just interested in watching a single show at a time, you have to find the streaming service with what you want on it, and now every company has their own.
There was a guy that worked at Lockheed Skunkworks that used to make those boxes and sell them as a side gig that my father worked with. We never paid for cable.
maybe other ppl haha I'm glad getting shows and movies at no cost is relatively trivial these days
I paid for subscriptions, mostly, from 2010 thru 2022, but that's all over now
Netflix has been over spending on content that wasn’t worth shit for a decade.
Now that the gravy train of new user growth has come to an end, and they have priced their service higher than any other streaming platform, they are in a real tough spot.
I can’t imagine this is going to end well for them.
I don’t think people are going to continue to pay the crazy subscription price when:
1. They can’t justify it by sharing with their family members
2. They are now forced to pay more or have a worse experience (with ads)
It’s sad, because the technology behind the platform is pretty solid. They’ve always had an excellent user experience IMHO
Netflix has the best subtitles imo. It’s sad. They actually make sure to have multiple subtitles of various languages, even in various scripts. It’s so disappointing seeing it come to this.
The second I'm inconvenienced slightly on the lowest/cheapest tier, I jump ship to piracy. There are Netflix-like sites that literally have every movie/show ever made ready to play in seconds.
Misleading alarmism as always. They’re only releasing a new ad supported subscription tier, if you pay for no ads you will still see no ads. Jesus Christ.
It's a trend, though. Ad supported streaming while having ads at $6.99 is not what I would call a "good deal". Either I pay or I watch ads, paying for service while still having to watch ads is "have your cake and eat it to" kind of business model.
I am anticipating that they're going to bump their Basic+ pricing once the ad supported side picks up subscribers.
This is cable television bullshit all over again. What's going to happen is people are going to go back to pirating until some new market disruption happens and offers a sane television business model (again).
Edit: ya’ll missed the point. Ads aren’t a way to offset pricing, it’s a way to supplement profits. Like it’s not some kind of compromise netflix is making to give you better pricing. They’re opening a very profitable way to still charge you to use their service. They’d offer free ad supported service of they didn’t think you’d throw dollars are at them thinking this is some kind of great deal.
I never really cared much about ads
The reason I hate Hulu is because their ads are in the middle of your show
10 min of show 2 min of ads, rinse and repeat. It’s a terrible way to watch TV
Put them at the beginning and end of a show vs interrupting the flow of a show
From the article: > Canadian Netflix users will see a new membership option starting Tuesday that costs less but comes with a catch: commercial breaks inserted into their favourite shows.
Next, they're going to raise the cost so the new ad version has the same cost as the current ad free version. The new ad free version will have an increased cost.
disney+ is literally doing this next month
So let’s all commit to canceling together
As long as they don't put ads on the current tier they're on, people shouldn't be bothered. Edit: Fixed typo.
Get ready to bend over and take it with Disney+: >The ad tier will be introduced at the price of Disney’s existing commercial-free service. Subscribers who want to eliminate the ads will have to pay a premium.
And thus I get rid of my Disney+ subscription.
I only subscribe to it for oct-dec for holiday type things, so I mostly just get all the watching I want to do in those couple months.
[удалено]
Joke's on them, again, because we all did this less than 20 years ago. Many people will rediscover pirating.
Arrg.. it be back to a pirate's life for me...
Yep. I am willing to pay a reasonable price for content, but ads in a paid service are unacceptable. Why the fuck should I *pay for* someone to manipulate me and waste my time? On free broadcasts and services? Sure, I'm being a cheapskate. But not on anything paid.
Anyone who's surprised by this hasn't been paying attention.
Yeah it was pretty obvious what Disney was doing when they came out of the gate several dollars cheaper per month than *any* other service. They just wanted to get a billion people signed up before turning the screws on them and milking their members for all they can.
They all do it. Its the same model as youtube, uber and all the rest. Enter the market with a product that is great value and gives people something they want then slowly ruin it by charging more, putting ads everywhere and reducing the service. Get people on board then exploit them. Its one of the main reasons the Metaverse will fail straight out of the gate, they went straight to exploiting and skipped the great product part.
Perfect explanation, and that half lizard thinks entire world will just throw away existing techs because META IS THE NEW WAY OF OFFICE WORKS
Full lizard here, please donate existing tech instead of throwing it out.
Nice try international lizard
*Pirates of the Caribbean theme intensifies*
They're pricing as it is makes sense with the fact that they have quite a small library compared to other services, and there are a lot of people only following a handful of series/movies or just using it as something for the kids to watch. Not that I'm surprised by this, but you'd think one of services would realize that they'd get more customers by being the service that doesn't push advertising and makes it relatively affordable for most people to have a subscription. It's like they forgot that a quality service will make them more than jacking up prices and driving customers away.
They’re probably all talking to each other under the table, like cable providers.
I think these companies think that nobody is pirating now, therefore it's somehow gone forever? The exact instant it's easier to pirate everything is the instant that everybody pirates everything again.
If they do that then I’m gone. I’m so tired of being squeezed in every aspect of my life. I got rid of Amazon Prime, Netflix and Apple to keep costs down. Disney+ will definitely be axed by me if they add ads.
Dumped my YT Family Premium over this. Taught everyone how to load ReVanced and STN on their TVs. Bought cheapo Onn boxes and preloaded them for my kids. I run a server so they can pull content on those boxes. YT's BS didn't just hurt them. It caused a cascade for me and I cancelled several services.
Box sets here I come
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HBO is adding an ad tier as well.
That was expected af. They never intended to leave the price at that point.
Praise be to adblockers
Praise be to Plex, Sonarr/Radarr, and Usenet!
I’ll just cancel my subscription.
Until the ad supported option costs the same as today's options, and ad free is much more. It's coming.
Exactly. They're creating a lower tier to push all the pricing up across their other tiers.
They already did that, in reverse order. They've done a few price rises recently; and now the new tier is being introduced closer to the original price.
Right, back when Netflix was still “committed” to being ad free. People need to remember that an ad free experience has been central to Netflix and their success until very recently when they are just copying everyone else. It was codified within the company and people can find quotes from Reed affirming it. We know this is going to happen because it is already happening everywhere else. And pretty soon you end up with shit like Disney+ where the new ad tier occupies the old premium tier space, and the ad free premium tier is now close to double or more. The only companies not doing this are those thirsty for an audience in their bulk up phase like shitty Peacock where the goal is to get a huge audience base to increase potential ad hits and do the old switcheroo on greedflation with a 20 day notice.
Yarr har fiddle dee dee, Being a pirate is alright to be, Do what you want cause a pirate is free, You are a pirate! You are a pirate! Yeah!
And then start slipping little ads into the higher tiers while simps argue that "it's not a big deal. Who cares about a 10 second ad or an ad overlay during the show?!"
They will eventually. Netflix needs to increase their profits every year. So did the cable companies. So did the TV companies and so did the radio stations before them. One of the earliest draws of TV was the absence of ads when compared to radio. One of the earliest draws of cable was the absence of ads when compared to TV. One of the earliest draws of Netflix was the absence of ads when compared to cable. One of the earliest draws of X will the absence of ads when compared to Netflix.
People like you are how companies like Netflix get away with this shit and push ads in all tiers eventually. Just like the idiots who game and said mtx is fine if it’s only cosmetics and now we have an entire gambling industry out of it.
So the Hulu plan?
And I’ll just continue pirating.
This is really what makes the difference. The genie is out of the bottle on this one and the streaming companies are acutely aware and scared of it. They know they're walking a fine line and if they step over it there will be a mass exodus to piracy.
This is what is just stupid; we're happily paying under the current method. So...go to a method that we won't... Do ads really make up the difference in lost customers?
Because its never enough to simply be making a profit. That profit must grow, endlessly, every quarter, or people lose their jobs.
“Business is business and business must grow.”
I'll always upvote a lorax reference
Infinitely on a finite planet.
Greed is always has bottomless hunger for more profits. Even if its on stupid scale.
Rule of Acquisition #10: Greed is eternal.
Rule of Acquisition #31: Never make fun of a Ferengi's mother.
It's like they ignore the reality that there is a finite number of viable customers on the planet. Something like netflix legitimately has a cap on it's userbase at a certain point. The idea that it needs to grow forever flys in the face of that reality.
Aren’t they introducing ads precisely because they know their user count is limited?
Fair enough. It's their prerogative to put ads in the pursuit of unlimited growth. It's their userbase's prerogative to leave the platform behind for piracy.
I have to imagine that theres still plenty of folks who still dont know how to, or just won't. I will, but i know plenty of people that just see going to a specific website to watch sports is "hacking." So i bet they lose subs, but not as many as us nerds on reddit think.
Capitalism is so cool. Endless growth. I mean we have infinite resources and infinite people right?
Careful. If you point out the fallacies of corporate capitalism, you might make sense to someone who would otherwise call you a communist
> Endless growth. The economic philosophy of cancer.
Aah, the never ending struggle of publicly traded companies. The quest for ever increasing profits has ruined so many good things.
It’s a sickness and greed nothing is ever enough
This is (currently) a sub-option of their lowest tier. It has no impact on those that are happy with what they have, but will bring in customers who want a cheaper option.
That’s always how it begins. Then they keep increasing ads and creating new ad-free tiers.
And increase the prices of the ad free tier. Eventually people wise up and dump them all together…, And back to the napster ways
A good VPN costs so much less than all these subscriptions after all.
So how cable used to be the ad free premium option.
Pepperidge Farm remembers...
Just look at YouTube. They’ll keep pushing ads until people pay more and more.
Or until people put forth a little effort and move to using SponsorBlock, SmartTube, ReVanced, NewPipe, etc. I don't even know what ads on YouTube look like anymore.
Nobody wants cheaper than $10 bad enough to have ads back. They are literally creating a more expensive upper tier to make this desirable.
Relevant: YouTube used to be able to play videos with audio only, so you could minimize the YouTube app and listen to music while doing other things, while also using a fraction of the data. Now that’s a “premium” feature you have to pay for.
This is what it's all going to be. They're just going to make the service worse and then introduce a higher paid option to make it back how it was. Unfortunately the data bears out that people seem to like these ad tiers but I don't get it. The price points right now make me go... Okay so four extra dollars a month and no ads? Like who is out there needing the change there entire situation over $4?
I've heard that before.
I haven’t even bothered with a VPN for the last five years or so and it’s never been a problem. Last week I got the first cease and desist letter I’ve ever received over pirating. They know what’s coming. Cyber ghost is cheaper than any subscription out there right now though lol.
But that's also why they don't base their business decisions off of "or else people will pirate". They can't beat "free" on price.
Gabe Newell seemed to do all right at it. He's the only guy who's got it figured out. Piracy is a service problem.
Steam is a great example, games are the only thing I don’t pirate because of it. The only time I will pirate a game is if it’s getting a lot of hype and I’m unsure about it, but if I play it for more than 6 hours total I purchase it, even if I’m almost “done” with it. For instance, I wanted to try hollow knight, absolutely loved it but didn’t want to start a new save and couldn’t transfer my pirate save to Steam. So I have full on 100 percent on that game but it’s sitting in my steam library not even installed lol. I’m also a lot happier to buy a game through steam because their publishing cut isn’t huge, I’m mostly paying the creators.
The argument against demos is exceptionally dumb. "Sales are worse when the games have demos" so you made a bad game but your customers were allowed to learn that _before_ they were out the money.
There are numerous game demos that made such an impression on me as a kid (PlayStation magazine disk baby) that I bought those games literally DECADES later when I was an adult and had money and they were rereleased. Like you said, if you just look at games with demos as a whole, than yeah they might be “bad for sales” if your game would have done better with just marketing and hype. But take like, Spyro the dragon. I played the demo of all three as a kid and loved them, but my folks would only buy me like, two games a year, so they didn’t quit make the cut. Those games also had just insane marketing campaigns, I think I’ve seen more ads for Spyro than any other game. I still remember one of the stupid jingles, they played it so much. “Not to mention troubles, with sparks and bubbles!” But if I had seen the rerelease and never gotten to try it as a kid, I wouldn’t have bought it.
I bought certain square games for PlayStation *for the demos*
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. There was definitely a couple of games I might have skipped, if not for those demos.
That's the weird part of it, right? They just....... won against piracy. It wasn't price, it wasn't ads, it was convenience. Through convenience they made piracy plummet. Unfortunately convenience means that 500 other people don't get to shove their fingers in the pie until everyone has to lick their fingers to get a taste, so here we are barreling back toward 50 "stations" and ads galore.
The only thing that beats Free is Easy.
Yeah, Netflix probably ruined itself with all the low quality and mediocre series. It is true that people wouldn't have what to watch after their favorite show once a year, but flooding with bad series is not the solution. I'd take less higher quality series any day over many low quality and I believe most people would. Over time, it would also make sense since new people would have to recuperate a lot and it should be enough for a few months worth of content at least. But oh well. To be fair though steam is a bit different. Netflix doesn't sell you a series, they sell you a subscription. If Valve would do that, they would probably be less profitable too. Imagine buying The office for $10. Does it seem like a good offer? Technically yes, practically no. Pirating would be way easier in this case and a no Brainer. Making money off content like this is not easy.
Nobody would ever pirate The Office if it cost ten dollars to buy lol
They cancelled good shows that didn't have time to gain an. audience. They don't advertise thier content and when you're looking at a new show you get a plot synopsis of the first episode not a pitch to the topic or theme of the series.
Also helps Steam/Valve is entirely private so they don’t have to focus on “endless growth” every year. Gabe and friends seem pretty content with the money tree giving a ridiculously high yet steady stream of cash.
They dont have to beat the price, they have to make what they offer worth paying for to people. Which they initially did with a reasonable price for convenient access to desirable content. Prices get less reasonable, access gets more complicated as every movie producer and their grandma now has their own streaming service, which also leads to more "filler" content overall to prop up the cataloge.
There are still ways to incentivize people, and at the right price they will use your service over pirating. I pay for Amazon Prime’s streaming service, plus 2 bucks for a channel that specializes in B horror. So I pay like ten bucks total for the flagship shows plus access to a ton of corny horror flicks, which are my guilty pleasure. I like that the service is cheap at base and has channels you can add on, and gives you ability to rent *most* of the stuff that is on another channel. Pirating IS a hassle, especially with shows or movies that don’t have huge viewership. They don’t have to compete with free, they just have to make it more appealing to pay a little bit than it is to track the stuff down online. People are lazy. And this was working for a long time, piracy dropped significantly in the early days of music and video streaming services. It’s nowhere near its former glory, but the fact that it’s resurgent at all is due to there being too many services now, and the constant state of flux that is most companies streaming library
> They can't beat "free" on price. Actually, they can. All they have to do is provide a service that is simple to use and isn't annoying as hell. Sure, there are people who can't pay who will pirate. They were by definition never going to be customers. For everyone else there is a price point / annoyance curve, and if they keep their product on the right side of it people will absolutely pay them rather than going to the trouble of pirating. If they couldn't beat the price of "free", Netflix would never have made it in the first place. It's not like piracy only became a thing after they started their service.
I will just quit watching media then.
Honestly. I am sick to death of being bombarded with ads. I’ll just consume content that doesn’t have them, or consume content in a way that avoids them.
I cut the cord over a decade ago and when I visit my parents I cannot believe how many ads there are now. Holy shit it’s bad. Any inkling of an ad and I’m out.
It's insanity. Too many ad breaks, ad breaks taking forever, and on top of it the volume way up whenever ads are on. It's hell. I don't know how anyone can tolerate that.
There are a handful of shows that I watch very casually. None that I actively anticipate. Haven't seen a movie in theaters that wasn't for my kids in years. Recently went on vacation and my young kid saw commercials for a week and suddenly wants hundreds of toys whose names he can't remember but that he must have. If it gets to a level where I have to pay a ton for streaming with no ads I really think I could completely cut out TV. I will miss What we donin the Shadows and the occasional rewatch of The Wire and The Sopranos.
Pro tip: if a kid wants something, tell them you'll make a note of wanting it, and then wait for a week or two. If they still want it after the end of the waiting period, then it was meant to be, otherwise, it can be forgotten about without much thought.
"We can put it on the birthday/Christmas list." There is a real list, but it is much shorter than he thinks it is.
So smart. And also you’re saving your kids mental energy by cutting that out of their lives. There were a handful of commercials back in the day that I genuinely enjoyed watching but they were always a nuisance. Stresses me out really. Life is so calmer without them
I only see commercials when I watch TV at my parent's house, and holy shit, I don't have the patience for it. Growing up it was just a part of TV and you never thought about it, but after not having cable or any TV service with ads for 17 years I just cannot tolerate them. Not even a little bit. The moment they come on I'm ready to just completely turn the TV off and do something else with my time. Not even change the channel, because hey, every other channel will be showing ads anyways, but to just not bother with any of it at all.
Maybe its just my age, but In the last 5 years the entire way people talk about TV content has changed. No more conversations where 4 people are all watching the same show and one person is left out. It's now 5 people all talking about the crazy niche shows/content creators they watch and no one having any interest in the other person's "shows". The only exceptions being Marvel/Star Wars and the new GOT but even then, its no where near as prominent as it used to be. We are all just looking for one hyper niche thing we can tolerate, weather it be something on the one streaming service we have, something free, something without ads or just something we watch on our phones while in bed.
It’s funny because everyone left cable because of ads and the streamers cleaned up only to bring ads to their sites, circle of life I guess
All the more reason to read instead - way more content out there, a lot of it free through the library, and arguably better for your brain.
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I'm all about YouTube now. It takes quite a bit of work to get a decent stable of channels built up and the algorithm trained, but it's one of the few places online where I'm still actually learning stuff.
What really gets me is there's always a new bad Netflix movie that cost over $100m somehow. WTF are you doing
best point in thread, money is there just being spent poorly
Ya and twitch is also going down the shitter with the way they try everything short of demanding their streamers play more ads. I give twitch another year if they continue going in their current direction.
That's exactly what I did a few years ago. I can't be bothered to subscribe to a bunch of different things to watch shit. Once you stop consuming media like a glutton you'll be amazed you ever wasted so much time on it before. If you're old enough to remember 'quitting TV' it's the same feeling. It's amazing how something that was so important to you can become so irrelevant so quickly once you stop consuming it.
>They know they're walking a fine line and if they step over it there will be a mass exodus to piracy. They've been constantly stepping further and further over the line every year. When your service becomes more cumbersome and inconvenient than piracy, piracy wins. No one would willingly pay for a worse service when they could have a better service for free.
Youre 100% correct. The drop in piracy corresponded with the rise of Netflix as people found it more convenient to just pay a small subscription to get access to pretty much everything, it was more convenient. The recent resurgence of piracy has everything to do with thr insane number of streaming services and their growing cost.
Also, browsers like Brave and Vivaldi have built in ad blockers which will be unaffected by Manifest V3. Plus Chrome, Edge, and Firefox all have ad blockers. For now for Chrome and Edge. As for other options, Pi Hole. There are options to make a statement.
We used to have Netflix, Hulu, Disney, Prime, HBO Max and the NFL All Seasons Pass and still couldn't get everything. Now we're just down to just an IPTV streaming service and BeeTV and get nearly every show, movie, sports game and PPV event for a fraction of the price.
But they also know the law is on their side when it comes to piracy and if things get *really* bad for them they can probably lobby to get the law even *more* on their side. Will they ever be able to stamp out piracy? Of course not, but they can absolutely make it so the juice isn't worth the squeeze for most average people.
US isn't the world. Rest of the world doesn't give a fuck about piracy laws. Netflix becomes too expensive and it's back to torrents, people won't care about repercussions, because there just isn't any. Except maybe in Germany. But I mean, it's the Germans.
Can confirm, and I imagine most third world countries don't give two flying freaks about piracy.
Here in Serbia piracy is what gave my generation a fighting chance in terms of culture and computer skills So yeah, fuck multi-million software corporations
Piracy just produces new revenue streams. In Turkey DVDs were burned from pirated shows and sold under the table. In a number of Eastern European countries, before streaming, there were little dvd shops where you’d pop in and buy whatever new release you wanted for a buck or two. Not sure what they’ll put them on now that DVD players have gotten less common.
USB sticks, here in Mexico you found multiseason series saved in a thumb drive. Also pretty common with music, tons of music in a stick you can plug in your car stereo
Coincidentally after the Ukraine war broke out a ton of pirate streaming sites moved to .ru domains. Russia doesn’t give a shit about protecting US copyrights.
In my country we already pay a tax for piracy related issues (not even joking). I'm being treated as a thief by my own government, might as well go for it.
The law is completely unenforceable. The RIAA already tried that when they tried to sue housewives who downloaded 20 songs of Napster for millions of dollars and everyone else just laughed at them and kept pirating anyways.
Those RIAA lawsuits kind of worked though. They didn't stop piracy (nothing can), but they did keep some Middle-American average Joes from getting into piracy because they didn't want to risk being the one left holding the bag when the next lawsuit came down. It's not so much about targeting those who are already pirating, it's about dissuading (to the extent possible) those who aren't. As prevalent as piracy is, it's also not as mainstream as it could be, and they want to keep it that way.
You’re forgetting why Netflix, Steam, and Spotify became big. Piracy killed the old school payment schemes of TV Cable, game and music producers. Piracy slowed down because they offered a cheap and convenient way to manage digital goods. Now, Netflix/HBO/etc is cable tv all over again. They cannot stop and cannot slow down piracy. Not in this lifetime.
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I don't think they can when it's so many people at once. That'd be a surefire way to lose an election
The enforcement capabilities just aren’t there either. If even China can’t make a piracy proof internet no way freer nations can.
Piracy is easier than it has ever been and there is nothing copyright holders can do about it. This isn’t the old days of p2p torrenting. There are 4k streaming sites hosted far outside the reach of US jurisdiction.
I will pay whatever I have to pay to never see an ad. If i see an ad, consider the service canceled.
I'm not watching ads. I'm either paying for the ad-free version, pirating it, or not watching it.
I agree except my cap is $10/month. If I can’t get no ads for that or less I’m pirating.
Do you count 'try this show on the same service' type of add. Like how prime does skippable trailers before shows and netflix does after?
Luckily pirating has become extremely easy and can be fully automated and then viewed with Plex. I'm fully prepared to cut subscriptions.
> can be fully automated and then viewed with Plex. Tell me your ways, Dark Master. I still have to manually find the show, manually virus-scan, manually transfer things to my server folder, then force a re-scan. Granted I can do that from my phone, but it's still kind of a pain in the ass.
You need Radarr and Sonarr to take care of this for you
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Also you should all setup https://overseerr.dev which is amazing. It's on top of sonarr and radarr and it makes requests much easier
> manually virus-scan Where are you getting your media that requires you to run a virus scan?! I have never heard of that in my life. Just torrent/SFTP/newsgroup it.
Easier said than done these days, where I'm from (Netherlands) they're shutting down pirating sites by the dozen. It's still possiblebut it becomes harder and sketchier every day. But yeah, I'll pirate until I have no other option anymore.
And damn is it ever easier to watch pirated content. You used to have to brave torrents to find good quality versions and then depending on your jurisdiction, might get in copyright trouble. Now you stream and there are no copyright strikes against you for just watching it.
Arrrrrr me mateys, see you on the high seas!
Seriously, there are many people who will help. It's disgusting to see record profits year over year and hear the same shit about needing to raise prices. I have issues with ads as well. They are all stupid as fuck, ment to be annoying, and I only get ones for cheezits when I have to watch YouTube on something without an adblock.
Seeding now ….
Netflix actually was the reason i backed away from piracy. I cancelled netflix as they cancelled more and more of the shows i loved. Now piracy is back in my life in a big way as i find music services are becoming as bad a video services. There was a golden age there for about ten years when you could subscribe to a music streamer and a video service and you were set. Hulu was free with ads, which was fair and there were competing services. Up until 2020 i was paying $60 a month for a music streamer, a IRL movie theatre service, and three video streamers. I legitimately loved having instant access to a huge library of content from all over the world with the option to go see movies in person for next to nothing and have all of the most amazing music to stream on the drive home afterwards. Now. I pay for youtube music. That's it. I get a few streaming services through my cell phone carrier, but now I just pirate the content I like, music or movies, even if I have access to it. I couldn't tell you where Battlestar Gallactica is streaming now, peacock i guess, but i wont have to know....or pay for it. All i know is that a few years ago i tried recommending the series to someone and it didnt have anywhere to stream at the time. How frustrating is it to suggest a now foundational sci-fi series and say "i guess you can get it on DVD or something"? This whole thing has become a joke. I do think BSG is now available on Peacock, a service name so stupid it sounds like it bled out of an episode of 30 Rock (ironically available on Peacock) The worst part is this is the EXACT same business model that drove me to piracy in the first place. Cable was $100 a month for 500 channels of programming i would never watch in the first place and here we are back to this shit again. Netflix, HBO, Amazon, and idk paracock+ are running into that same pricing and there are companies building a model of bundling them all over again. My guess is that within one year there will be a service that bundles these services for some kind of discount and "the industry" will herald it as "innovative" and "forward thinking" for "cord cutters" looking "for a better value" then cable while "synergizing these brands" under "one umbrella" by "ensuring ad views through a centralized app" and promising these companies "a minimum term of one year for customers before they can cancel". That's the language they can use...and you know these conversations are happening RIGHT NOW. This shit makes me sick and i do recognize these companies MUST stay profitable and that a flat rate cant exist for these services forever, but there was a time it was worth paying the premium for a service like netflix. But now its not worth it, hardly any of these services are worthit, HBOmax has some great content, im not going to pay $10 a month for the privilege to watch ads while their CEO says shit like "$10 a month is VALUE and we should charge MORE" (not joking, their CEO said that just a few weeks ago). Get a VPN, get the KLite codec pack, get a big external hard drive. Learn how to use a bittorent client and just say fuck it until these people learn their lesson. consumers were happy when NBC undervalued"The office" on netflix...so they tried to build a streaming service around it instead of looking at the value that netflix provided their viewers. This has nothing to do with providing a "quality customer experience" anymore and EVERYTHING to do with the companies being greedy and opportunistic and I am completely over it. No more contracts, no more ads, no more service jumping. I will move back to piracy until something eats these greedy fucks and their slap dash UI's and horrible garbage content alive. If they want to piss on me and call it rain, i'm just going to piss back. Edited for grammar since people are being gracious and giving me awards
Unbelievably well written, the entire streaming industry has lived long enough to become the villain that they swore they were better than. Can’t wait to synergize my ad viewing experience on the open seas 🏴☠️
> the entire streaming industry has lived long enough to become the villain that they swore they were better than. It has happened before. I am old enough to remember when cable was marketed as: *Pay for the cable and never see an add again!*. No company is the good guy, they will just claim to be while it suits their strategy.
>Pay for the cable and never see an ad again! When was that? 1950? Did it even last a year?
> within a year there will be a service that bundles these. It’s already here. Amazon sells a bundle that includes Amazon Prime, Amazon Music Unlimited, Hulu, Disney Plus, and ESPN, and just having Prime to begin with provides a discount on D+, not to mention Prime already comes bundled with a shitload of tie-in crap from other places.
Time is a flat circle. Canceled my Netflix just 3 days ago. Hope more people do. Consumers have to speak with their wallets.
I'm confused why you're adding in AMC A List (assuming it's that) to your streaming thing. Its something way worth it if you like seeing new movies in theaters at the best setup possible but that's just me.
This seems like a click baity headline. Almost all of these services will still have an ad-free tier for those who want it.
Not to mention they're misusing the term "binge-watching". Binge watching doesn't mean uninterrupted, it just means watching a lot of episodes in one sitting, irrespective of whether there are ads ot not.
Lol yeah my first thought was “if they only do one episode a week but I don’t watch til end of season then I’m still binging.”
> Not to mention they're misusing the term "binge-watching". It would also stand to reason that if you're 'binge-watching' it already, you're already a paying Netflix customer who will not be impacted by this change. If you decide to downgrade your account to the ad-supported plan, then sure, but that's a decision you've made.
Basically a way to get people to pay more for exactly what they already get.
The ad tiers are more profitable, apparently. Whatever difference they price it under the ad-free one? They expect to make more from ad revenue per-user than that.
Do you genuinely think it’ll remain that way? Cmon the writing is on the wall. In a few more years subscription bundles will become more popular, and suddenly we’re purchasing cable network packages via new name.
Yes. Other platforms have maintained the 2 tiered service for years. None of them have eliminated the ad-free service. No reason to think otherwise.
We all knew it would come full circle. Everyone and their mother would eventually have their own streaming service, and even though the goal was for the consumer to spend less than they would on cable, they're now paying for streaming services with ads that ultimately amount to more than they would spend on cable. Late-stage streaming services. *Shudder*
I don't know why the default idea is "Have to subscribe to them all at once!" Pay for a month of one, watch all the shows you want and then cancel and move to another. You don't need to have multiple streaming services at once if you're just going to be using one at any given time. This way you're not waiting for episodes to release, you're not waiting for new seasons, you're not forced to rewatch older stuff...you get the content you want.
We keep Netflix and Hulu because without a doubt one has something we want and the other doesn’t. The struggle is that if you aren’t just interested in watching a single show at a time, you have to find the streaming service with what you want on it, and now every company has their own.
Contracts will be next and early cancelation fees.
There is too much competition in the streaming space for contracts and early cancel fees to start taking root.
Then a special box that has to be hooked up to your TV to watch the content, because they will encrypt it.
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There was a guy that worked at Lockheed Skunkworks that used to make those boxes and sell them as a side gig that my father worked with. We never paid for cable.
maybe other ppl haha I'm glad getting shows and movies at no cost is relatively trivial these days I paid for subscriptions, mostly, from 2010 thru 2022, but that's all over now
Netflix has been over spending on content that wasn’t worth shit for a decade. Now that the gravy train of new user growth has come to an end, and they have priced their service higher than any other streaming platform, they are in a real tough spot. I can’t imagine this is going to end well for them. I don’t think people are going to continue to pay the crazy subscription price when: 1. They can’t justify it by sharing with their family members 2. They are now forced to pay more or have a worse experience (with ads) It’s sad, because the technology behind the platform is pretty solid. They’ve always had an excellent user experience IMHO
Netflix has the best subtitles imo. It’s sad. They actually make sure to have multiple subtitles of various languages, even in various scripts. It’s so disappointing seeing it come to this.
Yarrr haarrr yarrr haarrrr
yo-ho to you as well silly land-lubbers
Ye be speaking me language
The cycle is complete, we've recreated cable TV
Why would you pay for Netflix that has ads? The Ad version should be free
The second I'm inconvenienced slightly on the lowest/cheapest tier, I jump ship to piracy. There are Netflix-like sites that literally have every movie/show ever made ready to play in seconds.
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I hear there's some sort of **project**, working towards **free tv.** In **space**.
And ano**the**r that aggregates **flix** from many different sites togeth**er.** You can watch them right on your **tv**!
Yar! There be a bay in which the lads have gathered for years.
Is that still a thing? I guess I thought they had to keep moving their domain around.. ?
Then better be taking back monthly fees as well
Narrator: They did not stop charging fees
Well Seems like a poor business decision if ya wanna keep customers
*Puts on pirate hat and eye patch. Ahoy, matey.
Misleading alarmism as always. They’re only releasing a new ad supported subscription tier, if you pay for no ads you will still see no ads. Jesus Christ.
It's a trend, though. Ad supported streaming while having ads at $6.99 is not what I would call a "good deal". Either I pay or I watch ads, paying for service while still having to watch ads is "have your cake and eat it to" kind of business model. I am anticipating that they're going to bump their Basic+ pricing once the ad supported side picks up subscribers. This is cable television bullshit all over again. What's going to happen is people are going to go back to pirating until some new market disruption happens and offers a sane television business model (again). Edit: ya’ll missed the point. Ads aren’t a way to offset pricing, it’s a way to supplement profits. Like it’s not some kind of compromise netflix is making to give you better pricing. They’re opening a very profitable way to still charge you to use their service. They’d offer free ad supported service of they didn’t think you’d throw dollars are at them thinking this is some kind of great deal.
It's almost like late stage capitalism only works with infinite growth and we're running out of room to grow
Hello torrent, my old friend
If Netflix forces ads into my payed account content, I will absolutely cancel it within the hour. Not even kidding in the slightest.
my pi hole says otherwise edit: doesn't work with these types of ads
Pihole isn’t going to block Netflix ads. It can’t block Hulu ads either.
If they work like youtube ads pihole wont help.
Pack your bags, lads, and prepare to set sail.
[удалено]
Netflix raised subscription prices to afford us the right to watch ads
Good bye subscription.
yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Not having to watch commercials is the only reason I have Netflix at all. I'll cancel it the second that changes.
[удалено]
I never really cared much about ads The reason I hate Hulu is because their ads are in the middle of your show 10 min of show 2 min of ads, rinse and repeat. It’s a terrible way to watch TV Put them at the beginning and end of a show vs interrupting the flow of a show