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Netflix Removes “Basic” Ad-Free Plan in U.S. and U.K
- mrv_asura 3y agoRead: Another nail in Netflix's coffin.
- everdrive 3y agoYou can tell a company is in decline when it’s doing everything it can to claw back value. Netflix has enough resources to recover, but it doesn’t seem like a given that it can or will.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago>You can tell a company is in decline when it’s doing everything it can to claw back value. Now that the free money is over so is the unsustainable free ride. All these VC funded scaleups are trying to claw back value as most of them weren't really profitable, just relied on investors, but now investors want their pound of flesh. It's way overdue wakeup call for the industry. If a company is promising you something for free, check your pockets.
- samayylmao 3y agoIs Netflix using Canada as a test case for how larger markets will react to that change?
- ipcress_file 3y agoIt sure looks that way. There's less damage if an experiment goes awry in Canada.
- stetrain 3y agoIt’s still $20/mo just to watch anything in 4K, even if I only need one stream. They can shuffle all the other plans around all they want but that’s the price point that keeps me away.
- nickstinemates 3y agoMeanwhile a seedbox is still extremely cheap and automating any show you want is a few clicks.
- Matheus28 3y agoA balaclava and a gun is also fairly cheap in the grand scheme of things and you can get more than movies out of that. I don’t think it’s fair to compare piracy to legal ways of enjoying content.
- dvngnt_ 3y agoi wouldn't compare digital piracy to real life robbery with a deadly weapon. i would absolutely download a car
- christoph 3y agoSame. I really struggle to see how they still justify that pricing, it’s almost double the price* of Disney+ where almost everything within reason is 4k as standard. * UK it is double - £7.99 versus £15.99, Disney will also give 2 months free on a yearly plan, Netflix don’t seem to offer a yearly plan.
- bcrosby95 3y agoSure, but Disney+ loses money. Nevermind the jacked contracts - which everyone is striking over - that, among other things, cut workers out of residuals from streaming which is also artificially lowering costs. I wish these companies would charge something sustainable.
- cowsup 3y agoI remember when it was a fairly safe assumption that almost all content would end up on Netflix in time, with only a few odd-balls going to Hulu. Now with the big players — Disney, NBCuniversal, HBO, and Paramount — all having their own streaming platforms, Netflix is no longer the indispensable service it once was. They can try to raise prices and cut features / content in order to return to the golden age of profitability, but I don’t believe they’ll ever get it back.
- ExpendableGuy 3y agoThe golden age of streaming is long over. Pricing is going up, options are going down, and we're arguably in a worse place now than we were when cable was all but required.
- lockhouse 3y agoSlightly more effort required, but I think if the prices go up much more, I’m just going to start rotating subscriptions. I grew up with 5 over the air channels on a good day, so I think we’ll manage.
- babypuncher 3y agoI struggle to see how the current status quo is worse than cable. I pay less for my streaming services than my parents do for cable, and the quantity and quality of content at my disposal is still far better than I ever remember getting with cable.
- happymellon 3y agoCable breaks a show by sticking adverts in the middle even though you've paid for access to watch the show. Even if it was exactly the same price, cable would be a worse experience.
- red-iron-pine 3y agoyaarrrrrr
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- Simulacra 3y agoMaybe someone will take all the streaming services and combine them into one.
- babypuncher 3y agoWhile that sure would be convenient, I'm not sure I'd like the massive reduction in variety (or massive price jump) that would need to accompany such a move.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y agoThis has been done historically by US telecoms and it turned into the current situation with Comcast and Time Warner Cable.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoTime Warner Cable stopped existing a long time ago, it existed 2009 to 2016. Charter (Spectrum) took over the physical TV service/ISP to the home business. Discovery most recently took over the media part and now it is officially known as Warner Bros Discovery.
- solarkraft 3y agoSky and Magenta (German Telekom) actually offer Netflix bundles.
- Ekaros 3y agoI think that might be too much finally for anyone handling anti-trust. And price might be something entirely stupid like 50-100 a month.
- barbariangrunge 3y agoSo you get ads, and unlimited product placement? Whole episodes of Stranger Things revolving around Seven Eleven and Slurpees? You'd be a fool to say no! > Unlimited ad-free movies, TV shows, and mobile games I wish the USA believed in consumer protection, or had false advertising laws that were enforced, because most shows and movies are full of ads, they're just hidden. Ubiquitous computer logos, coca-cola bottles, car brands, etc Maybe they meant unlimited-ad, free movies, tv shows, and mobile games and messed up the punctuation
- lotsofpulp 3y agoThey are not even hidden, many times the characters in the show talk about the products and its features they are advertising as if in a commercial.
- gorlilla 3y agoThere was a show where you can kinda hear some low quality audio that sounded like a song ringtone. It's basically the end of the show, credits are rolling as this dude (high on edibles) is fumbling around his living room looking for the source of the music. After a good while he finally finda a pair of iconic red Beats headphones and puts them on and the music cuts to high quality and he starts vibing to the beat as the scene fades out. I can't remember what the show was, but i remembet how pissed i was for getting hooked into a clever product placement ad.
- Semaphor 3y ago> Whole episodes of Stranger Things revolving around Seven Eleven and Slurpees? It’s kinda funny, as we don’t have 7-11 here, I simply associate them with TV ;)
- WorldMaker 3y agoBeing from "flyover country closer to the East Coast" I've also loved that feeling of visiting the West Coast sometimes and the surprise of seeing businesses I know from TV or movies really exist. 7-11 was definitely on that list for me. It came up for me the other day because Heathers was set in small-town Ohio and yet prominently featured a 7-11 in multiple plot points which didn't fit my mental image of (mostly Southern) Ohio. Curiosity turned up that apparently there are a few 7-11s in Ohio if you travel north enough, so it isn't entirely anachronistic.
- dazc 3y agoSteaming services have become the very thing they were supposed to replace. The only advantage they have is that you can drop in and out of subscriptions, although, I suspect, it won't be long before they move towards 12 month lock-ins.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoBeing able to watch wherever you want, on a wide variety of devices, whenever you want is a pretty big advantage too.
- autoexec 3y ago> Being able to watch wherever you want, on a wide variety of devices You mean watch "whatever they have" and only on devices that are on the same network and only when they decide to let you watch them. Good luck watching Westworld on HBO max whenever you want. There are even new shows I want to watch right now, but I'm waiting for the streaming service to finish releasing the season before I start them because they want me to watch their shows like people did in the 1960s. "Tune in next week for another exciting episode!" No thanks!
- lotsofpulp 3y agoSure, but the ability to open up my TV app, and chose to pay $10 per season to watch Westworld at the very moment I watch is there, which it was not in a world before streaming. Obviously, content owners will probably mess around restricting access to stuff, but the situation is much better than before.
- foogazi 3y ago> Good luck watching Westworld on HBO max whenever you want. Woah - it’s gone https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/23513277/westworld-hbo-where-to-stream-max-shows-removed https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/23513277/westworld-hbo-...
- autoexec 3y ago
- ExpendableGuy 3y agoI'm sure the HN audience already knows this, but Tubi is basically an ad-supported version of what Netflix was back in the late 2000s / early 2010s: a handful of marquee movies and TV shows with a ton of filler and diamonds in the rough. I'm finding myself watching Tubi more than Netflix these days.
- 2023throwawayy 3y agoI've never heard of Tubi, and it being `ad-supported` I will never touch it. Why would you subject yourself to that?
- babypuncher 3y agoYou lost me at "ad supported"
- josephcsible 3y agoTubi is free, so I'm okay with some ads in it. I'm only opposed to things I'm paying for having ads at all.
- babypuncher 3y agoThat is a fair assessment. I personally can't stand ads, regardless if the content is free. So it frustrates me when a service has something I want, but they do not have any sort of premium ad free subscription option.
- effingwewt 3y agoTubi isn't just some ads, they easily double the length of a show and damn near double movie lengths. They literally doubled their ads overnight a while back and I uninstalled immediately as they had already been adding a good chunk of time to anything I watched. Also was the same ads over and over.
- josephcsible 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dm_me_dogs 3y agoI've completely stopped paying for streaming services (apart from Apple Music and TV+, because of Apple One). I pay $5 a month for Mullvad, and "acquire" everything I could ever want and play it using Plex on an old HP Elitedesk with OpenMediaVault installed on it. It's all automatic, so I request what I want using Overseerr, and it does the rest for me. Do I feel a little bit bad for stealing content? Maybe. But I'm not paying for 4+ streaming services just so I can occasionally watch shows a few times a year.
- ashishgautam0 3y agoIsn't this expensive compared to something like surfshark where it is 2.99 per month.
- gazby 3y agoThey're a part of Nord, and everything's proprietary. At that point just go PIA.
- wdb 3y agoWhat I am not clear about are those ads of other content or more like the ads on tv channels? The former I could live with if it just before the start of a show but they shouldn’t bump the price anytime soon
- zackmorris 3y agoI adore Netflix honestly, watching them grow up since the 90s. But the streaming hegemony that's grown up around copyright control is so.. well maybe an image is worth a thousand words: https://imgur.com/gallery/IM3Z2ww https://imgur.com/gallery/IM3Z2ww
- jakubmazanec 3y agoGolden age of TV is over... 1999 (start of The Sopranos) - 2023 (writer's strike).
- karmakaze 3y agoI only use Netflix for filler before going to sleep (on timer) on a 32" 720p TV. I should use the Basic plan (still an option in Canada). The only reason I don't is the hassle if/when I travel around devices/IP addresses. From my netflix.com/ChangePlan page > Only people who live with you may use your account. Add 1 extra member with Standard or up to 2 with Premium. Learn more. Watch on 4 different devices at the same time with Premium, 2 with Standard or Standard with ads, and 1 with Basic.
- pentagrama 3y agoI'm not only thinking about to moving from streaming to own physical copies of movies (best quality, offline, touch an object), but also moving to watch more old and good movies. I feel that the last decade, with the explosion of internet and social media, big part of the culture moved more aggressively to consume the latest releases, the most hyped, the advertised in small doses from months and months. I hope to start buying lovely Blu-rays from https://www.criterion.com https://www.criterion.com to build my collection.