Netflix is trying a handful of things to save its struggling business, including its efforts to begin spinning up its own game development studio complete with original planned content. While the fruits of its labor are still at least a few years away, it does have a strategy that’s going into effect near immediately – ads.
As a recent trend that’s caught on with pretty much all of the major streaming platforms, Netflix is now jumping on the bandwagon and taking your money while still showing you ads. For $6.99 USD, you can get the company’s new “Basic with ads”, a lower-priced tier that is rolling out on November 3rd.
The plan will still offer you 720p streaming just like the Basic plan, but you’ll save a few bucks and get up to 4-5 minutes of ads per hour (each ad will be 15-30 seconds). The other main difference is that a handful of movies and TV shows won’t be available due to “licensing restrictions”, but Netflix is working to overcome those. Oh, and you can’t download anything offline.
In short, Basic with Ads is everything people love about Netflix, at a lower price, with a few ads in-between. Starting in November, signing up will be easy — visit Netflix.com, and register with your email, date of birth, and gender to get started.
Netflix
I get that having a super low price point is great for some people, but I can’t get around the fact that the industry is actually accepting this behavior. Content providers seem to be getting more and more money hungry, and as competition heats up, the consumer suffers by having to pay to receive the very thing they began paying to rid themselves of, to begin with.
Netflix spins this entire thing as a positive on their blog post, and it just baffles me. Let me know in the comments if you agree, or if I’m living in the Twilight Zone where you pay more and get less so that corporations can find new ways to line their pockets and survive the fight against one another.
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