Chromecasts without Google TV won’t support Netflix’s new ad-supported tier

In case you haven’t been keeping up with all the streaming news, Netflix just recently released a new, cheaper plan that is supported by ads as one of its last-ditch efforts to stop hemorrhaging money and appease shareholders. This “Basic with ads” plan, which costs $6.99 per month, is a recent trend that major streaming platforms have been jumping on, letting their customers stream in 720p with ads shown before or during most TV shows and movies.

However, as 9to5Google is reporting, a new support page has been put up that tells you which devices can use the new tier, and there are a couple of notable devices missing from that list. One of them is Apple TV, an omission that Netflix says will be fixed at a later time. The other is Google’s older Chromecast devices, that is, the ones that do not have Google TV built-in.

In fact, the support page explicitly states that you can’t use Google’s Chromecast devices unless it’s a Chromecast with Google TV (4K) or Chromecast with Google TV (HD), or else you will need to upgrade to the Basic, Standard, or Premium plans. Sadly, this means that if you were expecting to cast a Netflix show on your old Chromecast while on this “Basic with ads” tier, you are out of luck.

While this is unfortunate, we can’t fully blame Netflix for making this decision. The last classic Chromecast device was made back in 2018, and then Google went full throttle on its “Chromecast with Google TV” experience. We can’t just expect platforms to continue supporting classic Chromecast indefinitely when newer options are available. The same goes for Android devices, which Netflix states need to be running version 7.0 or newer in order to work with its ad-supported plan.

Netflix’s “Basic with ads” tier launched on November 1st in Mexico and Canada and on November 3rd in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Netflix says that while it plans to evolve this ad-supported tier over time, this is where they are at with the experience at launch.