Netflix, once a pioneer of ad-free viewing that offered a break from traditional TV norms, is now contemplating launching free ad-supported versions of its service in markets like Europe and Asia, Bloomberg reported.
The plans to offer a free ad-supported tier, albeit in select markets, suggests that pivot towards monetizing user data, in other words — making users and not the extensive library of award-winning shows a product, might be well in the pipeline.
It’s almost like all these CEOs and MBAs are just shooting in the dark because of the $$$ in their eyes, but the fact remains that the market is no longer responding favorably to their absolute need for year-over-year growth.
It isn’t? You might be looking at a different market.
“The enshittifucation will continue until profits improve.” --CEOs of Publicly Traded Companies
I look forward to when someone releases a box to record the screen or shows you want to watch on Netflix just in case the rights gets pulled before you get the chance to watch it. Added benefit is they can make it skip ads too. Gotta have a catchy name… like… NeVO for Netflix Video On(demand)
Tablo already exists
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Netflix, once a pioneer of ad-free viewing that offered a break from traditional TV norms, is now contemplating launching free ad-supported versions of its service in markets like Europe and Asia, Bloomberg reported.
Greg Peters, Netflix’s co-CEO, recently told The Verge that they view ad sales as “a new muscle” for the streaming giant to “build” and then apparently flex.
According to a recent Madison and Wall survey, cited by Bloomberg, Netflix currently ranks around ninth or tenth in the online video advertising space, all while lagging far behind not only YouTube, but also Disney and Paramount, and struggling to catch up with Amazon and Roku.
Maxine Gurevich of Horizon Media argued that as long as people find the service valuable and the ads are minimally intrusive — that is, highly relevant and engaging — they should not detract from the overall user experience.
For example, Netflix’s intention to show ads during the NFL’s Christmas games to all subscribers, including those in the ad-free tier, is a tad disconcerting.
Only time will tell what happens with Netflix’s subscription tiers, and whether we’ll see moderately priced ad-supported options alongside premium ad-free versions that will be generally out of reach for regular consumers.
The original article contains 589 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Life is stupid. What are we even DOING here???
Building shareholder value, duh.
That’s a broad leap no? Giants rise and fall. Look at betamax, BlockBuster, Kodak, etc
There’s always going to be something better out there, as long as you’re still looking and leaving the old post. Chin up!
…betamax as a giant? They entered a format war, and died in their first few years of existance.
The others I get. Kodak was around almost 100 years, blockbuster nearly 40, both at one time the dominant leaders of their industries. Both fell to failing to adapt to change.
But betamax? It came out around the same time as vhs, and vhs was cheaper.
Same with 8-tracks and cassettes.
I mean, my point still stands but if we want to talk about semantics - are you saying betamax wasn’t a giant?
Obviously they entered the vhs war and lost, but after that it was pretty much downhill for the rest of their company and products. They were a big name brand and crashed out by entering a war they ultimately lost. That’s all I’m tryin to get at
They already have an ad tier (tmobile bundles it into some of their plans). Is this going to be an even more ad tier?
Mega ad tier.
They want to squeeze out that extra bit of profit and get the users that never subscribed on there so they can boast about improved numbers.
Great for piracy!
This is step 86 in the plan. Step 87 is make people pay for the previously free service
Didn’t they already had a paid and with ads tier?
Yeah but now the roped in new suckers that didn’t know they need the product and the price is now 10 per month
Growth hacking. Shake loose more market share with the “FREE!!” version and then the frog boil
Streaming is just cable
Not until we’re having to sit through upwards of 20 minutes on ads per “1 hour” episode
The difference is that my ad blocker is quick and painless to set up, where TiVo involved some capital and planning.
Didn’t some cable companies get all butthurt that you could fast forward through the recorded commercials?
For now. YouTube is already starting to dedicate serious resources to anti ad blocking. I’m sure other streaming services aren’t that far behind.
but more more inconvenient since now you have about ten different apps instead of everything in the same place.
There is one benefit, at least for now. You aren’t locked into long term contracts like cable has/had.
Imo that’s pretty much the only benefit these days. But I’m also waiting for those 1 year, 2 year, etc “deals” where they offer $1/mo off or something
Don’t they already do that? I swear I saw a streaming service that offered 20% off the price if you agreed to pay 2 years in advance or something like that. That is already a thing on SaaS subscriptions.
I know Hulu has an annual billing option where they won’t prorate your bill if you cancel mid term, but I don’t know if there are any that just flat out won’t let you cancel.
I expect to see this soon as a way of combatting people who join one for a month or two, binge, then switch to another provider.
It might not come in the form of contracts at first, maybe they will just jack up the price of month to month high enough that people will voluntarily buy into a contract or yearly pre-purchase.
Trust me, there is always a way to make more money if you’re OK with being anti-consumer. It’s just a matter of time.
There’s no better ad for piracy than the greed of corporations. Don’t let ads shit in your head. They disrespect you, you disrespect them.
I have hardware dedicated to blocking ads on my home network.
That will only go so far unfortunately. And network level ad blocking won’t protect you from their ads if they’re served from the same servers the content is.
uBlock will manage :)
Not when they are part of the same stream
And not when your client is a Netflix app on your smart tv.
Ublock is not network level ad blocking.
But it helps in addition for the annoying stuff that is not possible to filter on the network.
What hardware do you use? I have a pihole. Unfortunately it doesn’t block ads on Youtube except in the web browser.
For a long time my pihole was able to do it with some regex entries, but Google was pretty persistent about not letting that work, so for Android I just started doing Revanced.
Like you said, the web browser still blocks fine.
“People are taking the piss out of you every day. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.”
Banksy
Obviously the majority of content is not going to be available. It will essentially b a Tubi clone or what Netflix streaming was when they first launched it.
Doesn’t this already exist or did I imagine it?
I thought they introduced it years ago
Edit: oh I read again, this time it’s free
Then:
Pay + adNow:
Free to watch + adsSee, now I’m fine with that. I pay for Netflix and I want what I pay for to stay ad-free. Having an ad-supported tier with no fee in addition to that means that there are options for other people without enshittifying my experience.
That’s a world of difference to what Amazon have done where they’ve shoved ads into the service that I thought I was paying for, and then offered to charge me even more to get my original ad-free service back.
Yeah, it’s the reason I cancelled Amazon the day they announced that, while Netflix shambles on.
Ads provide a much needed break so I can check my phone without missing anything.
/s
watch youtube videos on your phone while the Netflix ads play -> Watch Netflix on your TV while the youtube ads play. Perfection
Time to bring back Tivo
That’s the problem. They already wisened up and HDMI, the propietary standard they forced everyone to change to for HD+, has built-in DRM. Most smart TV have DRM built-in as well.
Cryptanalysis researchers demonstrated flaws in HDCP as early as 2001. In September 2010, an HDCP master key that allows for the generation of valid device keys was released to the public, rendering the key revocation feature of HDCP useless.[8][9] Intel has confirmed that the crack is real,[10] and believes the master key was reverse engineered rather than leaked.[11] In practical terms, the impact of the crack has been described as “the digital equivalent of pointing a video camera at the TV”, and of limited importance for consumers because the encryption of high-definition discs has been attacked directly, with the loss of interactive features like menus.[12] Intel threatened to sue anyone producing an unlicensed device.[11]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-bandwidth_Digital_Content_Protection
I’m aware of this. But no corporation will ever let anyone get even close to releasing a consumer product like TiVo used to be.
Then it can be an open source project like PiHole that runs on a raspberry pi and that only cool people know about
They would be ceased and desisted out of existence. There’s a reason no one on the scene right now discloses methods and streaming piracy is a closely guarded secret. I’m sure it is perfectly possible, as that is how most piracy occurs nowadays. But it is extremely technical and most likely risks exposing any person doing it wrong.
Well it would be something that is for, you know, research. Like the core technology exists in a GitHub repo for science and the public interest, but the master keys are just not included, and up for you to procure on your own with a “legitimate license.”
