Netflix is one of the most expensive streaming services out there. For the price of $20/month, you can get the same capabilities as a service like Disney+ at $7.99/month. People, understandably, don’t really like this, so the company began working on an ad-supported tier earlier in the year. This was announced soon after the news that the company lost over 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022.
Now, the Netflix ad-supported tier is confirmed
The co-CEO of Netflix, Ted Sarandos, laid everything out for us during the Cannes Lions advertising festival this Thursday. “We’ve left a big customer segment off the table, which is people who say: ‘Hey, Netflix is too expensive for me and I don’t mind advertising,’” This is a brief section of the statement, but it says a lot about the thinking behind this. What’s one minute or thirty seconds out of your life if you can watch your favorite shows on-demand? A lot of people subscribe to the $6.99/month tier on Hulu, and they watch services like Tubi and Pluto TV. Plenty of services offer ads for little to no money. Even Disney+ announced that it’s working on an ad tier for later this year. Now, Sarandos just confirmed that Netflix is going to introduce an ad-supported tier.
Now, the important questions
There are a few questions in the back of people’s heads right now. The big question is “How much?”. Sarandos didn’t give us a price, but an ad-supported tier that’s cheaper than the lowest plan should realistically cost between $4.99/month and $6.99/month. That’s just speculation, however. Next, what kind of perks will this tier have? Netflix is a special case, as it has different paid tiers with different perks. Will this ad-supported tier be the single-person 480p tier that but with ads? Or, will the ad-supported tier have some more perks? We’ll have to wait to see what the company does when it comes out. Until then, the company will have to focus on bringing in new shows and its games to keep people entertained.
