The streaming fellowship is broken. They are altering the deal. Pray they do not alter it further. This deal really is getting worse all the time. There was an idea that was streaming, and the accord was struck between platforms and their customers. We pay them a monthly fee, they don’t make us sit through ads. And now they have shattered it, the absolute bastards.
In its earnings report for the fourth quarter of 2023, Netflix announced it has plans to retire its cheapest ad-free tier. The ‘Basic’ tier will go first for all subscribers in Canada and the U.K., then the rest of the world throughout 2024.
Subscribers to the ad-supported tier have risen from 30% to 40% of new sign-ups in a quarter. Having completely ruined their own market through greed leading to saturation, streamers all now need your subscription money and the ad money to plug that gap.
Netflix already stopped offering the ‘Basic’ tier for new subscribers late last year, now it will phase out that tier for existing subscribers, leaving customers with a choice of Standard with Ads, Standard, or Premium.
Co-CEO Greg Peters is delivering classic corporate guff, stating it is better value, and better for shareholders:
“As we invest in and improve Netflix, we’ll occasionally ask our members to pay a little extra to reflect those improvements, which in turn helps drive the positive flywheel of additional investment to further improve and grow our service.”
The company has just announced a high deal with the WWE, and on the call, they pointed at both this and their crackdown on password sharing as an engine of renewed growth.
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