Netflix's ad tier will cost $6.99 USD and will launch in November.

[ebprince the computer nerd]

Summary

Netflix will be adding a subscription tier that includes ads for $6.99 USD. This service will be launched on November 3rd in the US, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Spain, and the UK. You can expect 4 to 5 MINUTES per hour.

 

Quotes

Quote

Netflix announced today that its new Basic with Ads tier is slated to launch on November 3rd, 2022, for $6.99 in the US, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, and the UK. In exchange for making you watch an average of four to five ads per hour that run anywhere from 15–30 seconds, Basic with Ads will give subscribers access to a large swath of Netflix’s programming but not the platform’s full catalog.

 

My thoughts

Huh, Netflix is becoming cable. We all knew that Netflix would soon have ads, but not 4 to 5 ads. I expected maybe 2 or 3 ads at around 10 to 20 seconds, but now you can have up to 2 and 1/2 minutes of ads. I think Netflix is just trying to get their subscribers back, but maybe lower the $6.99 USD to maybe $4.99?

 

EDIT: As what @TVwazhere stated, it is not 4 to 5 ads per hour, it's 4 to 5 MINUTES of ads per hour. This is way worse than I would've thought.

 

Sources

the verge

Edited October 14, 2022 by ebprince the computer nerd
this is way worse now

[Holmes108]

Some people have really been going crazy since the announcement, but seems perfectly reasonable to me. More choice is never a bad thing. If something starts to encroach on the more premium tiers, I might have a stronger opinion, but this seems like a great option for people who complain they feel Netflix is too expensive, they've already seen "everything" on it, or just want to use it occasionally.

 

 

[jaslion]

Ok but how are these going to be put into the stream? Because if it's an add in block adblockers can catch it. If so firefox might become the go to streaming browser :p.

[jaslion]

6 minutes ago, Holmes108 said:

but this seems like a great option for people who complain they feel Netflix is too expensive

It's not this just makes normal netflix more expensive.

 

Thats the whole point. Keep adding more and more tiers as "inclusive options" whilst pushing the original quality of the product to a higher tier subscription which then coincidentally costs more because it's the "premium" sub.

[Holmes108]

3 minutes ago, jaslion said:

It's not this just makes normal netflix more expensive.

 

Thats the whole point. Keep adding more and more tiers as "inclusive options" whilst pushing the original quality of the product to a higher tier subscription which then coincidentally costs more because it's the "premium" sub.

What do you mean? Like my $20 (or whatever) tier would be less if not for this ad tier? I mean, that could be true, but I don't think there's any way to know that.

[Holmes108]

6 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Ok but how are these going to be put into the stream? Because if it's an add in block adblockers can catch it. If so firefox might become the go to streaming browser :p.

Oh interesting, I didn't think about that. I never watch Netflix in a browser, but I wonder if any ad-blockers in their current form would work against this.

[Blademaster91]

I think this could make netflix without ads more expensive, the lower paid ad tier could be used to increase prices on higher tiers without ads.

 

[jaslion]

2 minutes ago, Holmes108 said:

Oh interesting, I didn't think about that. I never watch Netflix in a browser, but I wonder if any ad-blockers in their current form would work against this.

Firefox + ublock origin is your friend. Even the most anti adblock sites simply fail due to the community behind it.

[Holmes108]

7 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

I think this could make netflix without ads more expensive, the lower paid ad tier could be used to increase prices on higher tiers without ads.

 

I mean, they can raise prices for just about any reason, but I really don't see the connection between those 2.

 

I offer you a subscription to anything, for say $10... Later I offer a lower value one for half price ($5). Maybe ten years down the line the packages are $20 and $10 respectively... but I still don't see why one causes an increase in the other. 

 

I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but it's such a random assumption that I'd say it's just as likely the ad tier could supplement the higher tier packages, providing new and needed revenue and slow down price increases. There's nothing to base that on either though, so who knows.

[TetraSky]

Wait, why is Canada 5.99 ?
Is that price in CAD or USD? I'm guessing CAD as the others are also converted to their local currency... Which would mean the price in Canada is like $4.36 USD ? Not bad.

[Holmes108]

1 minute ago, Billbill said:

Every subscriber to a streaming service isn't just paying for the rights of broadcast but we all pay towards their employees and all of the equipment. The baked in price.   

Yep.

[Holmes108]

18 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Wait, why is Canada 5.99 ?
Is that price in CAD or USD? I'm guessing CAD as the others are also converted to their local currency... Which would mean the price in Canada is like $4.36 USD ?

Yep, even though your conversion is probably accurate, I'd expect if it came to the U.S. based on this price point, I'd expect it to be $4.99 (just based on how some other lower cost prices tend to match)

I just read the title of this thread. U.S. priced already announced! I'm a dummy. Thought I was in a generic Netflix ad tier thread. Disregard. Your confusion over Canadian pricing makes much more sense now.

[Fasterthannothing]

Everyone is losing their mind over this but people barely blinked at Hulu doing it many years ago which is exactly how we ended up here 

[yolosnail]

Everybody is going on like the ads are the main issue.

 

It's not.

 

Basic is still limited to 720p (it was 480p so that's an 'upgrade')

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Ok but how are these going to be put into the stream? Because if it's an add in block adblockers can catch it. If so firefox might become the go to streaming browser :p.

They should be able to detect if an user is bypassing ads though.  At which point they could decide to pursue you.  They might also deliver the ads themselves, which would make adblocking more difficult.

 

The final thing, at the stage of using ad-blockers on netflix, I would argue that it actually would start creating rights issues.  In the sense that it's not a public kind of service, but rather a contract where  you agreed to those ads so by having an ad blocker that lets say is targeted towards a paid service it could actually mean a lot of trouble for the ad blocker.

 

The general idea being that this would no longer be the case of being able to access content legally, but draw it into illegal viewing of it (gives a bit more power towards netflix to sue).

 

Overall I don't really see too much of a problem with netflix offering a lower tiered service that is ad supported (at a reduced price).  It won't convince me to get the service again, but I get having a lower priced tier.

[Salv8 (sam)]

my parents get netflix free via optus, i dearly hope optus doesn't downgrade them to this tier.

i'll be fuckin pissed if they do.

[leadeater]

13 minutes ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

my parents get netflix free via optus, i dearly hope optus doesn't downgrade them to this tier.

i'll be fuckin pissed if they do.

You know they will....

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, jaslion said:

Ok but how are these going to be put into the stream? Because if it's an add in block adblockers can catch it. If so firefox might become the go to streaming browser :p.

It'll probably be like Twitch's, where the ads are part of the stream. It's too early to actually analyze it, but generally it's been trivial to download VOD's from twitch if you aren't going to watch it live. Which means if you're incentivized enough the same technique people use to rip netflix would be used by ad blockers.

 

However, the reason so many VOD services can be ripped easily comes back to the ability to watch the content in the web browser in the first place, because all the ripping tool has to do is grab the video after it's decrypted but before it's played.

 

[GhostRoadieBL]

Wow, paying to watch ads and not even get all the content.

This is the obvious first step toward adding more and more ads and justifying higher and higher prices. I'll never pay for content I can't own or have to worry about losing access to it for some random reason even if it means waiting a while for blurays.

 

[dizmo]

What quality level is the ad tier? I wouldn't mind if it's the mid tier quality. Actually I'd likely switch if that were the case. I could use the couple of minutes between episodes to grab a drink or stretch. I really hope they're not stupid enough to put the ads in the middle of movies. 4 or 5 ads...or a minute to a minute and a half seems more than fair.

 

Fun fact. You don't actually HAVE to watch the ad. Reply to emails or something. 

 

10 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Wait, why is Canada 5.99 ?
Is that price in CAD or USD? I'm guessing CAD as the others are also converted to their local currency... Which would mean the price in Canada is like $4.36 USD ? Not bad.

Probably because we don't have nearly as much content. 

[strajk-]

Bait and switch - Electric Boogaloo Edition

 

First they increase the price of the subscription substantially, everyone was mad about that.

Then some years later they go back to the original price with a new tier with less features and ad's to plague you, many happy since they have a cheap option again, but basically you have less for the same now.

[Isuck Assimov]

Only a question of time until they run ads on every subscription level while being able to pay an additional fee to disable ads.

Ahoy me maties.

[Doobeedoo]

I don't use Netflix but this is gouging to see how desperate people are. 

[Spotty]

6 hours ago, dizmo said:

What quality level is the ad tier? I wouldn't mind if it's the mid tier quality. Actually I'd likely switch if that were the case. I could use the couple of minutes between episodes to grab a drink or stretch. I really hope they're not stupid enough to put the ads in the middle of movies. 4 or 5 ads...or a minute to a minute and a half seems more than fair.

 

Fun fact. You don't actually HAVE to watch the ad. Reply to emails or something.

4-5 ads per hour was a mistake by the linked article. It's actually 4-5 minutes of ads per hour, not 4-5 ads. They've since correct the article:

Quote

Correction and update October 13th, 5:20 PM ET: Netflix’s ad tier will include an average of four to five minutes of ads per hour, not four to five ads per hour, as an earlier version of this story misstated.

 

I can't imagine them putting a 10 minute ad block before a movie so I would say it's very likely going to be interrupting content to play shorter ad blocks. It wouldn't surprise me if shorter content like TV shows with 20-30min episodes still get an ad block in the middle of the show with 30-90 seconds worth of ads.

[TVwazhere]

For context: Hulu's ad tier is also $7/mo in the US, and their ad blocks are about 90 seconds long, and there's about 3-4 of them. 

 

And that's just on a 1/2 hour show (Letterkenny to be specific)

Honestly this isnt that far off from Youtube ads at this point in terms of length and frequency. Which I've been finding less and less intrusive as I cast it from my phone to my TV which of course has no ad blocker on it.

 

*reads more of the article* Wait...

 

Quote

Correction and update October 13th, 5:20 PM ET: Netflix’s ad tier will include an average of four to five minutes of ads per hour, not four to five ads per hour, as an earlier version of this story misstated.

Fuck. So it's worst than @ebprince the computer nerd initially stated...

Also,

6 hours ago, dizmo said:

What quality level is the ad tier? I wouldn't mind if it's the mid tier quality.

16 hours ago, yolosnail said:

Basic is still limited to 720p (it was 480p so that's an 'upgrade')