T-Mobile US customers with "Netflix on US" to be downgraded to ad supported tier

[Invincible Sugar]

Summary

T-Mobile is significantly altering the deal for free Netflix with certain plans. This is for new and existing customers. Regardless of your current Netflix "on US" credit all customers with T-Mobile eligible to receive Netflix will be moved to Standard with ads ($7.99 value).

 

For those currently receiving Netflix Basic for free this is a similar value, but for the majority of T-Mobile customers currently receiving Netflix Standard for free ($15.49 value) this is a substantial downgrade.

 

New customers signing up for the most expensive plan T-Mobile Go5G NEXT will also receive Hulu with ads. Existing customers on ANY plan that includes Netflix might get Hulu with ads as well? Internal documents and employee comments contradict, so we don't know for sure right now.

 

Quotes

Quote

Customers on Magenta Plus/MAX, and Go5G Plus/Next have, until now, received Standard Netflix with no ads completely free. T-Mobile ONE customers were receiving it at just a few bucks, as well. These customers will now be forced to watch ads if they want to keep their free Netflix.

 

My thoughts

A major reason people switched from cable to streaming in the first place was to avoid commercials or ads. It's not the only benefit, but it's a big one. 2024 is looking like it'll be the year of ads for streaming, with Amazon recently announcing they would add ads to their previously ad free Prime Video, raising the price for ad free by $2.99/mo... now T-Mobile is booting customers off their $15 ad free streaming service with Netflix, to receive ad filled Netflix and maybe ad filled Hulu. Don't forget YouTube is also fighting ad blockers. 2024 will be the year of ads!

 

Sources

https://tmo.report/2024/01/t-mobile-and-netflix-ruin-a-good-thing-now-everybody-gets-ads/

 

https://tmo.report/2024/01/hulu-on-us-is-coming-to-t-mobile-customers-and-not-just-premium-plans/#update

 

https://www.droid-life.com/2024/01/04/t-mobile-is-adjusting-your-free-netflix-plan/

[CommanderAlex]

1 minute ago, Invincible Sugar said:

Amazon recently announcing they would add ads to their previously ad free Prime Video, raising the price for ad free by $2.99/mo...

Honestly, how good is Prime Video cause I never had any luck with finding any movies that I searched for without having to pay a rental/buy option for popular movies when compared to Netflix/Disney/Apple??

 

I think Prime Video is more of a gimmick than Netflix alone.

 

This is pretty shit on T-Mobile's part but if these streaming services keep increasing the prices on their monthly plans, other providers that offer them for free won't be picking up the tab and will place it on the customer's tab instead. 

[TempestCatto]

Gonna make a substantial amount of people sail the 7 seas. I say, HOIST THE SAILS, RAISE ANCHOR, TELL US ABOUT OUR SPONSOR!

[WereCat]

3 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

Gonna make a substantial amount of people sail the 7 seas. I say, HOIST THE SAILS, RAISE ANCHOR, TELL US ABOUT OUR SPONSOR!

High Seas was brought to you by... *insert name* VPN! 

[RONOTHAN##]

7 minutes ago, CommanderAlex said:

how good is Prime Video cause I never had any luck with finding any movies that I searched for without having to pay a rental/buy option for popular movies when compared to Netflix/Disney/Apple??

There is usually a label for the sections of "Included with Prime." If you primarily just search for specific movies, yeah it's a problem, but if you just browse what's available in those sections it feels about the same as Netflix/Hulu/Disney+ does. 

 

To be clear, only reason I have it is because I use prime shipping, but it is a nice bonus that does genuinely have some good movies at 4k for effectively free. Or at least did before the ads were introduced. 

[CommanderAlex]

1 minute ago, RONOTHAN## said:

There is usually a label for the sections of "Included with Prime." If you primarily just search for specific movies, yeah it's a problem, but if you just browse what's available in those sections it feels about the same as Netflix/Hulu/Disney+ does. 

 

To be clear, only reason I have it is because I use prime shipping, but it is a nice bonus that does genuinely have some good movies at 4k for effectively free. Or at least did before the ads were introduced. 

Yeah but movies from 30-40+ years ago and you gotta pay up?? Seems a bit wrong imo. 

 

When I had Prime, I rarely every went on Prime Video and thought of it as an afterthought. 

[BillBill]

Try and ad blocker.

[RONOTHAN##]

1 minute ago, CommanderAlex said:

Yeah but movies from 30-40+ years ago and you gotta pay up?? Seems a bit wrong imo. 

 

When I had Prime, I rarely every went on Prime Video and thought of it as an afterthought. 

don't know about you, but I've found plenty of movies from 30+ years ago without issue. The selection might not be as large as more recent films, but they are available and not that hard to find. Just going through my current recommended, there's 3 Days of the Condor (1974), No Way Out (1987), The Package (1989), White Sands (1992), and Highlander (1986) all within the first 40 suggestions. 

 

Don't blame you for having it be an afterthought, it was marketed terribly and the preview before showing each movie was annoying, but honestly it's not all that bad of a streaming service that you'd treat as a bonus with free movies. I personally didn't start using it till about two months ago, and since I just quickly scroll through the recommended and watch the first thing I think looks interesting late at night, it's a decent addition to Netflix. 

[Fasterthannothing]

Netflix with ads is the most absurd crap I've ever seen I still can't believe it's a thing regardless of the T-Mobile situation. I'm am so absolutely sick and disgusted with companies shoving ads down our throats every freaking minute. I remember the good ol days of the internet where paying for something got you a service with no advertising and licences to software were forever. Id pay hundreds of dollars a month to never see ads on anything ever again.

[Spotty]

It's surprising that the plans included Netflix to begin with. How expensive are these plans?

If you don't like the change to an ad version of Netflix I guess cancel the plan, swap to a different provider that offers a cheaper plan and subscribe to Netflix yourself. 

 

55 minutes ago, Invincible Sugar said:

A major reason people switched from cable to streaming in the first place was to avoid commercials or ads. It's not the only benefit, but it's a big one. 2024 is looking like it'll be the year of ads for streaming

It was naive of us to think that Netflix would replace cable and do it at a fraction of the cost of a cable subscription. The golden era of streaming where it was cheap and all available in one place is well and truly over. Companies like Netflix were happily losing money year after year while they rapidly built up their user base and expanded, now they're forced to actually come up with ways to be profitable. Studios fragmented away from the big streaming services creating their own streaming platform to cut out the middle man and take the full profits from their content, streaming services are raising their prices, they're adding ads, the quality of original content they're producing declines as they cutting back production budgets.

Paying $10/month to access everything in one place without ads was never a sustainable business model and was never going to last. We'll keep seeing changes like adding ads on plans and increasing plan prices until eventually we reach a sustainable business model, which would probably end up being pretty similar to cable TV. 

 

 

48 minutes ago, CommanderAlex said:

Honestly, how good is Prime Video cause I never had any luck with finding any movies that I searched for without having to pay a rental/buy option for popular movies when compared to Netflix/Disney/Apple??

Prime video is very annoying for that. Half of what is shown on the home page is content not included with the plan; either rentals or advertisements for other streaming platforms that you need to subscribe to in addition like discovery and Paramount. I bookmarked the "included with prime" page and exclusively browsed that for content to avoid all the rentals and ads for other streaming platforms.

I cancelled my prime a while back but I rarely ever watched movies on prime. A couple of the prime original TV series are worth watching (the boys, grand tour, reacher) but it's not really enough and release is spaced out so far apart that it didn't justify the subscription for me.

The only good thing about prime is that even on the basic plan content was available in 4k. On Netflix you need the most expensive plan for 4k. 

[Donut417]

The sales guy wondered why I wouldnt budge on upgrading from the Family Choice plan. He's like Netflix is included. And now they pull this shit. I rather pay Netflix directly and have it when I want it and cancel it when I dont. They can also take their ads and stick them somewhere unpleasant.

5 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Companies like Netflix were happily losing money year after year while they rapidly built up their user base and expanded,

Im pretty sure I read that Netflix is like the ONLY streaming provider making money. The rest are now in the figure out how to be profitable stage. I wonder how many are going to merge in the up coming year or go bust?

[Spotty]

7 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Im pretty sure I read that Netflix is like the ONLY streaming provider making money. The rest are now in the figure out how to be profitable stage. I wonder how many are going to merge in the up coming year or go bust?

Looks like I was wrong and Netflix has always made a yearly profit. I assumed Netflix wasn't profitable in the early years. Though their profit margins have definitely grown in recent years. The trend for companies recently seems to have been grow rapidly at a loss and then figure out how to make money later, which is often what leads to this "enshitification" process of services.

[Mark Kaine]

14 hours ago, CommanderAlex said:

Honestly, how good is Prime Video cause I never had any luck with finding any movies that I searched for without having to pay a rental/buy option for popular movies when compared to Netflix/Disney/Apple??

 

I think Prime Video is more of a gimmick than Netflix alone.

 

This is pretty shit on T-Mobile's part but if these streaming services keep increasing the prices on their monthly plans, other providers that offer them for free won't be picking up the tab and will place it on the customer's tab instead. 

honestly, i don't understand why you would pay to watch movies (or poorly made "tv shows") if i really want to watch something its usually on yt lol 

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

13 hours ago, Spotty said:

The trend for companies recently seems to have been grow rapidly at a loss and then figure out how to make money later

hasn't this been the case since decades?  that's how the whole "tech bubble" works...

 

hook people for cheap or free,  then milk them until they get tired. rinse repeat .

[Mark Kaine]

14 hours ago, Invincible Sugar said:

A major reason people switched from cable to streaming in the first place was to avoid commercials or ads.

yeah. that was incredibly stupid and shortsighted, wasn't it? (no offense to anyone lol) 

[CommanderAlex]

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

honestly, i don't understand why you would pay to watch movies (or poorly made "tv shows") if i really want to watch something its usually on yt lol 

 

 

That's true lol.

 

Sometimes, it's nice to have a collection of physical disks to watch instead of paying a monthly charge and then forget about ever having a subscription. 

[GhostRoadieBL]

This has to be the 1000th+ time I've read about a company changing the wording of a contract after a period of time.

When will governments start enforcing the contracts can't be single party changed?

 

Their new inability to provide service or their faulty business models are not my problem, if they can't make enough money from the subscriptions (which, based on the profits and c-suite bonusses, isn't even true) it's not my responsibility to pay more for less so they can pad their pockets. new sign-ups sure, make a new value proposal, but a contract was signed based on the state of the platform when it was signed, not some imaginary future position where they are paid more and you get a worse end of the deal.

 

Hoist the colours, bleed their accounts until they learn to behave like adults.

Edited January 5 by GhostRoadieBL
The one time spellcheck doesn't try hard enough.

[BillBill]

All the streaming services have to pay fees just to be able to stream the movies. They add new movies all the time. The actors barely get any royalties. Social media spies on our web habits. So they know how to milk the consumer.  

[dogwitch]

that being said. debt netflx has is coming  due(some now) some in a year or two that is high interest debt.

end of day netflix really does not have the cash flow to pay the debt done fast.