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.
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!
My Plex share doesn’t care lol
The way the industry is pulling the screws tighter and tighter is just ugly to watch, and it’s hard not to be caught out.
Isn’t Plex also slowly going down the shitter? Like, with their social features and stuff?
They do keep adding garbage that nobody wants, but the core product still works great. I plan on getting a jellyfin docker running in parallel though so I’m prepared in the event they piss me off too much.
still gonna stick to torrents for my media netflix cause i wanna actually have control of them
The advertising ouroboros continues to devour itself
They will still be selling user data whether you opt for the ad supported tier or not, so get used to that.
If they haven’t been doing so for at least a decade, I’m sure their shareholders will want to know why not.
“The enshittifucation will continue until profits improve.” --CEOs of Publicly Traded Companies
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.
If they aren’t going to charge for access otherwise then I don’t think being ad supported is such a bad thing. Much more honest than subscription pricing and ads in my opinion.
yeah, imo it’s either ads or paid. not both. both is scummy
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.
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.
“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
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 :)
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.
Not when they are part of the same stream
And not when your client is a Netflix app on your smart tv.
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.
When my paid service started giving me ads I stopped watching it. I’ve been paying them since before streaming and in the past couple years stopped paying because T-Mobile started paying. When T-Mobile quits paying we’ll close the account.
I won’t support any streaming service that has a sub+ad tier. Ads with no sub or sub no ads, anything else is incredibly greedy and the same as cable TV.
Piracy it is then…
Do it!
Ill cut subscription to free tier let adblockers do the rest. Profit.
