Netflix has no way to continue growing aside from increasing prices. That is a bad sign. They will just keep squeezing people. Your best bet is to stop subscribing.
Netflix Starts Booting Subscribers Off Cheapest Basic Ads-Free Plan
Submitted 3 days ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/07/03/netflix-phasing-out-basic-ads-free-plan/
Comments
phoneymouse@lemmy.world 3 days ago
douglasg14b@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Damn near every tech company and major utility provider has no way of growing aside from squeezing.
No matter where you turn you will be getting squeezed, and it’ll just get worse every year that regulations don’t catch up.
And if the U.S. has it’s way, institutional regulation will be a thing of the last as a new wave of hard corporate oligarchy begins. And since the U.S’s biggest export is crazy, it’ll just spread…
Making the future more grim.
Substance_P@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Taohumor@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Anyone care to actually do anything about it? Seems like people are more concerned about abortion and things like that than everyone’s collective livelihood.
Taohumor@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yea tbh it’s business model is gonna be obsolete.
The bottom line is especially in a trash economy where the rich are bleeding everyone, no one is gonna wanna pay for digital luxuries.
I only shell out for hardware and food.
AWittyUsername@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Streaming is going to end up exactly like cable, it feels inevitable. Adverts, package bundle deals, contracts will be the final thing where they lock you in for a “discount”.
henfredemars@infosec.pub 3 days ago
The shareholders are seeking to juice the company and throw it away as usual. Users need to see the writing on the wall and move on.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Genius MBA thinking of our time
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Yup, I’m playing with Jellyfin for our devices. I already have a fair amount of content in a digital format, so I’m mostly testing to see if offline playback works well.
Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Do the shareholders care?
Cause they just want to squeeze Netflix while they still can before they jump ship. And at that time, Netflix dying and another streaming services surfacing would be ideal for savvy investors.
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
remember when the adfree plan for netflix was 8.99?
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Yup, and that’s when I stopped buying DVDs and pirating. But with standard without ads being ~$15 with less selection, guess what I’ve gone back to doing?
Taohumor@lemmy.world 2 days ago
They’re passing off the price of inflation to the people
doublenut@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Hahahaha
ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Summary:
- Netflix is discontinuing its cheapest ad-free subscription tier, starting with the UK and Canada, with more countries expected to follow.
- Netflix has begun notifying users about the last day they can access the service on the Basic plan, prompting them to upgrade to the Standard with ads or more expensive Standard/Premium plans.
- In Canada:
- Original Basic plan price: $9.99/month
- New Standard plan price: $16.49/month
- New Standard with ads price: $5.99/month
- Increase from Basic to Standard: $6.50/month (65% increase)
- In the UK:
- Original Basic plan price: £7.99/month
- New Standard with ads price: £4.99/month
- New Standard plan price: £10.99/month
- Increase from Basic to Standard: £3.00/month (37.5% increase)
- The Basic plan ($11.99/month) is no longer available for new US subscribers.
- Netflix’s ad-supported tier now has 40 million global monthly active users, up from 35 million a year ago.
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
What bugs me the most is people paying for an ad tier… please just pirate!
Not everyone knows how tho.
Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Netflix removing subscribers. What is their plan, zero subscribers?
Is it opposite day?
_sideffect@lemmy.world 3 days ago
They’ve tested the waters, and people will most probably wind up staying, as their password crackdown demonstrated.
reddig33@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Do you have any data that shows Netflix didn’t lose subscribers in markets where they cracked down on password sharing?
JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Not only staying, they’ll stay and pay more
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Gotta bump up that “$/sub” metric!
lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
It’s the classic “get people hooked with a free service then force them to pay”
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Investors like a get rich or die trying mentality cause they don’t die, they leave.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
My biggest beef is that the ad plans also limit your downloads. I use that feature a ton.
So now I just pirate everything.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
We pay for an ad-free tier and our downloads “expired” when we were in the middle of nowhere. They still existed on our device and on the service, we just couldn’t play them.
That got my wife annoyed enough that I think I can convince her to just buy DVDs again. $15/month is 1-2 DVDs/month, and that’s about what we watch anyway. We won’t get Netflix originals, but that’s fine with me. If we ever need any of those, we can just binge for a month.
Geometrinen_Gepardi@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
Is it that the decade of 0% interest rates and angel funding for startups lulled us into unrealistically thinking we could get unlimited everything for 9.99 per month, or is it that companies are suddenly starting to rip off people? As an end consumer it’s impossible to gauge what is a proper price for entertainment.
BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Netflix has been profitable since 2003. This is greed.
TheGalacticVoid@lemm.ee 3 days ago
It’s probably the latter.
“Delivering shareholder value” has destroyed numerous companies, and I doubt it’ll stop soon.
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
It’s simple really
Is the boss a multimillionaire?
No: No problem
Yes: They’re charging more than they need to
KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world 3 days ago
As with many things, it really is likely a mixture of both. Very possible that 9.99 was unrealistically low, but the current streaming market and “inflation” smoke screening is also enabling some real squeezing of consumers.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Not me! I gave all these streaming assholes the boot years ago.
conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
It was maybe too low for their awesome library they had at the start (though their initial pricing was still more than a lot of their customers spent in a year for movies/TV prior).
It’s criminally overpriced for their awful library now.
Trilobite@lemm.ee 3 days ago
I joined the Plex server plan, it’s better and works everywhere and I don’t get price increases or ads
CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 3 days ago
All the shows that I like I’ve been buying DVD or Blu-rays for, and then I rip them and put them on my Plex server. Just so I can watch some anytime, and not potentially damage the discs.
I don’t have to worry about geofencing, Don’t have to worry about a price change ever, Don’t have to deal with commercials, Don’t have to think if the shows that I like are going to disappear and maybe show up on a different provider, and generally higher quality audio and video.
ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Would it just be easier to use something like iTunes for movies/shows?
MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Jellyfin + Wireguard VPN server says hello
ppb1701@lemmy.today 3 days ago
Not sure if it’d work on Netflix but my wife were pleasantly surprised to A&E and History apps on our apple tv suddenly forgetting how to do ads after I set up adguard home with a few extra filter lists…I did have to ok a few things the list blocked. But the apps work and seem to be adless, at least for now.
Psythik@lemmy.world 2 days ago
You could just ditch all those apps and get Stremio with a Real-Debrid subscription. You can stream any content from any provider for ~$3/mo (including Netflix, A&E, History, Disney+, HBO Max, Prime Video, etc.) As-free, of course.
Basically R-D works by downloading torrents to a dedicated server, so you can stream them instantly using a Netflix-like interface on your TV/tablet/PC/phone (via Stremio). And since they’re direct downloads, you don’t have to wait for seeds, nor do you need a VPN. It’s like having a seedbox except anyone can add any torrent to it (and not just videos, but literally any torrent can be downloaded instantly).
Sorry if this reads like an ad, but I really want more people to know about this. There’s a better way than paying for a bunch of streaming services, or waiting hours for people to seed. Or signing up for a private tracker and having to constantly worry about keeping your seeding ratio up.
ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 2 days ago
For anyone who is unclear, this is a pirated content service, to better or worse.
TwanHE@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Or just use the torrentio plugin, no real debrid
ccdfa@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Yeah I regrettably* bought a year’s subscription to Peacock and was pleasantly surprised that my PiHole just blocked all the ads.
*This was when they were offering a year for 20 USD. They had advertised world cup streaming but neglected to mention that all the commentary was in Spanish with no English option. I ended up just streaming a Swiss TV channel because it was at least in a language I can understand.
shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Also, on the “standard with ads” tier, they’ve removed the ability to chromecast.
bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
Wow what a dumb way to basically gatekeep me from even moving to the ad tier.
lemmyvore@feddit.nl 2 days ago
The ads are added in the app. If you cast, the Chromecast can’t add apps (yet) so they’d have to make ad streams instead, and switch between the streams show-ad-show which would take several seconds of loading screen each way and so on. Which is a level of fuckery even they shied away from.
TLDR they can’t (easily) show ads during casting.
kif@lemmy.nz 3 days ago
Kind of makes sense - casting is usually a webstream without extra dev effort. I’m not sure if you still can, but I used to circumvent twitch ads by casting from my phone. Not to excuse their shitty behaviour; I gave up on them years ago and started hosting my own content.
Jaeger86@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Good thing I already like digitizing my media for Plex
Laser@feddit.org 3 days ago
I mean I think I know what you mean I also think “digitizing” doesn’t really describe it. Most media nowadays is digital to begin with. Even audio CDs store a digital format.
Corvidae@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Stopping the watching of TV seems like a huge shock, but it’s not. We now have a collection of maybe 400 DVDs (not pirated, legally purchased). Sure, everything we watch is reruns, but there are no commercials.
comfydecal@infosec.pub 3 days ago
99% of the shit Netflix has is reruns anyways
sudo42@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Cable is dead! Long live Cable!
AdamEatsAss@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Cable companies did the cable model because it was profitable. Netflix and others are slowly realizing that and moving towards it.
sudo42@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Yup. It was the same enshittification process. “Subscribe to cable. We don’t have commercials!” Then a few years later, “Guess what?!? You’re getting commercials!”
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 3 days ago
40 months of PIA is $80. So for $2 a month, you can have it all with no ads and no region locking.
hornedfiend@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
If that happens,i’ll trakt + jellyfin the hell out of all their shitty shows. Just for kicks.
_sideffect@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Shit like this is why I don’t feel bad at all for pirating.
They raise their rates by 65% so they can continue to pay Hollywood actors to make crappy forgettable movies for the service
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Don’t forget the 5 BILLION dollars they just gave to WWE, a company that regularly goes to Saudi Arabia. A country so backwards in human rights that they don’t allow women to work. So WWE’s answer to this was to create a tornament just for the women. Called “The Great Moolah Classic”. Only problem with that is, it happened just as the MeToo movement was happening. Now in case you’re unaware, womens pro wrestling from the 1950s through the 1980s was dominated by “The Great Moolah”.
Btw, I’M not saying she was great. Far from it. Thats just her stage name.
But if you were a woman, and you wanted to get into womens wrestling between 1950-1985 you NEEDED to go through The Great Moolah. Here’s the problem though.
You had to live in a camp, where she controlled every aspect of your life from training through retirement. What she did with this control was appalling. She forced them to prostitute themselfs out to not only the male wrestlers, but also the rest of the general public in the area.
These women then had to give 100% of the money to Moolah, or else they’d be beaten.
And that’s the tornament they tried to give as the consolation prize for women not being allowed to wrestle in Saudi Arabia. Oh, and when they were forced to change the name, almost IMMEDIATELY, they changed it to The Mae Young Classic. Mae Young was Moolah’s best friend, and one of the people who would help beat the other women. That’s still what it’s called today. When they first introduced the trophy for it, the trophy was intentionally made to look like a vagina. "Here’s your make believe trophy for winning a make believe tornament, as a consolation prize for very real restrictions on making very real money, and we shaped it like your genitals. Snickers, who sponsered the tornament balked when they saw their logo would be on that trophy, and they were forced to redesign it to something more generic. The tornament continues to this day.
And that’s what Netflix just paid 5 BILLION dollars for. Either 3 or 5 years. I forget which.
set_secret@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Holy shit, do you haxe some nore info or refs to this, this sounds unbelievably fucked up.
firkin_slang_whanger@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Care to share what site you use to pirate? I haven’t been in that loop for a while, but all these pricing increases for all these streaming services is driving me back.
bangsnooter@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
fmhy.net/beginners-guide
colderr@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Check out FMHY (Free Media Heck Yeah) they have a subreddit (I think) and a website. There’s absolutely everything there for pirating.
phantomc137@lemmy.world 3 days ago
retry.co/megathread
phantomc137@lemmy.world 3 days ago
123movies , bflix.com, yts.mx look for them through yandex search engine and not the google , google blocks them
ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Kodi and RealDebrid
c0smokram3r@midwest.social 3 days ago
Do it, do it! One of us, one of us! 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
MeekerThanBeaker@lemmy.world 3 days ago
May I ask why you pirate crappy forgettable movies?
systemglitch@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I love seeing the private trackers I use not mentioned here. If other sites have the spotlight, that’s a win.