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Comment by WheelsAtLarge | Hacker News Reader

What this post misses is that there are a few people that will pay extra not to have commercials. So when Netflix starts to add ads to their offerings, and they will, they will have 2 tiers. A lower cost with commercials and the higher one with no commercials. It's the only way they can increase their earnings growth while keeping the subscription cost relatively low. I predict that with in 2 years we will see a Netflix with commercials.

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> What this post misses is that there are a few people that will pay extra not to have commercials.

And there are also people who will go back to using BitTorrent to not have commercials.

I wonder how the economics will work out there?

I'm currently paying for 4 streaming services because of how they've siloed various shows off. It'd probably only take one of them to start playing shitty broadcast tv style ads during things I'm watching for me to rage quit them all, and go back to downloading everything I watch and using shared Emby servers between a few friends.

This article does not suggest that Netflix should ever show ads to you, an existing customer.

It suggests that Netflix should offer an ad-supported plan for people unwilling to pay current prices.

Why would they grandfather in existing subscribers though, that's not gonna happen.

The article specifically argues that they should do this in order to further grow their customer base, and retain customers that are unwilling to pay current prices.

Why couldn’t they keep existing subscribers ad-free? Those people are currently paying huge subscription fees.

Why would it be impossible for Netflix to implement advertising in the way this article suggests?

Of course it's not impossible, they could do it if they wanted to, but that's not what would happen. That's not how anyone does it. Inevitably they would add ads at approximately the current price, and raise the price of the ad-free tier.

Spotify seems to have been successfully doing it as described for many years now, no?

That sounds great for everyone but the Netflix consumer.

First, who cares? This article isn’t about the consumers. Perhaps it would be great for the Netflix consumer if Netflix became a nonprofit?

Second, why? Why would this be bad for the Netflix consumer. Consumers willing to pay current sub fees shouldn’t be affected, and those unwilling to pay current prices would be able to access Netflix for less money.

This would obviously benefit consumers with less disposable income.

I'm right there with you.

I hate the advertising industry.

Advertisements are a service-killer for me, and when that happens I'll also share my ad-free files with everyone I know.

I remember when Google had two, context relevant ads on the top of their searches. They were clearly marked as such and I could ignore them or use them if they looked intriguing. This has never been the case since. That industry is just out there trying to scam publishers, advertisers and users. It's horrific.

If Netflix had ads on top of the monthly service charge I'd cancel immediately. I stopped using YouTube on any device other than my Linux box where I can adblock everything.

What sorts of advertisers buy slots that only target consumers with less than a few dollars of disposable income per month?

Sadly, Amazon has the right idea here. Prime Video is (effectively) free, and a big chunk of the premium back catalog sits in IMDB TV, where ads are mandatory.

It's very ironic because a lot of people paid for Netflix to "cut the cable" and not get commercials in the first place. Now you're saying they have to pay for that yet again?!

The post doesn't miss that. The post is about that.

They can also switch to "premium" content, which you pay extra for.

Disney Hotstar in my country already does this.

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