Netflix’s ad tier will cost $6.99 a month and launch in November | Hacker News Reader

Netflix’s ad tier will cost $6.99 a month and launch in November

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26 pointsrmason48 comments

I was a Netflix subscriber for its first streaming service decade or so [in Scandinavia], starting in 2011. Cancelled about a year ago. The primary concern was the the quality of new content, not the price.

Every 1-2 years, I buy a prepaid Netflix card.

I catch up with one or two shows and that's it, I barely open the app for the reminder of my period. I don't really see the point of paying for 5-6 streaming services every month.

Netflix should have just doubled their prices and 'doubled' the content they offered. Would have smothered all these other streaming services. The horse has bolted now.

I'm not sure that would have helped - it seems they just got really bad at managing the creation of appealing content.

How do you suggest they should double the content they offer? They're already spending ~$17B on content every year.

Spend more on licensing back-catalogues.

All the owners of the back catalogues decided to go into direct competition with Netflix.

Seconded. Cancelled because of the very-clear and obvious pivot to woke original content. Give me good entertainment and not ideologically based.

Could you define woke?

For me it was threefold:

1. Competition

2. Lack of content created by legacy studios whom were provided true quality.

3. Too much content to wade through and no easy way to do it.

If people want to be bombarded by ads while watching low quality streams they will use pirate streams and save $6.99 a month and get a bigger library. At least the pirate streams have the common courtesy to not show you ads for penis enlargement pills during the actual show. What is the target market for this?

You also can't design shows that work with ads and work without ads at the same time. The writers have to write interruptions into the script, like cliffhangers right before the ad break like they used to do, or they have to assume a continual run of the program. Since the latter is now the norm, the ad breaks will inevitably be horribly timed interruptions so bad that it's an insult to charge a monthly sub on top.

Your assumption of the average consumer’s technical chops and desires isn’t realistic. Pirating anything is not as convenient as paying $7/mo.

The majority of outcomes here are either they pay the fee and get ads, pay the higher fee and don’t get ads, or don’t pay and don’t watch. It’s not a pirate or don’t pirate discussion for most of the world.

A large percentage of the world pirates. If you can't learn how or find someone to teach you, when the benefits are clear, then you deserve to pay and suffer through ads.

I sincerely doubt a large percentage of the world has the technical know-how to pirate.

Watching cracked streams is akin to trading endpoint security for the latest GOTR episode, too.

I mostly agree with you, with one clarification that you don’t personally need to know how piracy works to benefit from it.

Piracy is very common outside of the US. In the US piracy is an individual decision, you pick your storage and tools yourself. Other places it’s trivially easy to find someone selling pirated media in local markets.

Piracy isn't just a "nerd" thing, I literally saw EVERY sibling and classmate doing it growing up because they had no money. Using these sites is not rocket science, they're designed to be usable by the average person, they just have to click through 6 ads on the way to their video.

If people don't want to watch ads they can pirate as well. What is the target market for purchasing digital media in general?

People who want to stream using a web browser, or their roku, or just their iPhone, and have it "just work" by clicking on a video to play, but want higher quality video without porn spam.

Many of the piracy methods you use to get (better than) streaming quality are a little finicky especially if you aren't technically inclined. The big time pirates I know drop thousands of dollars on equipment. Streaming is dead easy, you just need to find a site and click through ads. The latter bit is why Netflix was a better experience, but now?

collectors, people who want to own a physical copy, video quality, convenience

What a sad sign of desperation from Netflix, being reduced to racing to the bottom. This is copying a (imo gross) Hulu package pricing strategy.

I wonder what the target audience is? i.e. who really wants to save $4/month by getting bombarded with ads? I'd just as soon skip it completely, but I really dislike being subjected to advertisements. I just don't want them in my brain.

Maybe some people enjoy watching 30-40% ads over th course of an hour?

I used to think the same thing, but I started asking the people I knew who had Hulu accounts, and apparently a lot of them are paying for the ad tier. It's insane to me that people are so accepting of the absolute worst part of watching TV.

What scares me is gen alpha is being raised in an environment where bombardment of advertising is normal and even encouraged in some cases. I can't fathom willingly paying for a streaming service and still getting ads, or at least not blocking them myself at browser or dns level.

I saw someone else here mention something that disturbed me deeply.

Upper class children are going to grow up with premium services that don't serve ads.

Lower class children are going to grow up being bombarded with ads at all times, from all places.

It's going to be interesting to see how that changes things.

Lower class children will become more adept at using ad blockers, or ignoring the screen while an ad is playing

One of the issues regarding content is that a lot of popular shows are in a format that encourages binge watching. It seems impossible that they’d ever be able to keep up with viewer appetites by creating their own content when people consume so quickly.

To combat this they buy a lot of old crappy shows and movies and the catalog ends up looking pretty average. It reminds me of the old “weeklies” section at Blockbuster.

Maybe to combat this, they’ll switch to a format where they space episodes out to keep you paying.

So, they might end up releasing episodes of popular shows weekly AND have ads. The irony.

I watch those old shows. Sometimes you just want to watch tv and it doesn't really matter what's on as long as it's decent quality. Seinfeld, Friends, Fraser, I'd watch them every few years. In some ways it's better than watching something I feel like I need to binge. I don't really want to spend 6 hours watching something just to keep that "ooh what's next" feeling going.

All the other streaming services already do the weekly thing. I think I enjoy it more and remember more, so it's worth the delay. People have actually talked about the latest episodes of (for example) Andor and Rings of Power longer than the week after the first episodes.

Honestly netflix is the main platform I have kept around since 2000's. All other platform I signup to catch up on shows and then cancel after a month. I think netflix has the best all around library for my entire family to enjoy.

Limited to 720p... I understand that 4k is out, but 1080p?

How many streaming services do you guys pay for?

I paid for few. Now I pay for none. Why? They got so greedy. I had to dig for my Jack Sparrow outfit. Arrrrrrrrr.

HBO, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney+

Watch the same 3-4 series again and again. Never watch any of the featured content. It is not quality content.

How much do you pay monthly?

Feels like you would be better off with the dvd box

I pay for two, three if you count my USENET subscription.

Is that for alt.bin ?

Amazon Prime Video (which is not the same as the Prime Video you get with your Amazon Prime sub, this is only available in countries where regular Amazon Prime is not available) https://www.primevideo.com/

And Gamepass Ultimate for the Xbox Cloud game streaming (if that counts) https://www.xbox.com/en-us/play

- Netflix shared between at least me and my parents

- Amazon Prime Video because its with prime

- D+ and hulu come from the family cellphone plan, I wouldn't have them otherwise

- HBOMax with a cousin but I'm dropping that when the next cycle runs out

- Crunchyroll with friends

- A local movie rental store + Plex is doing alot of work recently

Amazon Prime Video but indirectly since it's a bonus of Prime membership, and typically one other streaming service. Currently, peacock.

I share Peacock out with friends and family and in return I use their Netflix, HBO, Disney+, and Hulu.

One: HBO Max, they had this deal of "half price for life" when they launched here (so about $5/month.) It's sort of barely worth it. They do have a nice 90s archive.

Used to pay for one. Now I pay for Zero.

Same here. I used to pay for Netflix, but for me these days... Sonarr, radarr, the other *arrs and jellyfin/plex are a much better user experience.

Only Prime Video, it's about 10$ per year here. If they start charging normally - I'm out.

One, but my phone carrier gives me a few others for “free”

I rotate every few months but 1-2 active at a time max.

Haven't touched any ever.

Unless you count Spotify.

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