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.
Tech bros reinvent broadcast TV.
Told people this years ago when pewdie pie became a millionaire selling ads. Like that was the time to wake up and hate every single one of these content creators for selling out and making the internet the hellscape this is. But no we Revere and emulate these people.
This is a bit unnecessarily tough on independent content creators… what exactly do you expect them to do? Make no money from their content? How would they be able to make a living?
I’m a big fan of Patreon.
Sure, Patreon is great, but Patreon alone is not enough for most creators to make a living, considering how hard it is to get people to commit to monthly subscriptions.
Patreon alone is not enough for most creators to make a living
I’ve seen a number of content creators argue otherwise. From the “Hello from the Magic Tavern” sketch comedy group to the “Scenes from the Multiverse” Cartoonist to the various musicians cranking out indie tunes on Bandcamp, the refrain I consistently here is that direct patronage offers significantly better returns than ad-supported payments on bigger media platforms.
Indie creators generally have an easier time of securing monthly subscriptions because they’re more boutique and have closer connections to the audience. And you don’t need an enormous audience to bring in a reliable income. While YouTubers need to get into the hundreds of thousands of subscribers to see any kind of productive ROI, Patreon artists can justify the expense of their work on an audience in the hundreds. They can go entirely indie with an audience in the thousands.
Most creators can’t afford to go fully indie, but the margins are so much better relative to the audience size with direct payments. Even just $2/viewer/episode pays vastly more than what a streaming service offers.
Like that was the time to wake up and hate every single one of these content creators for selling out
And then what? Stop consuming their content?
This is step 86 in the plan. Step 87 is make people pay for the previously free service
Didn’t they already had a paid and with ads tier?
Yeah but now the roped in new suckers that didn’t know they need the product and the price is now 10 per month
the ads are minimally intrusive — that is, highly relevant and engaging — they should not detract from the overall user experience
In what universe do ads, no matter how “relevant and engaging”, ever not detract from the overall experience?
I’ve been watching Monk recently, without ads, and it’s very interesting how television shows used to be written and edited for commercials. It’s dead obvious where the commercials used to be, and even that detracts from the overall experience.
Same, been watching Dead Like Me and Xena: Warrior Princess and it’s pretty distracting when it happens.
Some shows we’ve watched spend their time “recapping” after the 'ad breaks", playing same scenes we just saw. Drives me nuts, wastes my time and feels so dated.
Monk doesn’t go that far, and it’s still obvious. “Here’s a joke before commercial!” Pause. Fade back in to a new scene. Pause. “Here’s a little cliffhanger before commercial!” Pause. Fade back in to a new scene. Pause.
I always thought it would be a nice addition to piracy for a release group to edit a version of shows that cuts the recaps and makes a more unified episode. I would totally only ever download their releases.
Mythbusters streamlined is like that. A bit rough on some cuts imo, but overall just cuts the fluff.
Mythbusters is 50% recap, that sounds so much more enjoyable to watch. Where would I find that?
It’s on reddit going back quite a few years, with a recent tracker update:
https://www.reddit.com/r/smyths/comments/8gix4w/streamlined_mythbusters_complete_may_2018_update/
I hate ads, but sometimes prime puts 2 minutes of ads at the beginning of a show or a movie and then no ads, I’m ok-ish with this, much better than imdb or tubi that play the same commercial every 15 minutes
If I start a stream and it shows that it will have several breaks I stop it and get it from the high seas
“Free ad-supported” makes you no different than a hundred other garbage-tier streaming services.
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.
Yeah, it’s the reason I cancelled Amazon the day they announced that, while Netflix shambles on.
Do it!
Ill cut subscription to free tier let adblockers do the rest. Profit.I’ll take “Organizations that made it to the top by doing something different, only to fall under leadership that doesn’t understand what made them successful and descend into ruins” for 200, Alex.
Seriously, Jeopardy team - this is a rich category:
- Netflix advertisements.
- Zoom mandates staff return to offices.
- Microsoft forgets what the “P” in “PC” stands for.
- Toys R Us implements a shitty holiday gift returns policy.
- Sears decides to sacrifice reputation for quarterly stock price gains.
- Walgreens decides bottom-of-the-barrel incompetent pharmacists can uphold their “get it all done in one visit” secret sauce.
- Radio Shack decides that once-every-two-years cellphone contract sales are the future for holding passionate electronics hobbyists’ loyalty.
Netflix can’t do what got them to the top.
Fuck everything about the changes they’ve made for the last several years, but they were always going to hit a wall when content owners put their content on their own platforms.
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.
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 :)
Not when they are part of the same stream
And not when your client is a Netflix app on your smart tv.
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.
I just wish they could bundle all the subscriptions into packages or bundles and I could watch the shows at pre-determined times.
They could even provide an electronic box (for a nominal fee, or course) that shows me a menu of all the shows and movies that are available and what times they are going to play. That way I wouldn’t have to search through a bunch of streaming services. It could all just be in one place.
Why not sell a book that has that information at grocery stores?
Stop it. Executives don’t understand sarcasm and you’ve doomed us all!
It’s okay.
Executives got were they are by being smart and making good decisions, not by listening to idiots on the internet.
“The enshittifucation will continue until profits improve.” --CEOs of Publicly Traded Companies
