During a cost of living crisis and the recent WAG and SAG-AFTRA strike, streaming giant Netflix is planning to scrap its cheapest ad-free option. This is my villain origin story.
Okay, I might’ve been a bit dramatic claiming this as my evil origin story — and trust me, there are more harsh things that would’ve triggered my inner Green Goblin.
Netflix decided to screw over a number of its loyal customers by nixing the basic plan in a number countries, including Australia. The basic plan was the cheapest ad-free option, which only cost AUD$10.99 per month.
The shitty decision was announced via a letter to shareholders, where it mentioned the basic plan would be “phased out”, impacting new and rejoining customers. Netflix users who’ve already bought the plan will not be required to get a new one.
“This growth has been driven by improvements to our offering — including two streams, higher quality video and a programming slate that’s now essentially on par with our other plans— as well as the phasing out of our Basic plan for new and rejoining members in the US, the UK, Italy and Canada,” Netflix said.
“This change boosted adoption of our ads and Standard plans, and we’ll be making the same change in Germany, Spain, Japan, Mexico, Australia and Brazil next week.
“Going forward, we’ll continue to improve the feature set, for example next month we’re introducing downloads, while also working to include the ads plan in device and ISP partner bundles.”
Ummm, Mc’fucking ‘scuse me?
With this big change, this means that the next package up is the Standard plan, which costs AUD$16.99 per month with a couple of extra perks like downloading and full HD viewing experiences. Alternatively, you can grab the standard with ads, which is $6.99 per month.
On top of that, Netflix users in the UK, US and France will be copping increases to their plans.
Despite the harsh crackdowns on password sharing, the bloody streaming service recorded 8.8 million new subscribers.
IDK, 8.8 million subscribers sounds like a shit ton of money, and I’m sure keeping the basic plan would’ve been fine?
The math is just not mathing for me. This company is just making it extra hard to Netflix and chill.
