Back in April, we reported that Netflix was looking for ways to, in its own words, “give consumers more choice” on the platform. One of the main ways of doing this was by introducing cheaper Netflix subscription plans to the streaming platform, that would be supported by ads. At the time, though, Netflix co-CEO, Reed Hastings reported that the company was looking into the plan and would see what it looked like in a couple of years. It now looks like things have changed at Netflix.
The New York Times is reporting that in a recent note to Netflix staff, the streaming giant announced it would be accelerating the ad-supported tier timeline, with a view to introducing the news subscription plan by the end of the year.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Netflix is scrabbling around looking for new money wherever it can find it as the Netflix stock price recently fell off a cliff. The company recently announced it lost over 200,000 supporters in the first quarter of 2022, which is the first time that has happened to the company. It looks set to get worse too, with an estimated two million more subscribers also on the verge of quitting the platform.
The other news found in the same note Netflix sent out to staff is that, for the same reasons, outlined above, the company is also set to start cracking down on password sharing on the platform. This means if you and your family or friends are all watching Netflix on the same account, things could be about to change. Netflix has been threatening to ban password sharing for a while now, so we’ll have to wait and see if it actually happens.
Stopping password sharing could go either way for Netflix. If people in multiple households are sharing the costs of a Netflix subscription, the streaming giant could lose subscribers by forcing them to cover the whole cost on their own. The flip side, which is obviously what Netflix is hoping for is that these multiple households will take up their own individual paid subscriptions once the ban takes hold. In this respect, it would make sense for Netflix to implement the ban at the same time as it introduces a new lower-priced, ad-supported platform. We will have to wait and see what happens.
What do you think of an ad-supported platform? Would you be happy paying less to access Netflix but having to watch ads on the platform? Would you continue to use the streaming platform, if not Netflix prevented you from sharing your account? If the answer to that last question is no, check out the 6 best alternatives to Netflix that do allow account sharing.
