Netflix’s reported strong earnings, revenue, and an increase in subscribers for the third-quarter of this fiscal year.
One of the most important takeaways is that people seem to love the ad-powered Netflix plan. Netflix says that more than 50 percent of all subscribers in the third-quarter selected the Standard with ads plan. Compared to last quarter, membership of the ad-powered plan rose by 35% alone.
The development is not really that surprising, here is why: Standard with ads is available for less than half the price of the Standard plan. In the US, it is available for $6.99 instead of $15.49.
It is all about the price of membership. Standard with ads and Standard offer nearly identical features. The only difference that matters is that some movies and TV shows are not available in the ad-driven plan.
Everything else, including downloads on two supported devices and 1080p streams are identical. So, a nearly identical feature set for users.
Ad-powered plan subscribers pay less to Netflix each month, but they have to sit through advertisement whenever they tune in. This means, effectively, that they pay with their time, as it takes longer to watch a movie or show, as the playtime of ads needs to be added to the total time.
The next couple of quarters
Here are my top predictions:
- Netflix will continue to see growth, especially when it comes to the ad-powered plan, in the next quarters.
- Growth will slow down eventually. Netflix may then increase the price of the ad-powered plan for the first time to make up for this or increase the number of ads.
Closing Words
I do not have much use for streaming services nowadays. Most shows and movies that they produce are bland, in my opinion. There is the occasional exception, but this almost feels like winning the lottery nowadays.
This is not a Netflix-specific problem. When I look at Disney+ or Amazon Prime Video, I come to the same conclusion.
I’ll stick to my subscribe for a month every now and then strategy, but it has changed from switching every second or so month to maybe subscribing once or twice a year only for a month.
What about you? Are you subscribed to any streaming platform? If so, is it an ad-powered plan or an ad-free plan? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
As long as ads are few, and they are not intrusive, it’s ok.
Using the same logic you could say people love wiping thier asses because they buy so much toilet paper.
The headline should have said that “half of subscribers can tolerate few ads if they can save $9 a month.” I doubt many “love” it.
I believe that Netflix (maybe Max too) is the only streaming service that provide fair or good value because they have so much stuff. Most of it crap of cause, but there is plenty of good stuff to watch too. I really hope they would not get involved with live sports, though. Sport licenses are extremely expensive and it would cause huge rise in prices.
For me, even one advertisement, unless placed at the beginning or end, ruin a cinematic experience. The stock price certainly surged–over the last year, from $400/share to $700/share. Quite a gain, and I suspect that will continue. Streaming is somehow addictive, and I found myself watching shows “passively” with little learning or remembering of what I was watching.
I do have Amazon Prime, but find shows to be disappointments because Amazon loves to bait/hook with one or two seasons and then provide extra seasons at a price.
The library–our local library has more DVDs than one can imagine. It’s an old option wherein I used to go to the local DVD store, pick out some foreign titles, and watch movies, not series, for a weekend.
I agree. While I do dislike ads at any time, ads in the middle of a video, TV show or movie is something that I won’t put up with.
I always bought DVD or Blu-Ray of great movies or shows. It is astonishing how difficult it is to get some of them on optical discs. Still, plenty that I seek are not available at streaming services at all.
Makes me wonder who is sitting on the rights and doing nothing with them.
I somehow miss the days of going to a local shop to pick two or three movies for the weekend. Had to be very careful with your selection, as you were stuck with those for the rest of the weekend.
I don’t stream anything nowadays and much prefer DVDs which I can play on a dedicated DVD player in combination with my TV which is an old Sony WEGA TV. The latter machine cost me a small fortune back in the year 2000 (if my memory serves me correctly). And yes, it’s analog not digital and needs a SCART plug to connect to the player.
But with DVDs I can watch the movies I buy anytime I want without having to pay exhorbitant subscription charges and watch stupid ads.
Oh, and a recommendation! A really, really good movie still available on DVD is an Italian language gangster epic with English subtitles called Suburra! Review on the Guardian newsmedia if you’re interested: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jun/23/suburra-review-brash-and-brutal-italian-thriller
The other issue is that now that they have proven they can do it they will continue to push even more ads, longer, louder, more obnoxious etc and you won’t have a damn thing to say about it because this is what you asked for when you accepted ads and what is worse is that they charge you the same if not more than what you did before in time too.
Once the money starts greasing palms they are not likely to give it up for anything. It’s the same tired old song and they will then blame piracy as per usual.
One also has to acknowledge that people are trying to get the best value for their dollar too and that may have to do with a variety of reasons such as a bad economy or lets face facts, having to subscribe and pay for multiple services because whilst there is ample greed on behalf of all these services there was and is plenty more at the higher levels of executives that demanded their own services when once upon a time there were fewer players such as netflix and each respective company such as disney got paid a small share accordingly but then those companies as per usual wanted the entire pie for themselves and screwed the consumers in the process but as per usual they didn’t care about that and will just keep strumming the same old chords to the same tired old song.
These are the same idiots that see a show not pulling in the biggest numbers and then cancel them before they can reach their story arc and have a real shot at development.
I never watched it but I recall when game of thrones first started it wasn’t a runaway success from the very start but like all good TV shows it was given a chance to develop and it did. It was not my kind of show but I acknowledge its success for what it was. Another point is that not all shows have to hit massively high numbers to be great. This is a separate issue on the surface but a lot of things contribute to overall failures.
It’s amazing how they used to tout netflix as a true alternative to piracy and were happy with their success but now they complain about piracy but the glaring issue is that they are not looking at the reason why people turned to piracy once again because these people have tunnel vision and believe they have not and cannot do no wrong.
A very telltale sign of a failing business and management.
I worked for clowns like this before and right down to the last moment when the lights went out they were still steadfast in their self fuel ignorance and boldfaced defiance of the facts.
Enjoy your success now but once it all comes crashing down, all you will have is your wall plaques and your delusions of grandeur to keep you warm.
I am also going to lay bets that for the most part these plans are also paid for by people that subscribe just to rip/download and add it to the media to their jellyfin, plex, kodi etc media server.
Sorry about the above’s long comment and formatting.
I don’t know what happened there. Perhaps my habit of shift [Shift] + Enter was the culprit.
Sorry once again.