NETFLIX has started discontinuing its cheapest, ad-free plan – and customers are furious.
This week, the company began to notify users that they would have until July 13th to use the Basic plan, just a few months after the price increase.
Frustrated users took to social media to announce that they had canceled their Netflix subscriptions and called on others to do the same.
“I canceled my plan a while ago. I haven’t looked back – there wasn’t enough valuable content on Netflix anyway,” declared one Reddit user.
“It’s irritating to me how many people just accept these price hikes and ads,” wrote another before proposing a call to action.
“If people actually canceled their accounts, we could fight this shit, but of course most people won’t.”
The company announced that it would end its Basic plan in January.
The update came in its early 2024 earnings call, with the streaming giant revealing its intention to discontinue the plan in countries where the Standard with Ads plan was introduced.
The company did not provide any timeline other than to announce that it would start with the UK and Canada in the second quarter, before “going from there.”
This development comes just months after the streamer announced it would be raising prices for the first time in over a year.
The cost of the soon-to-be-defunct Basic plan jumped from $9.99 per month to $11.99 per month in the United States following last October’s announcement.
The Premium plan also had a $3 increase, reaching $22.99 per month.
Basic plan subscribers can now choose the cheaper Standard with Ads plan or the more expensive Standard or Premium 4K plans.
Although Standard with Ads is the cheapest tier, costing $9.99 (£4.99 and $5.99 CAD), it has a serious downside.
In addition to displaying ads before and during content, some movies and shows are “locked” due to licensing restrictions.
When users attempt to access content marked with a lock icon, they will be prompted to upgrade to a different plan to gain access.
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“So… why do people bother paying for ads?” one Redditor commented.
“Can we please have more entertainment of our interests along with these payments and reduce the ad diet?”
UK subscribers can sign up to the Standard with Ads plan for £4.99 per month or shell out £10.99 per month for the Standard plan.
The Standard option offers 1080p streams, simultaneous viewing on two devices, and downloads on up to two devices.
Use Netflix on a computer or laptop? Try these useful shortcuts
Here are some useful keyboard shortcuts…
- Spacebar – toggle play/pause
- Enter – toggle play/pause
- F – full screen
- Esc – exit full screen
- Left arrow – go back 10 seconds
- Right arrow – 10 second fast forward
- Up arrow – increase volume
- Down arrow – decrease volume
- M – toggle mute
- Shift-Alt-Left Click – adjust the streaming bitrate (to improve or reduce video quality)
Canadian users are the ones who suffer most with the elimination of the Basic plan.
A Standard plan costs $16.49, compared to $9.99 for the Basic subscription. The cheapest option is, of course, the Standard with Ads plan at $5.99.
Despite the setbacks, Netflix announced that the ad-supported tier reached 40 million global monthly active users in May, an increase of 5 million from the previous year.
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
