21 Apr – With stiff competition from other streaming services like Amazon Prime and Disney and a dip in subscribers' numbers, it looks like Netflix is now looking to forgo its previous stance on ads by offering lower-priced ad-supported plans. Speaking about the change, Co-CEO Reed Hastings stated that the streaming giant plans to offer a lower price plan in exchange of having ads so that consumers might be more inclined to subscribe. "It's pretty clear that it's working for Hulu. Disney's doing it, HBO did it. I don't think we have a lot of doubt that it works," he said.
It is noted that for years, Netflix thrived on the simplicity of subscription as opposed to advertising. The decision came after it was revealed that it lost 200,000 subscribers last year, making it the first dip in paid subscribers over a decade, with the forecast saying that it is losing two million for the second quarter of 2022. "Now we are working super hard on it. There are already over 100 million households that already are choosing to be on Netflix. We just got to get paid to some degree for them," Hastings added. It is noted that Asian subscribers are more welcoming of such a system, as a recent study by The Trade Desk titled "The Future of TV 2022" revealed that they are most likely to accept two or more ads per hour of free content.