On Netflix, when the river sounds, water carries. This time, to be specific, the noise comes from the United States and Canada where one of its historical rates disappears: those who want to see content for the cheapest price and without advertising will have to change the modality, since the basic plan ceases to exist.
If someone wants to watch Netflix for the cheapest possible cost, they must choose between the other two current options: opt for the standard plan with advertising, which implies the appearance of ads when watching series and movies, or directly choose the standard plan, which is substantially more expensive but has improvements such as viewing content in Full HD and viewing or downloading content on two devices.
For the North American market, this means that those who previously watched Netflix for $9.99 a month will now have to choose a monthly fee of $6.99 with ads or $15.49 without ads, the most popular rate among subscribers. In Spain, where the basic rate is still in force, it has a cost of 7.99 euros per month and you will have to choose between the 5.49 euros of the standard rate with advertising or the 12.99 euros of the standard free of ads.
The change in the offer of subscription modalities seems to be due to a specific reason: either the user is monetized more directly, pressuring them to pay more each month, or their consumption is monetized indirectly, favoring their advertising strategy. And it is that, as industry experts indicate, the ad-supported rates of streaming platforms can be authentic gold mines to obtain a greater benefit for each client, by having the targets of their productions so identified for advertisers.
This decision has been announced at the same time that Netflix has emerged victorious from its latest movement to monetize subscribers: prevent account sharing and ensure that each user pays to access its catalog, either by signing up as a new user or paying as an extra subscriber (at a cost) to an existing account. This is the only way to explain why in the second quarter of 2023 it has added 5.9 million subscribers, easily exceeding Wall Street forecasts.
And, in the same way that these extra subscribers were first charged in markets such as Spain in February to finally arrive in the United States in May, the new reform of subscription modalities in Europe is expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
