- Customers in Canada and the UK will pay £4.99 per month for a basic plan with ads.
Angry Netflix members have threatened to cancel their memberships after the streaming company announced it will remove its basic ad-free tier.
In a mass email sent to customers, Netflix dropped the bombshell that it would be ending its basic subscription in both the UK and Canada on June 4.
Customers who continue with this membership plan will automatically upgrade to Netflix’s new basic tier, which includes ads.
Nine months ago, the streaming giant announced that new customers would no longer be able to purchase ad-free subscriptions.
Netflix had notified customers that the change would come with a couple of customer benefits on April 18.
Netflix has announced it is scrapping its ad-free basic plan and introducing a £4.99 standard membership, which includes advertising (stock image)
The streaming company highlighted that UK customers currently pay £7.99 a month for a basic plan.
However, with the new subscription with ads, they would be paying €3 less per month.
Netflix also confirmed that viewers’ video quality would improve with the new changes.
Entry-level customers previously experienced 720 video quality, but now it will be fully HD.
But the cost of these advantages will cost you time rather than money with all the new ads.
The company initially announced the changes to its standard plan in a letter to shareholders in January.
The streaming giant is expected to generate approximately $1 billion in advertising revenue in 2024, 50 percent more than it earned the previous year, Reuters reports.
Netflix users were left unhappy with the latest announcement, with several threatening to cancel their subscriptions entirely.
‘Netflix you’re pissing me off. Take me off the basic plan and force me to pay more or put up with shitty ads,” said one.
“There is more competition now, so why treat long-term customers like this?”
The streaming giant is estimated to generate $1 billion in advertising revenue by 2024 (stock)
Netflix users have been left unhappy, with some calling the new membership change a “daylight robbery.”
“Netflix ditching their basic plan and only giving you the option of a cheaper price but with ads or £10.99 a month without is honestly a steal,” a second wrote.
A third added: “Great, so do we have to watch ads every once in a while or pay double to get the Standard/Basic experience we already have now (only for a few more weeks though)? No, I think I’ll pass, Netflix. Cheers , although…
“Netflix forces new membership. I liked my £7.99 ad-free, thanks,” chimed in another.
Someone asked: ‘Hey @netflix, how do you guarantee a 40% increase in standard membership?’
“So apparently you’re planning to remove your lowest-level ad-free membership package,” one user wrote furiously.
‘To be clear, if that happened, we would cancel our subscription. This trend of sliding ads into our streaming services needs to stop and I will not pay for ads.”
‘Don’t pay £5 a month for Netflix just to be advertised. “I’m canceling my membership in June,” one member shared.
