Netflix seems to be silently killing “Netflix Basic,” its basic plan without ads, which is now suddenly no longer available for purchase in Canada.
Back when the platform introduced its advertising tier in November, Canadian viewers were given four membership options: Netflix Basic ($9.99/month), which only permitted one screen at a time; Basic with ads ($5.99), which has a few minutes of ads per hour and is also limited to one device at a time; Standard ($16.49), for up to two screens at once; and Premium ($20.99), for up to four.
If you caught on to the past tense used when describing the first plan, yes, you guessed it: Netflix Basic, without ads, is now suddenly no longer available for purchase north of the border.
As of the time of publication, Netflix Basic and Netflix Basic with ads are no longer listed on the brand’s Plans and Pricing page, the former completely missing and the latter renamed “Standard with ads.”
MacDailyNews Take: “Standard” is a much better name marketing-wise than “Basic,” which just sounds so, well, basic, but the jump in plans from $5.99 with ads to the next level $16.49 seems like a pricing error on Netflix’s part – unless Netflix has found that they’re making more on advertising and want to entice as many as possible into the “Standard with ads” plan.
As for Apple TV+, we’re still hearing echos out of the rumor mill that Apple is planning to launch an ad-supported version of its Apple TV+ streaming-video platform, too, perhaps this fall:
Hearing from a little birdie that Apple is planning to launch an ad-supported version of its Apple TV+ streaming-video platform. pic.twitter.com/tfbt7JyMLs
— MacDailyNews (@MacDailyNews) August 4, 2022
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Netflix is out to squeeze every last cent out of its customers. Canada is a test market for US. If this last move to ‘encourage’ users to the ad version makes them an extra dollar, then you know this will come to the US in a couple of months.