After years of fighting ad-driven approaches, Netflix is now “open” to providing customers with lower-priced tiers that include ads, according to co-CEO Reed Hastings on Tuesday.
Hastings has always been an enemy of promotional ads on the streaming platform. The co-CEO said that during Netflix’s prerecorded earnings conference call it “makes a lot of sense” to offer clients cheaper subscriptions.
“Those who have followed Netflix know that I have been against the complexity of advertising and a big fan of the simplicity of subscription,” Hastings said. “But as much as I am a fan of that, I am a bigger fan of consumer choice, and allowing consumers who would like to have a lower price and are advertising-tolerant to get what they want makes a lot of sense.”
The option likely wouldn’t be available on the service for a year or two, Hastings said. A new ad-supported tier has a lot of profit potential for Netflix, which on Tuesday reported its first subscriber loss in more than a decade.
Netflix argued that the competition is fiercer with rampant password sharing, inflation, and the continuous Russian Ukrainian conflict.
