zlacker

>>qainsi+(OP)
This seems to be the sad reality of many paid services: paying is not a guarantee of freedom from advertisement, only a temporary respite. Being a paying customer is a very juicy datapoint, one that every one of these streaming companies eventually decides to capitalize on.

>>woodru+Pj
The problem is: even at a higher price point, the ad-free versions generate less revenue.

"“We’re obviously trying with our pricing strategy to migrate more subs to the advertiser-supported tier,” Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger said in August during a call with investors to discuss the company’s quarterly results."

"Disney, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery have recently said the ad-supported versions of their streaming platforms generate more money per user than their ad-free counterparts, as the advertising revenue more than offsets the lower subscription cost." -- https://www.wsj.com/business/media/netflix-price-increase-ac...

"Netflix executives have said that the ad tier brings in more average revenue per user than its $15.49 standard plan." -- https://www.wsj.com/articles/netflix-reworks-microsoft-pact-...

>>ksherl+4r
Thanks for those links. This indicates that (1) users consistently undervalue their ad data, or (2) the ad data market is misfunctioning (since so many of these companies go on to spend billions on advertising their own unprofitable services). Or both!

The entire situation is ridiculous. We’ve somehow managed to build an even more exploitative user-service relationship than Cable TV.

>>woodru+Rr
ads have two functions: to drive more traffic, and to preserve mindshare for existing brands. Coke is not buying ads because you don't know what Coke is, Coke is buying ads so that Pepsi or somebody else's ad doesn't take your mindshare away.

>>bobthe+du
Right, but neither of these functions explains the circularity: if Netflix loses money on every paying subscriber versus the "ad watching sucker" demographic, why spend billions of dollars a year[1] advertising your paid plans?

(Maybe I'm being too literal here -- it'd be fair to argue that Netflix mostly just advertises their shows, not the plans themselves directly.)

[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/688525/netflix-ad-expens...

>>woodru+iw
Where do they say they lose money on ad free paying subs? Maybe they make less profit than on free ad users.