Netflix has long been praised for its complete lack of ads and commercials but company co-CEO Reed Hastings says that ads will soon be incorporated into the service, at least according to a Deadline report.
Hastings says that Netflix will begin to implement advertising on Netflix in the “next year or two.”
“One way to increase the price spread is advertising on low-end plans and to have lower prices with advertising,” Hastings said. “Those who have followed Netflix know that I’ve been against the complexity of advertising and a big fan of the simplicity of subscription.”
And while he has been against the incorporation of advertising in the past, he acknowledged that this would be a necessary step for the streaming platform. He also said that this would be a positive for Netflix subscribers, as it will give them “consumer choice” and the ability to choose a cheaper subscription, albeit one with advertisements.
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“But as much as I’m a fan of that, I’m a bigger fan of consumer choice,” he continued. “Allowing consumers who would like to have a lower price and are advertising-tolerant get what they want makes a lot of sense. So, that’s something we’re looking at now, we’re trying to figure out over the next year or two. Think of us as quite open to offering an even lower.”
Also, sharing your Netflix password with family and friends could soon be a thing of the past. In its quarterly shareholder letter on Tuesday, the streaming giant warned a global crackdown on password sharing is coming.
Netflix has nearly 222 million paying subscribers, and “over 100 million additional households” worldwide are using shared Netflix accounts, including more than 30 million in the US and Canada.
“This is a big opportunity as these households are already watching Netflix and enjoying our service,” the company wrote in its letter. “Sharing likely helped fuel our growth by getting more people using and enjoying Netflix. And we’ve always tried to make sharing within a member’s household easy, with features like profiles and multiple streams. While these have been very popular, they’ve created confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared with other households.”
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