[gruez]

>just like Netflix. Eventually, we will have to pay a lot of money and still have ads too.

This doesn't match reality. The "standard with ads" plan is $8.99 today, a dollar more than the ad-free "streaming only" plan launched in 2011. However factoring in inflation, the ad-free plan from 2011 would cost $11.74 today, which means the ad supported plan is still cheaper, even ignoring the price hikes.

[ceejayoz]

At the same time, they keep hiking the other tiers, and cracking down on password sharing or kids off at college. These need to be factored in as well.

[gruez]

>they keep hiking the other tiers

That's why I compared against the 2011 prices. The ad-supported plan is still cheaper.

>cracking down on password sharing or kids off at college

Doesn't password sharing affect ad supported plans too? It basically has no effect on the comparison because it makes both the ad supported and non ad supported plans cheaper.

[ceejayoz]

The crackdown on "your kid's in a dorm, you can't share the account" is intended to get that kid to buy a second account.

The ad tier is cheap so they can say "well switch to the cheap plan" when someone complains about the hikes.

[cryptonym]

By your inflation-factoring-logic a fair regular plan should cost less than $12 and ad plan should be about $6. $9 is +50%

Ad supported plan can be a way to justify price hikes.

Maybe it does match reality.

[gruez]

>By your inflation-factoring-logic a fair regular plan should cost less than $12 and ad plan should be about $6. $9 is +50%

You're misunderstanding my comment. I'm not arguing that price hikes haven't occurred. In fact I specifically acknowledged them. I'm only making the narrow argument that despite implications to the contrary, the ad supported plan today is cheaper than the paid plans. In other words the implication that "we're paying more and still have ads" is false.

[cryptonym]

They didn't say "we're paying more and still have ads". They said they would have to pay a lot to still get ads.

Maybe it's not your reality, you consider $110 a year for netflix with ads as cheap. It might be different for someone else.

[gruez]

>you consider $110 a year for netflix with ads as cheap

I mean, if you're so fervently against ads to the extent that paying a single cent is "a lot", then I suppose it's true, but it's highly subjective. By most reasonable comparisons (ie. ads vs non-ad price today, ads vs historical ad price), it's not "a lot".

[queenkjuul]

It's "a lot" more than I've ever remotely considered paying to be advertised to, I'll say that

[neves]

Tell "doesn't match reality" to cable television. All channels ended having ads. This is Capitalism in a American society that is looking more of a plutocracy than a democracy.

[raw_anon_1111]

Please for the love of all that is holy stop with the completely false outdated meme that “at one point cable didn’t have ads”

Cable was first introduced as a means to get over the air channels for remote places that couldn’t get a signal to get network tv. These channels always had ads.

Then came the “Superstations”. They were local independent ad supported channels like TBS in Atlanta and WGN in Chicago that went national. They always had ads.

Then the early cable channels like ESPN, the precursor to Lifetime, CNN etc and they always had ads. The other early cable channels were trying to sell ads to advertisers from day one but they didn’t have enough viewers.

Yes channels that you paid extra for like HBO didn’t have ads and still don’t.

[neves]

In Brazil cable started not having ads. Don't take USA for all the world

[raw_anon_1111]

A quick bit of Googling shows that by the time cable got to be standardized with anything worthwhile in Brazil, ads came along with it. Before then it was mostly premium channels that also don’t and never had ads in the US.