Netflix is shuttering its Basic plan in the US after doing so in the UK already.
It means users have to either pay more to watch without ads, or continue to watch with interruptions.
Netflix is making a fairly easily predicted play with its subscribers in the US. It's confirmed that it is phasing out its $11.99 monthly Basic pricing plan, leaving subscribers with two options.
They can either pay less than they do currently, and choose an ad-supported tier for $6.99, or up their monthly outgoings to $15.49 for a Standard plan without adverts. The streamer is suggesting this will let many people save money, but is a takeaway that most people would probably agree is a little optimistic.
A third option is to up the ante and opt for Netflix Premium, which is ad-free and supports 4K HDR content with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, but that's quite a leap up to $22.99 per month.
This all follows from the exact same process that was enforced at the start of June for UK and Canadian subscribers, who no longer have access to the old Basic plan. Now, the US and France are following suit, and you can safely assume the rollout will continue worldwide eventually.
This all comes in the context of an earnings report from the giant streamer which confirmed that it had gained just over eight million subscribers in the second quarter of this financial year, taking its total to 277.65 million globally. Those numbers are potentially subject to long-term change, though, after the short-term bump that came in the wake of Netflix's crackdown on password sharing.
Interestingly, though, we might not actually get this sort of insight for a huge amount longer – Netflix has confirmed already that in 2025 it's going to stop reporting its subscriber count and growth. It'll instead simply detail the amount of time viewers spend on its platform.
Back to that Basic plan change, though – if you're wondering what will happen to your subscription when the plan ceases to exist, you'll almost certainly just be rolled onto a Standard with Ads plan at that point. This is how it worked for UK subscribers in early June.
From there you'll be free to upgrade if you decide you can't live with Netflix's advertising or to carry on if the price cut in fact does prove worth it for you.
It's all a useful reminder that there are options out there like Apple TV+ which so far have resisted the siren call of adverts in their plans. That could, in the long run, be a big variable in deciding which the best streaming service is overall.
