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Why doesn't Netflix have a free tier?

Clay

Clay

Member
Oct 29, 2017
8,300
It seems like a no-brainer to me. It wouldn't have been feasible in the past but they have so much original content now that I don't understand why they don't have a free tier of service that give you access to the first season of two of all of their shows and maybe some of their movies. People could watch the first season or two of Bojack Horseman, Stranger Things, Big Mouth, etc. but have to sign up for a paid subscription once they exhausted the free content. It also seems like a great way to easily draw attention to older content. If they rotated a handful of movie in and out of the service every month or so a ton of news sites would write articles about it. For example if they made Okja available on the free tier of service a ton of sites would publish articles announcing it, and I'm sure it would be seen by a ton of people who already sub but who never got around to watching it, or realize they wouldn't mind seeing it again, or whatever.

Maybe it's just not worth it because growth has slowed to the point that they assume most people who want to sub already have and retaining current subscribers is far more important than attracting new ones. Maybe it wouldn't be worth the expense if the free service was too popular and didn't end up paying for itself with new subscribers. The former seems a lot more believable to me.

I'm not exactly a business person, maybe there's some obvious thing I'm overlooking.
 

Deleted member 39374

Banned
Feb 1, 2018
5,083
It wouldn't be possible without ads, and netflix is like the last platform that hasn't been infected by them yet

If you really wanted a "free" netflix you can just keep making new email addresses and rotating through 30D trials. Or get it via your cell phone carrier, I think T-mobile offers it
 
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Oct 25, 2017
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mrmoose

Member
Nov 13, 2017
21,536
If you want to sample their content, sign up for a month, it's not like there's a contract. If you've already used the trial, you pretty much know how their interface is and whether it's usable. How many more customers would they tempt and how would it weight against the extra capacity they'd need to service the freeloaders who only want to watch the first seasons of every series?
 
Deepwater

Deepwater

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,349
People have been paying for Netflix for 10 years. Why would they start letting people watch for free, now?
 
DrewFu

DrewFu

Attempted to circumvent ban with an alt-account
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Apr 19, 2018
10,360
Why would they? They don't need to.
 
Froyo Love

Froyo Love

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Oct 28, 2017
1,503
Clay said:
It seems like a no-brainer to me. It wouldn't have been feasible in the past but they have so much original content now that I don't understand why they don't have a free tier of service that give you access to the first season of two of all of their shows and maybe some of their movies. People could watch the first season or two of Bojack Horseman, Stranger Things, Big Mouth, etc. but have to sign up for a paid subscription once they exhausted the free content. It also seems like a great way to easily draw attention to older content. If they rotated a handful of movie in and out of the service every month or so a ton of news sites would write articles about it. For example if they made Okja available on the free tier of service a ton of sites would publish articles announcing it, and I'm sure it would be seen by a ton of people who already sub but who never got around to watching it, or realize they wouldn't mind seeing it again, or whatever.

Maybe it's just not worth it because growth has slowed to the point that they assume most people who want to sub already have and retaining current subscribers is far more important than attracting new ones. Maybe it wouldn't be worth the expense if the free service was too popular and didn't end up paying for itself with new subscribers. The former seems a lot more believable to me.

I'm not exactly a business person, maybe there's some obvious thing I'm overlooking.
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This is a solution in search of a problem. The implicit premise of a trial like you're describing is that it creates exposure, which will create desire for the service. That model makes sense if you're flogging content no one has ever heard of, not if you're the service that carries Stranger Things and The Irishman.
 
amon37

amon37

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,063
Even hulu doesn't have a free tier anymore and its lowest tier has ads and costs money why would Netflix do a free tier with ads
 
nded

nded

Member
Nov 14, 2017
10,741
Maybe if it's ad supported. Or some kind of stream set up like a TV channel with pre-scheduled programming blocks made up of older Netflix originals, again with ad breaks.

Or they could just keep doing what they're doing.
 
Einchy

Einchy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
42,659
I mean, they have a free one month trial those people who just woke up from a coma and don't already have a Netflix sub.
 
aerts1js

aerts1js

Member
May 11, 2019
1,416
They don't need to and tbh, the ads on something like youtube have been driving me crazy lately.
 
Paquete_PT

Paquete_PT

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Oct 27, 2017
5,494
Clay said:
I'm not exactly a business person, maybe there's some obvious thing I'm overlooking.
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if you didn't say this I would have never figured it out :p joke's aside, the suggestion of giving the first season of every show for free is too much. And it's not that expensive to sign up for a month and see how you like it.
A better system would probably be to have a rotation of free samples to entice people to the service. One week Okja is free, the other week is the first season of Daredevil, then the first season of Mindhunter, and so on.
 
PeakPointMatrix

PeakPointMatrix

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,635
Literally what the free trial exists for. If you're not convinced to sub after that, a "free version" with only first seasons won't change your mind either.
 
Sunster

Sunster

The Fallen
Oct 5, 2018
10,156
i shudder thinking of what bottom of the barrel sludge would be available to a free user.
 
thediamondage

thediamondage

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,819
i'm surprised they haven't done curated lists yet, like "critic X recommends these shows or instagram influencer Y watches these shows" kinda thing. spotify playlists basically people can share, but for movies and TV shows and moods
 
¡ B 0 0 P !

¡ B 0 0 P !

Banned
Apr 4, 2019
2,915
Greater Toronto Area
msdstc said:
I feel like they could make money with a free tier ad supported version.
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It took years for YouTube to generate a profit and even now it's no huge money maker. Streaming and hosting video, especially 1080p HD and 4K is expensive.

And ads wouldn't work great on Netflix like they do YouTube. On YouTube ads have access to data from all of Google's websites. So they can be personalized to a degree not possible on Netflix. Plus on YouTube ads act as website links. That wouldn't be possible on most Netflix app versions.
 

Deleted member 52190

Banned
Jan 20, 2019
10,681
Clay said:
It seems like a no-brainer to me. It wouldn't have been feasible in the past but they have so much original content now that I don't understand why they don't have a free tier of service that give you access to the first season of two of all of their shows and maybe some of their movies. People could watch the first season or two of Bojack Horseman, Stranger Things, Big Mouth, etc. but have to sign up for a paid subscription once they exhausted the free content. It also seems like a great way to easily draw attention to older content. If they rotated a handful of movie in and out of the service every month or so a ton of news sites would write articles about it. For example if they made Okja available on the free tier of service a ton of sites would publish articles announcing it, and I'm sure it would be seen by a ton of people who already sub but who never got around to watching it, or realize they wouldn't mind seeing it again, or whatever.

Maybe it's just not worth it because growth has slowed to the point that they assume most people who want to sub already have and retaining current subscribers is far more important than attracting new ones. Maybe it wouldn't be worth the expense if the free service was too popular and didn't end up paying for itself with new subscribers. The former seems a lot more believable to me.

I'm not exactly a business person, maybe there's some obvious thing I'm overlooking.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The problem with your ideia of ad, is that some guy can easy make a app to remove them and then your entire revenue goes down the toilet. To risk, not enough profit.
 
Deepwater

Deepwater

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,349
thediamondage said:
i'm surprised they haven't done curated lists yet, like "critic X recommends these shows or instagram influencer Y watches these shows" kinda thing. spotify playlists basically people can share, but for movies and TV shows and moods
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personalization probably beats out curation. Why watch something recommended by some PDP/Kardashian-type when they can just recommend you things to watch based on your history.

Spotify does both personalization and curation, but the quality of the curation can dip pretty significantly (looking at you, Rap Caviar). Meanwhile, my Spotify Daily and Discover playlists are typically on point, because who has better taste than me?
 
Hollywood Duo

Hollywood Duo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
43,256
Free tier on every streaming service is dog shit. Nothing like watching/listening to the same ad 10 times in one session.
 
a916

a916

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,946
It's the biggest streaming service in the world, they give you an trial period (of a month is it?) where you can watch as much as you can... what more do you want lol.
 

Deleted member 6949

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Oct 25, 2017
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Amazon added ads in a diabolical way. They just created a channel out of thin air where everything has ads even when you pay for prime. They called it imdbtv to muddy the waters.
 
Ramala

Ramala

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,117
Santa Monica, LA
Polymerization said:
It wouldn't be possible without ads, and netflix is like the last platform that hasn't been infected by them yet

If you really wanted a "free" netflix you can just keep making new email addresses and rotating through 30D trials. Or get it via your cell phone carrier, I think T-mobile offers it
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You know, honestly, Netflix's algorithm completely gets me at this point. Even if I could just re-start trials I wouldn't want to.
 

staedtler

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,659
thediamondage said:
i'm surprised they haven't done curated lists yet, like "critic X recommends these shows or instagram influencer Y watches these shows" kinda thing. spotify playlists basically people can share, but for movies and TV shows and moods
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ehhh i wouldn't want my feed to be spammed with lists from some loser "instagram influencer" or some hack critic
 
Bradford

Bradford

terminus est
Member
Aug 12, 2018
5,423
Working in the entertainment industry, I have some insight into this. This isn't the sole reason, but companies are aware of Piracy and Adblock. This is part of the reason free streaming isn't offered as much anymore -- they know the people who want to check a show out without signing up will just pirate it anyway and the ad glances aren't necessarily worth as much for that demogcaphic. Why spend resources building out these platforms when this is the reality?

I don't condone it, obviously. It's just a known thing.
 
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Clay

Clay

Member
Oct 29, 2017
8,300
Snakeeee said:
The problem with your ideia of ad, is that some guy can easy make a app to remove them and then your entire revenue goes down the toilet. To risk, not enough profit.
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I didn't say anything about ads. My idea is that there would be a limited selection of Netflix Original content available for free with zero ads.

Maybe at any give time there's the first season of a few shows, a movie or two, and a couple documentary, something like that. They would rotate every month or quarter or so. Netflix would make zero money on people using the free service, but would limit the time they can use the service by only offering a small selection of content. They could also impose a time limit per account, say a couple hour per week. As I outlined earlier, they would hopefully get people to sign up to continue viewing the shows they started, or who wanted more content similar to the movies on offer.

a916 said:
It's the biggest streaming service in the world, they give you an trial period (of a month is it?) where you can watch as much as you can... what more do you want lol.
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The issue with the free trial is you can only use it once. Let's say I used it two years ago and was unimpressed with the service, or exhausted the content I was interested in. If I want to check Netflix out again I could potentially get another free trial by creating a new account, which may be a hassle, or I can pay for an account. A free version of the service gives people like that a reason to regularly open the app, keep an eye on news regarding the service, etc.

Paquete_PT said:
if you didn't say this I would have never figured it out :p joke's aside, the suggestion of giving the first season of every show for free is too much. And it's not that expensive to sign up for a month and see how you like it.
A better system would probably be to have a rotation of free samples to entice people to the service. One week Okja is free, the other week is the first season of Daredevil, then the first season of Mindhunter, and so on.
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That's actually what I had in mind, I had to double-check my own OP, not sure why I wrote all of their shows. But yeah, I think it would be smart if they offered the first season of Bojack, Black Mirror, and one of their lesser known shows for awhile, then change it to Arrested Development, Stranger Things, another lesser-known show, etc.
 
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BAD

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,570
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Vudu has a huge free library. IMDB TV has a free library.

they have unbearable ads.
 
xxracerxx

xxracerxx

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Oct 25, 2017
31,222
Clay said:
I didn't say anything about ads. My idea is that there would be a limited selection of Netflix Original content available for free with zero ads.

Maybe at any give time there's the first season of a few shows, a movie or two, and a couple documentary, something like that. They would rotate every month or quarter or so. Netflix would make zero money on people using the free service, but would limit the time they can use the service by only offering a small selection of content. They could also impose a time limit per account, say a couple hour per week. As I outlined earlier, they would hopefully get people to sign up to continue viewing the shows they started, or who wanted more content similar to the movies on offer.
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This is even a worse idea than an ad version.
 
Gamer @ Heart

Gamer @ Heart

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,952
Because they don't need to.

It's ridiculous to give something away for free that hundreds of millions are happy to pay for.

They spend billions every year now on content. That doesn't happen with a free tier.
 
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Clay

Clay

Member
Oct 29, 2017
8,300
xxracerxx said:
This is even a worse idea than an ad version.
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Maybe. But I doubt many people would take advantage of it, and it would be an easy way to getting news outlets to do advertising for them, and be a nice way of occasionally shining a spotlight on their less popular original content. I could easily see news sites publishing articles about the free tier's rotating content and a bunch of people who already sub reading and realizing "Woah, I didn't know Netflix made a Trailer Park Boys movie." or "Wow, I had no idea that comic had a special, I'll check that out."

From what I understand they're the clear winner among streaming services now, but they're going to lose Friends and the Office, the other services will continue to produce new content, play with pricing, etc. Couldn't hurt to generate some good will and try to get some eyes on their lesser-known properties.
 
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