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Netflix Will Now Interrupt Series Binges With Video Ads For Its Other Series (arstechnica.com)
Netflix has confirmed that it will start airing video ads for other Netflix series between episodes. These ads will reportedly only be for Netflix content, not outside products or content, and will, at least for now, only appear for a "segment" of Netflix's user base. Ars Technica reports: The news emerged via user reports, particularly on the primary Netflix Reddit community, in which users claimed that ads for entirely different series would play between episodes of a given show's binging. One initial claim said that "unskippable" ads for the AMC series Better Call Saul appeared between episodes of Rick & Morty, and that this ad appeared while using Netflix's smart TV app on an LG set in the UK. Replies to that thread included an allegation that a video ad for I Am A Killer (a Netflix-produced true-crime series) appeared between episodes of the animated comedy Bob's Burgers.
In a statement given to Ars Technica, Netflix described the change as follows: "We are testing whether surfacing recommendations between episodes helps members discover stories they will enjoy faster." The reasoning, Netflix's statement says, comes from its last controversial decision: to add auto-playing videos, complete with unmuteable audio, while browsing through Netflix content. Netflix offered one major rebuttal to at least one Reddit claim, pointing out that the ads for Netflix content are entirely skippable.
In a statement given to Ars Technica, Netflix described the change as follows: "We are testing whether surfacing recommendations between episodes helps members discover stories they will enjoy faster." The reasoning, Netflix's statement says, comes from its last controversial decision: to add auto-playing videos, complete with unmuteable audio, while browsing through Netflix content. Netflix offered one major rebuttal to at least one Reddit claim, pointing out that the ads for Netflix content are entirely skippable.
If actually skippable, I guess I am OK with it, though do not like it... but I can see why they want to do this as they have a lot of original content, and they have a point as to how people would find out about it otherwise.
On the other hand Amazon Prime Video does this at the start of watching anything as far as I can tell and I just skip so fast I don't think I've ever learned anything from it.
I think the Netflix featured show that appears when you enter the app (on the Apple TV anyway) is probably the best way to get exposure for something without seeming to interrupt whatever the user was doing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yet another first class decision from netflix?
If I had painted a target their shoe it wouldn't have made it any easier for them to shoot themselves in the foot!
This is very likely just the beginning. You, as a company, cannot suddenly start filling everything with ads. You start with skippable ads for own content. And, you know, skippable ads are a pain in the neck. They get you out of the mood, they return you to reality and your problems. They break the viewing experience.
Then you broadcast skippable ads for other companies, but make your own content ads non-skippable. And you go on, and on, and on, only thinking of the next quarter profits to look good, giving you (the Netflix executive) time to jump to another company. You have seen it in cable companies, you have seen it in cinemas, and you are now seeing it in Netflix.
There is apparently a structural rule in the paid broadcasting business that says that, once you get enough people, you start degrading the service to get more money. I suppose that comes from marketing people not wanting to raise prices directly, as that's a trigger for the clients to quit. So they start giving less quality, putting ads, etc. Just slowly killing the reasons why you were successful in the first place. I see a business opportunity there.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
No ads -> only ads for other shows -> only ads between shows -> ads -> competitor with no ads
web site, email to tell the user about shows they could consider.
Have a deep and wide suggestion part of the GUI thats full of news and different series.
Make it part of the GUI that a user has to select. For competitor services, this will make users like your brands more.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I guess we all knew the honeymoon would end one day :-(
It will "work", so next step will be to apply Netflix ads to all users.
Next, it will be included before (not between) any video.
Next, it will be unskippable.
Next, it will include other recommendations outside Netflix relevant to their users, such as Coca-Cola, Apple or Nike.
I see Netfllix is starting to whip out the cable company bullshit.
Is that what they call it nowadays... marketing people should be banned to the moon!
will resubscribe if/when they roll back this change
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
... they have customers at all, it because there is no commercials in between anything. I see people will go downloading more again.
Bach says it all.
Left Netflix a few months back, and I even less regret it.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
To hell with ads, I already get plenty of stuff from Netflix per E-mail as well as the built in notifications system in their app. I would gladly watch some of their other stuff, particularly French, Spanish and Asian movies and series if they'd dub then in English. I usually do work while watching TV and I like to keep track of what's happening by listening while I work and pause to watch when something interesting is happening on screen and then continue working. I can't do that if I'm forced to stare at the TV screen throughout, reading subtitles so I tend not to watch this material all that much. It would also be nice if they'd list the available audio languages in the description.
I member.
I guess we all knew the honeymoon would end one day :-(
Actually, it does so at turtle like pace. There was the VPN blocking policy, that affected many users. Netflix did it and waited... no noticeable subscription impact.
So they keep going. Next is showing ads for their own series. There will be no impact either, plus subscribers will get used to it.
In a year or so, ads for other stuff, then between episodes, then, ultimately, within episodes, like the good old tv ; maybe at that level, people will want to see what competition is doing.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
This is the thing I hate about HBO-- they play commercials for HBO before episodes. I am already buying HBO-- what does that accomplish other than annoying me?
No, you are paying for them through inflated consumer prices.
Yes, he is. He's paying for media content and the media being shown is an advert.
That someone else may have paid for that advert to be shown to him would merely mean Netflix are getting paid twice.
While technically my TV is a computer it's also not worth the time and effort to hack to skip adverts on its built-in netflix client.
Much easier to just skip giving netflix any money.
... your data would not be collected and you wouldn't have ads.
Netflix is one of the best examples that this is not true. They get money from their viewers, but gladly take more money through targeted product placement, in part enabled by detailed user data.
""unskippable" ads? NO.
Perhaps a very short skippable ad for a related show AT THE END of a season, especially at the end of an entire series. Yeah, that, maybe. "You liked this? Here's something similar." NOT random, similar.
If you start acting like cable TV, you'll end up just LIKE cable TV.
"That's a nice business I've got here, shame if something were to happen to it." I never realized the owner could do it to themselves. Dr Strangelove's hand at the end, I guess.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
Avoidance of ads is the main reason to watch Netflix. Pay and receive ads? Anyone at Netflix heard the term 'user experience' ? Are they positioning themselves for a premium subscription?
Requiem for the American Dream
I was told at one time that cable (when it was started) was supposed to not have commercials as you paid for it. I guess this seems to be the natural flow of things, unfortunately.
This was the final straw, but a huge part of my decision is that they refuse to allow any UI controls on the service for the user to arrange and set the UI and choices they want.. Its become TV 2.0. "You get what we want you to see"
Good-bye
I recently unsubbed and it's for good this time. Their legacy content (non-Netflix movies and shows) is almost completely gone now, or so obscured as to be impossible to find under their awful UI that only pimps their own original content. Those autoplay trailers when you're just trying to browse are so far beyond annoying that I don't think there's a word in the English language to express my feelings on them (Hyper-mega-grating? Super-high-annoying? Still doesn't capture it).
Netflix streaming is a shadow of its one-time greatness. They have a small handful of decent originals, most of which burn out and decline quickly after one season. Their once-awesome catalog of legacy content shrinks more and more every year. It's just not worth all the bullshit that they just KEEP PILING ON anymore. I hated those autoplay trailers in the menu badly enough. So I'll be damned if I *EVER* pay for ads between my episodes too. Who exactly is the customer here anyway, me or them?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I go to the website.
I look for something to watch.
I watch it.
I turn it off.
Interfering with that workflow is gonna be detrimental to our business relationship, Netflix.
And, let's be honest, you don't show anything I can't get elsewhere. The reasons I use you are:
- People generally know what's available on Netflix and will point you to what's available that you might have missed (P.S. your recommendations are shite).
- I don't have proper Internet, only mobile Internet, because it was cheaper and easier than an install... and they don't count Netflix data. This is easily remedied to another provider who don't count ANY of the big streaming site's data for the same monthly price. Especially when you consider I'm already paying for Amazon Prime, which is included in their package. Literally as simple as ending a 30-day contract and getting a SIM from the other company.
- The real reason I got you was that I don't have a TV, don't really want one, and don't want to subscribe to stupidly expensive services just to get legitimate TV content. I'm quite happy just switching you - and all the others - off. There's plenty of stuff and for the price I'm paying for data packages, Netflix, Amazon, etc. I could easily just buy a few DVD's a month or even online videos (I have a ton on both Amazon and Google Play already) and be happy and ad-less.
My spare time is precious. I work 1/3rd of my life (half my waking life) to get it, and to allow me to use it doing things I want, rather than what others want. Intruding on that spare time while demanding some work-time to pay for you is not going to go down well. I pay for convenience - so that I can fully utilise my spare-time in a trade-off against the work to pay for it.
This touches on everything from automatically paying my bills, to buying modern conveniences, to paying for apps and content, to employing tradesmen when necessary.
Interfere with that delicate balance at your own risk. Currently each month I spend:
- 30 GBP for Internet for all my devices.
- 7.50 GBP for my smartphone (just the SIM, it's owned outright and has been for years)
- 6 GBP for Netflix.
- 8 GBP for Amazon Prime (including all the other benefits).
- 2 GBP for TVPlayer (special deal, but likely won't renew when it runs out this Christmas as I don't watch live TV, and all the channels on it have their own catch-up functionality)
The rest of my outgoings are rent, utilities, car, etc. Things that are vital and allow me to live comfortably and make best use of my time.
But you'll notice - you're there because you're a pittance, and you're easily replaceable, and you're also nearly as expensive as my smartphone, but you form a big chunk of what I spend on such things. And you certainly don't give me the same value that my smartphone does.
The second the value/hour drops below a factor of one (one GBP per hour of entertainment), you're really in the shit. And at the moment I do watch quite a bit because it's easy and I can watch it with dinner. But it's nothing I can't get elsewhere. Drive me into the realm where I stop using you because it's too much of a faff, that value plummets and you'll quickly disappear, even if I replace you with nothing.
I get that it's hard... if I'm only paying those rates, and I watch a lot, then that's a lot of rightsholders you have to pay for me to be able to do that, plus all the internet transit and all kinds of overheads. But that's the price of such services. If, like MoviePass, it's no longer viable as a business, ads aren't the solution. They're the death-knell.
I'm happy to pay for my content. A lot more than you might think. But the second you start putting *work* (avoiding ads) into my *leisure* then my work rates are deducted from that value. And that quickly plummets any value I get from you. And you need to do more than break-even for that to be something I'm willing to pay for.
Remember when some channels on Cable TV didn't have ads?
Here we go folks. First a few Netflix only ads, then we'll get feminine hygiene ads.
.
And so it begins...
Then I came back about a year later. The first time I felt like I had seen everything they had to offer. I would scroll and scroll and not find anything of interest to me so I finally canceled it. Then I came back and I'm finding the same urge again. Putting ads in will probably push me to cancel again.
that you can't set a n option to no auto play previews. I pay, I choose what I see and how I see it, now get off my lawn...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
hbo has it's own ad's been that way for years
There's plenty of room on the home display where the various content is arranged to select from. And of course there is the very effective viral "have you seen X?" effect when something of broad interest comes out.
Don't make the error of thinking they have no way to let you know about new content without taking this step. They do.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
No, I still have Netflix because my daughter watches the cartoons, and it's ad free. My teenage sons (and me) long ago migrated to alternate sources + a lot of video games, and my wife and I watch over-the-air PBS, football and news. Once my daughter gets fully torrent aware I don't see us continuing with Netflix, but as long as it's ad free it's OK.
I've actually turned off my android-tv and did something else because of that one.
When I'm trying to browse and read and decide what I'm going to watch, if anything, having anything I'm looking at suddenly start playing is the quickest way to get me to browse to something else or to turn the whole thing off in disgust.
leather-dog muksihs
Blog: @muksihs
Physical action? You mean: "in" your computer? With no way to automate it? And you put up with *that*?
Correct. Many people buy game consoles, set-top streaming boxes, smartphones, and tablet computers running smartphone operating systems, and they just put up with annoyances because they perceive that the platform is cheaper, more convenient, or both than buying a desktop computer to leave connected to a television-sized monitor.
Remember when they stopped shipping DVDs but had almost no streamable content?
A) I still get DVD's to this day (BluRay, but still).
B) I always thought the streaming content was decent, even when they had to get rid of a lot of movies. It's not like movies made in the past decade are general that much of prize anyway.
I'll stay with them not because they own me, but because I really like the content. Netflix for whatever reason seems to have an HBO level eye to quality, but with much more diversity of content. HBO didn't bring back Voltron, Netflix did... and Netflix is breathing new life into all sorts of TV categories.
That said if they went too far with internal ads I would still drop it, just like any attempt to watch Hulu has been met with instant horror.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Step 1. Some visionary people build a new, great service which instantly finds a market.
Step 2. Management gets to pat themselves on the shoulders as the business rapidly grows, becoming a global brand - with the main challenge being how to scale up the company fast enough.
Step 3. There are only so many people who want/need the product on Earth, and competitors also start to appear. The fantastic growth stagnates.
Step 4. Enter crisis mode. How do we maintain our revenue growth (failing to recognize the very simple answer: you don't). At this point, new management needing to prove themselves has started to enter the company, and some of the people who enjoyed the ride to the top have cashed in. Crazy ideas start to appear.
Step 5. As the company has gradually forgotten what made the product/service great in the first place, it starts experimenting with revenue-enhancing changes to the service, changes that piece by piece remove the parts of the service that made it so attractive in the first place.
Step 6. The company gradually sinks itself by repeatedly shooting itself in its corporate feet.
Step 7. Some visionaries get together, thinking "hey, we could make a better product/service that people actually want". The form a company, and so the circle continues.
If you could turn them off they would not be 'recommendations'. They would not be, to you, anything.
And 'they' want to dominate your attention, any way they can. For instance, making damn sure you know about the other magnificence they have for you to see^H^H^H spend your time on...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I pay to watch and now I have to pay to watch ads? I like resting on my couch and binge watching without that nonsense. Boo