While Netflix may be the biggest streaming entertainment platform around the world outside of YouTube’s dominance, that doesn’t exactly make it the best streaming service out there. And a certain group of customers with Netflix subscriptions have a new reason to complain after the company revealed it will be excising its standard Basic tier from in the very near future for more countries around the world. And as one might imagine, the subscribers in those countries aren’t exactly pumped to learn they’ll need to pay more to get everything coming to Netflix in 2024.
Netflix sent out notification emails in the final days of April 2024 to international customers located in the UK and Canada, alerting them to the news that the Basic subscription plan will be removed as a pricing option starting on June 4. Anyone who hasn’t canceled their account by that time will automatically be slotted into the Standard with Ads tier, and will be charged as such on the next billing cycle. It’s not the first time Netflix went public with those plans, which were first announced in Summer 2023, but that doesn’t exactly lessen the blow for customers like these.
Netflix Customers Vowing To Cancel Plans
As it often goes with impulse responses to corporations changing things, quite a few people were quick to call Netflix out by saying they won't be sticking with the service after the plan tiers change.
@Netflix_CA Just got your notice that the basic plan will no longer be available. Bye bye. pic.twitter.com/CfaJDk9g7AApril 29, 2024
The user below took to X to point out the quasi-irony of Netflix's message claiming to value customers in the same breath as announcing the removal of the Basic plan.
Netflix is so glad to have me as a member that they’re cancelling my basic plan and upping the cost to $16.99 if I want to continue. Yeah, not happening.
@browland1
While many are raging out just based on pure principles, the math involved with the plan alteration has also caused confusion, and the X user below would clearly rather just get rid of Netflix than try to figure out its formulas.
@Netflix How can I put this simply?Oh yeah: Fuck you for pretending like you're "saving" me 35% by eliminating the basic plan and forcing me to either watch adverts or pay 2x as much. I'll just unsubscribe, thanks.
@squall_loire
While the messages above serve as a decent indication for how many people responded, angry-quitting wasn't the only way to go about it.
Customers Called Netflix Out For Thievery
Not everybody who slammed Netflix for the Basic plan decision was so open about their own subscription goals for the future. Several customers took aim at the company's tactics for being greed-fueled and motivated only by money.
- Your Basic plan is being discontinued, and your new £4.99 Standard with adverts plan automatically begins 1 June.’I’m sorry @netflix??? I don’t want adverts!!! And £10.99 for none is daylight robbery! - @darryllbryant
- Netflix getting rid of their basic plan and only giving you the option of cheaper but with adverts or £10.99 a month without is honestly daylight robbery - @hollydotray
- not netflix discontinuing my basic plan. so it’s either i pay 4.99 for ads or they swindle 10.99 from me for a standard plan LOL fucking thieves - @toni_aa
Despite years of saying the service would avoid all forms of advertising, Netflix execs went back on those words by introducing its ad-based tier in 2022. And its popularity is apparently such that the head honchos are presumably okay with all the threats and negative backlash without worrying about a dire drop in income. After all, the company removed the Basic plan in the U.S. in 2023, and while there was a possible dip in subscriber growth around the time, it doesn't seem to have made a long term dent.
Some Netflix Customers Don't Understand The Decision
While one might assume that every response to the news was purely vitriolic, some customers were more about questioning the logic and intentions behind the decision. Albeit with at least a little bit of anger threaded into it.
- Netflix just sent me a notice to change streaming plans. If I go with the Standard with Ads it provides better features for 40% less than Basic which they are canning. Standard is outrageous. Premium is laughable. They want us on ads. Everything is becoming cable TV. - @PaulChato
- Why is Netflix taking away the basic plan… but keeping the standard with ads? The $4 difference wasn’t enough to cover the ads these ppl making these decisions don’t have sense at all - @_misszee
- @Netflix_CA with the discontinued basic plan, the price is a 65% increase if I don't want ads... for essentially the same thing. I hope you lose a lot of subscribers over this. - @bc_bro
It remains to be seen whether or not this move will have a major impact on Netflix's overall subscriber base. And it may never actually be seen, since the company announced that it would not be openly reporting on its customer numbers going forward. Was that report tied to any expectations of a subscription drop after this tier removal? It's impossible to know, but wouldn't be the wildest thing in the world.
Until Netflix goes forward with its plan to eliminate the Basic tier in the UK and Canada on June 4, there are plenty of shows to binge in the meantime, such as Baby Reindeer, which even Stephen King has been obsessed with.
