Netflix's intention to introduce advertising into its services was announced back in April as part of a plan to recover from a disastrous first quarter. The loss of 200,000 subscribers that occurred between January and March of this year, in addition to causing a drastic drop on the stock market, in fact induced the company to intervene to prevent the sharing of the password of the same subscription and forced it to lay off 150 employees to reduce their costs. Obviously, Netflix’s user base cannot grow indefinitely, but forecasts for the first quarter of 2022 estimate the loss of another two million subscribers in the near future, and the company is therefore working to maintain them. After expanding its gaming offering, the company hopes that introducing a cheaper plan, albeit with advertising, will induce more people to subscribe.
The cost of the new subscription plan has not yet been revealed, but the company has clarified that the current plans, namely the basic at 7.99 euros per month, the standard at 12.99, and the premium at 17.99, will remain unchanged. The advertising service will simply be an additional option. Microsoft CEO Mikhail Parakin said he was "enthusiastic" about the plan's involvement, also wishing to specify that "the announcement supports Microsoft's approach to privacy, built to protect consumer data".