As streaming services continue to raise their subscription prices, one solution offered by some services is to have cheaper paid plans with ads. While this is an excellent way to reduce the cost of streaming, I won’t pay for a streaming service with ads for these reasons.
1 Paying for Premium Should Mean Premium
Paying for a streaming service means I’m paying for a premium service. I expect to get premium perks like limitless access to content in the library and an uninterrupted experience. Having ads included in a paid plan defeats the point of having me pay for the service when the company could have just made it free with ads.
Additionally, paying for a streaming plan with ads means I’m paying twice for the service. First, I’m paying for the subscription plan and, secondly, through my time and attention by watching the ads. A premium plan shouldn’t be this way.
2 Ads Interrupt the Viewing Experience
It’s no secret that ads interrupt the user experience on any product or service. That’s why many have embraced blocking techniques to keep the ads at bay. Having an ad-free experience is one of the main reasons that paid streaming services are better than free alternatives.
By paying the monthly subscription fee, I expected an ad-free experience. Otherwise, I would opt for many of the free movie streaming services that allow me to watch content for free with ads placed between the content.
3 Limited Differentiation From Free Services
Just as the saying goes, if the service is free, you are the product. This is the business model of free services, which make users the product by collecting data and using it to offer personalized ads. If I pay for a product, my data shouldn’t be collected for ads. Paying for a subscription should eliminate ads, as this is a crucial differentiator from free services. I can’t pay for a service and then still get ads.
4 Streaming Was Meant to Break Free From Ads
When streaming services debuted, they were advertised as an escape from expensive cable filled with commercials. Streaming allows users to pay a low monthly fee in exchange for accessing many movies and TV shows at any time and without ads. Unfortunately, as more platforms introduce ads in paid subscription tiers, it feels like we’ve come full circle.
Streaming wasn’t meant to be this way. Of course, the bright side of paid plans with ads is the lower subscription fee. However, it undermines the very concept that streaming services wanted to break from.
5 Better Alternatives Exist
I would only pay for streaming services with ads if they were the only option. However, they aren’t the only game in town, thanks to the power of the internet. Even better, there are better alternatives that I can use, both free and paid. Apple TV+ is an excellent example of a completely ad-free streaming service. You pay one fixed monthly price and enjoy the entire library without limitations. Aside from Apple TV+, there are many other streaming services that don’t have ads.
If such services are expensive, or I want to save money on my online subscriptions, free options exist that offer content for free with ads, like Pluto TV. Sure, ads are disruptive, but watching ads in exchange for free access to content is a fair trade to me. With these two options, there’s no reason to pay for a service that displays ads.
More and more streaming services are offering paid plans with ads, but I refuse to pay for such services. Paying for a subscription plan with ads feels like a double charge, and it goes against the very concept that streaming services wanted to revolutionize. Better yet, there are better alternatives that I can use, and as long as that stays true, I won’t accept this emerging trend in streaming.
