Microsoft has just made a major commitment, with an executive saying it will keep Call of Duty on the PlayStation forever.
Sony has been raising objections to Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard, claiming it will give Microsoft too much control over the gaming market. Microsoft already controls one of the leading consoles, and Activision Blizzard will give it one of the leading game publishers with some of the most popular titles. Call of Duty has become the main sticking point, with Sony raising concerns that Microsoft may eventually make it an Xbox-exclusive.
Microsoft’s Phil Spencer has set the record straight, saying that “as long as there is a PlayStation out there to ship to, our intent is that we continue to ship Call of Duty on PlayStation.”
Xbox chief Phil Spencer on Call of Duty on PlayStation:
It’s unclear if the declaration will do much to assuage Sony’s fears, but Microsoft is pulling out all the stops to make sure it’s acquisition goes through. The company has even taken the unusual step of acknowledging that Sony’s PlayStation sales dwarf that of its Xbox.
Apple fans are in for a disappointment, with the company jumping on the price-raise bandwagon sweeping the tech industry.
Apple is raising prices on its popular media services, including Apple One, Apple Music, and Apple TV+, according to 9to5Mac. The price increases range from $1 to $3 per month, depending on the plan.
Apple One
Individual: $14.95 > $16.95 per month
Family: $19.95 > $22.95 per month
Premier: $29.95 > $32.95 per month
Apple Music
Individual: $9.99 > $10.99 per month
Family: $14.99 > $16.99 per month
Annual: $99 > $109 per Individual plan
Apple TV+
Monthly: $4.99 > $6.99 per month
Annual: $49.99 > $69
Apple confirmed the price changes in a statement to 9to5Mac:
The subscription prices for Apple Music, Apple TV+, and Apple One will increase beginning today. The change to Apple Music is due to an increase in licensing costs, and in turn, artists and songwriters will earn more for the streaming of their music. We also continue to add innovative features that make Apple Music the world’s best listening experience. We introduced Apple TV+ at a very low price because we started with just a few shows and movies. Three years later, Apple TV+ is home to an extensive selection of award-winning and broadly acclaimed series, feature films, documentaries, and kids and family entertainment from the world’s most creative storytellers.
The outlet says international markets will see similar raises.
Netflix has launched Profile Transfer, a way for users to move their personalized content from an existing account to a new one of their own.
Netflix has been looking for ways to improve profits as the streaming platform struggles to maintain growth. One area the company is targeting is account sharing, specifically individuals who share their accounts with others outside the home.
The company’s Profile Transfer appears to be the latest indication that a crackdown is imminent. Timi Kosztin, Product Manager, Product Innovation, outlined the change in a blog post:
People move. Families grow. Relationships end. But throughout these life changes, your Netflix experience should stay the same. Today, we’re launching Profile Transfer, a feature that lets people using your account transfer a profile — keeping the personalized recommendations, viewing history, My List, saved games, and other settings — when they start their own membership.
Netflix is clearly positioning the service as a convenient way for individuals to move their customized content to their own account when it’s no longer feasible to stay on their current account. It’s hard to imagine, however, that the feature won’t be used as the basis for Netflix forcing freeloaders to establish their own accounts.
YouTube is making it easier to find channels and creators with unique handles that will identify them.
YouTube is the leading video platform, but finding creators can sometimes be a challenge. The platform wants to address that by giving creators unique handles that will identify them and their channel:
When a creator chooses their handle, we’ll also create a matching URL (ex: youtube.com/@handle) so creators can easily direct people to their content when they’re not on YouTube. If a channel already has a personalized URL, there’s no need to update links: they’ll automatically be redirected to the new, handle-based URL to create a better, more unified presence for creators on YouTube.
The new handles will make it easier for users to mention creators in comments and help improve visibility. YouTube will begin rolling out the new feature over the next month:
Over the next month, we will notify creators when they can choose a handle for their channel. In most cases, if a channel already has a personalized URL, that will automatically become their default handle, or they can opt to change the handle for their channel as soon as the notification in YouTube Studio comes through. Because handles must be unique and every channel on YouTube will have one, we’re rolling them out gradually. The timing of when a creator will get access to the handles selection process depends on a number of factors, including overall YouTube presence, subscriber count and whether the channel is active or inactive.
T-Mobile opted to back YouTube TV (YTTV) when it ended its own TVision streaming service, but customers are being left in the cold.
Like many T-Mobile customers, I cheered the company’s entry into the TV streaming market. The magenta carrier has a well-earned reputation for putting customers first and has revolutionized the cell phone industry. Unfortunately, TVision was not meant to be, and T-Mobile announced it was shutting it down less than six months later.
T-Mobile partnered with Google to give its customers a discount on YouTube TV as an alternative to TVision. On paper, the deal looked good: one of the leading streaming platforms for a reasonable discount.
Fast forward a year and a half later, and the partnership between the two companies has resulted in an exceptionally poor experience for the consumer, a shocking departure for T-Mobile, a company that has built its brand on customer service.
There are two main ways this partnership fails, both of which I experienced after giving YTTV a try after using Sling TV exclusively since TVision’s demise. As someone who tries to use Google’s services an absolute minimum over privacy concerns, I was lured to try YTTV with a half-price offer for T-Mobile customers that were enrolled in their Magenta MAX plans and used their T-Mobile Home Internet service.
Location-Based TV
Almost immediately, I started getting warnings when watching local channels that I was not in my local area, as defined by the zip code I entered when signing up for YTTV.
I went through the steps to verify my account, but each attempt pinged my location to a city nearly 100 miles away. This wasn’t particularly surprising since using internet speed testing services often showed that city as the location of the T-Mobile servers my internet was being routed through.
Ultimately, there was no way to get my computer to properly reflect my location since it was entirely dependent on where T-Mobile was routing my traffic. I was able to get it working by using my mobile phone to verify my location, but it’s an imperfect solution. The steps must be followed for each browser you use, and it is temporary, meaning you have to periodically go through the steps to keep your location accurate.
I reached out to Twitter to get assistance from T-Mobile’s support team, and while the person I dealt with was very helpful, they were unable to fix the issue. Why? Because T-Mobile’s Home Internet does not support TV streaming services that are location-based.
Twitter exchange with T–Mobile support member
To be perfectly clear: T-Mobile partnered with a TV streaming service that offers localized channels — based on your location — knowing full well that T-Mobile Home Internet was not compatible with that service. Ironically, Sling TV works perfectly with T-Mobile Home Internet despite T-Mobile’s customer support rep saying otherwise.
What’s more, the company cannot claim that it did not intend for T-Mobile Home Internet users to use YTTV with the service since it specifically offered a half-off discount for T-Mobile Home Internet users.
To intentionally promote a service that you know is not compatible and won’t work for the very users being targeted is incredibly disappointing at best…unethical at worst.
Billing Issues and Disappearing Discounts
The second issue is disappearing discounts when YTTV is paused for any reason.
This happened to me through a combination of factors. I had YTTV set up on autopay with one of my debit cards. The card expired and I had to activate the new one.
As I mentioned earlier, I try to use Google as little as possible due to the company’s long history of not respecting user privacy. As a result, while I have a Gmail account, I don’t use it and have set up an alternative email in my Google account.
Like many people who use autopay, when it comes time to update my card I often forget exactly what services are set up on that card until I get notified. Despite having an alternate email set up, Google only sent notifications of the card’s expiration directly to my Gmail account…which I rarely if ever check.
While watching TV, I was suddenly presented with a screen saying the service had been paused until I could update my card, which I promptly did. Imagine my surprise when I was charged the full amount, rather than the half-price amount I had been paying.
After messaging and calling Google’s customer support, I was told that any pause, for any reason, canceled out any promotional deals. What’s more, because T-Mobile no longer offers the half-off discount (it abruptly ended shortly after I pointed out to T-Mobile customer support the questionable ethics involved), there was absolutely no way for me to regain the half-off discount.
Conclusion
Taken together, these two issues shine a spotlight on a major failing of T-Mobile and YouTube TV’s partnership: customer service.
A customer support failing of this magnitude is particularly disappointing as a T-Mobile customer. The company built its brand and owes its amazing turnaround to its legendary customer service. To intentionally promote a partnership with, and offer discounts for, a service that doesn’t work well for its customers is a rare but inexcusable lapse in its otherwise stellar customer service.
For Google’s part, as someone who rarely uses the company’s services, I can’t and won’t comment on whether this is in line with the customer service it normally offers.
At the same time, however, it’s not a good look for Google to be jumping at every possible opportunity to negate customers’ promotional discounts, even if they never intentionally paused or canceled their service.
Taken together, T-Mobile and Google provide a perfect example of everything that’s wrong with the current TV streaming market.
What I wouldn’t give for the old TVision. Short of that, I’d settle for T-Mobile partnering with a service that’s actually compatible with its Home Internet.
Roku has enabled Nielsen four-screen measurement across traditional TV, connected TV, mobile, and desktop.
Nielsen ratings are the gold standard for gauging the popularity of TV shows. Nielsen’s Four-Screen Ad Deduplication is a major step forward in its Nielsen One plans. Nielsen One is slated for release in December 2022 and will be a cross-media measurement platform.
“Marketers are increasingly investing in CTV to follow consumers. However, brands want consistent measurement across screens,” said Kim Gilberti, SVP, Product Management, Nielsen. “Marketers can now better evaluate CTV inventory’s unique reach and frequency in conjunction with their entire Roku buy in a comparable and comprehensive manner, and advertisers can reduce waste and help ensure that relevant ads are delivered to the right audiences across devices. This release brings us one step closer to providing comparable and deduplicated metrics across screens with Nielsen ONE.”
“We believe that all TV ads will be accountable and measurable,” said Asaf Davidov, Head of Ad Measurement and Research, Roku. “Our direct consumer relationship, our scale, and our tech all make us uniquely positioned to work with Nielsen to make measurement simpler and more accurate as marketers shift spend to TV streaming.”
Dish Network and Sling TV customers once again have access to Disney-owned channels after the two companies reached a tentative agreement.
Contract renewal negotiations between Dish Network and Disney broke down when the two companies could not come to an agreement on price. As a result, Dish and Sling TV customers lost access to t, ABC Owned Television Stations, ESPN networks, Disney channels, Freeform, FX networks, National Geographic channels, and BabyTV.
According to a statement provided to WPN, Disney and Dish have reached a “handshake” agreement that sees the channels restored, at least temporarily.
“We have reached a handshake agreement with DISH/Sling TV, which properly reflects fair market value and terms for The Walt Disney Company’s unparalleled content,” the Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution spokesperson said. “As a result, we are pleased to restore our portfolio of networks on a temporary basis while both parties work to finalize a new deal.”
Hopefully, the two companies will be able to hammer out the final terms and keep the channels available permanently.
Dish Network and its Sling TV streaming service have lost Disney-owned channels as a result of a contract dispute.
Contract disputes are an almost everyday occurrence in the TV industry, with networks and streaming services often going to the brink, or even over it, in an effort to negotiate better terms for themselves. Disney and Dish have found themselves in such a spot, with the two companies unable to reach an agreement regarding their contract renewal.
As a result, ABC Owned Television Stations, ESPN networks, Disney channels, Freeform, FX networks, National Geographic channels, and BabyTV have been dropped from Dish and Sling TV.
“After months of negotiating in good faith, DISH has declined to reach a fair, market-based agreement with us for continued distribution of our networks,” a Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution spokesperson said in a statement to WPN. “As a result, their DISH and Sling TV subscribers have lost access to our unrivaled portfolio of live sports and news plus kids, family and general entertainment programming from the ABC Owned Television Stations, the ESPN networks, the Disney-branded channels, Freeform, the FX networks, the National Geographic channels and BabyTV. The rates and terms we are seeking reflect the marketplace and have been the foundation for numerous successful deals with pay TV providers of all types and sizes across the country. We’re committed to reaching a fair resolution, and we urge DISH to work with us in order to minimize the disruption to their customers.”
It remains to be seen whether the two companies will be able to reach an agreement that will see the channels restored.
In the meantime, the situation is another example of how streaming TV is failing to deliver on its promise. Once upon a time, the concept was touted as a way for consumers to save money and pick and choose the channels they want to watch.
The reality has been far different, with increasing prices, unwanted bundles, and companies that fail to put the consumer first.
Hopefully, the situation will be resolved sooner rather than later.
After months of rumors and denials, Google is officially “winding down” its Stadia game service.
Google launched Stadia in 2019 with lofty aspirations that were never realized. In late July, rumors surfaced that Google was planning on shuttering the service toward the end of summer. Google quickly denied the rumor, even poking fun at the source of the rumor.
Despite the denials, Google announced it is shutting Stadia down. Phil Harrison, Stadia Vice President and General Manager broke the news in a blog post.
A few years ago, we also launched a consumer gaming service, Stadia. And while Stadia’s approach to streaming games for consumers was built on a strong technology foundation, it hasn’t gained the traction with users that we expected so we’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service.
Harrison says the service will remain active through January 18, 2023, to give players time to finish their open games. That will also give Google time to issue refunds to eligible players.
In the meantime, Google plans to use the technologies that helped create Stadia across other platforms and services.
The underlying technology platform that powers Stadia has been proven at scale and transcends gaming. We see clear opportunities to apply this technology across other parts of Google like YouTube, Google Play, and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts — as well as make it available to our industry partners, which aligns with where we see the future of gaming headed. We remain deeply committed to gaming, and we will continue to invest in new tools, technologies and platforms that power the success of developers, industry partners, cloud customers and creators.
Whatever the reason for Stadia’s cancellation, it isn’t going to help Google’s overall image. The company is known for launching and then unceremoniously killing off dozens of products. The company’s reputation for abandoning products is so well-established that it recently had to work to convince its cloud customers that it could be depended on long-term.
With yet another terminated product, it leaves one to wonder if Google is failing to properly investigate markets before deciding to enter them, or simply lacks the commitment to see an investment through.
Netflix is doubling down on gaming, launching its own game studio to take development in-house.
Netflix began offering mobile games in late 2021. The company had been gearing up to offer the service for months, even hiring former Electronic Arts executive Mike Verdu to head up its efforts.
The company is taking a step further with plans to launch its own internal game studio, giving the company the ability to build out its own catalog of games rather than relying exclusively on third parties.
“Today, I’m excited to announce that we are establishing an internal games studio in Helsinki, Finland, with Marko Lastikka as the studio director,” writes Amir Rahimi, VP of Game Studios. “This is another step in our vision to build a world-class games studio that will bring a variety of delightful and deeply engaging original games — with no ads and no in-app purchases — to our hundreds of millions of members around the world.”
The company chose Helsinki specifically because of the broad talent pool available there. Rahimi continues:
“Why Helsinki? It is home to some of the best game talent in the world. This will be a games studio that we build from scratch, and our second games studio in Helsinki alongside Next Games, which became part of Netflix earlier this year. Along with Night School Studio and Boss Fight Entertainment, these four studios, each with different strengths and focus areas, will develop games that will suit the diverse tastes of our members.”
Netflix clearly hopes that building its own games will help it gain a competitive advantage, and, truth be told, the company needs it. According to a recent report, roughly 99% of the company’s customers have never tried its games. Perhaps games that are more customized to its user base will gain more traction.
Napster has tapped former Roblox music chief for its new CEO as the company looks to reinvent itself and its brand.
Napster sparked a revolution at the turn of the century, bringing online music sharing mainstream. The company was a major threat to the music industry and eventually shut down under the pressure. Hivemind Capital and Algorand purchased the new Napster, born out of what was the Rhapsody streaming service, in May 2022. The new company has been working to leverage the power of Web3 as it works to reinvent Napster.
According to Forbes, the company has hired Jon Vlassopulos as CEO. Vlassopulos formerly served as Roblox VP and global head of music.
“I’ve been musing about how antisocial and unexciting streaming services were, so when I was offered one to innovate it was too much to pass it up,” he told Forbes.
“Simple things like profiles starting to become wallets for both artists and users almost overnight, without any fancy jargon,” he continued. “You log in and you see, ‘Oh I have a bunch of goodie bags in my profile.’ And based on 20 years of data we think we have a pretty good handle on what people might like and might not like.”
Only time will tell if Napster can regain its former glory, but it appears the company is pulling out all the stops to achieve it.
YouTube is stretching the limits of its users’ patience, testing up to 10 ads before a video.
A Reddit post popped up earlier this week, with users discussing the fact that YouTube is routinely displaying five or six ads at a time before a video plays. To make matters worse, the ads are unskippable, and the videos still have longer, albeit skippable, ads midway through.
According to TechViral, some users see as many as 10 ads before the start of a video.
According to a tweet by TeamYouTube, the company is experimenting with more ads but said each ad is no longer than six seconds.
hmm…this may happen with a certain type of ad format called bumper ads, since they're only up to 6 seconds long. if you'd like, you can send feedback directly from YouTube via the send feedback tool
Despite increasing regulatory scrutiny, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is “very, very confident” its Activision purchase will be approved.
Microsoft announced a deal in January to purchase Activision Blizzard for a whopping $68.7 billion, making it the biggest tech acquisition in history. The deal has come under intense scrutiny in both the US and the UK.
In spite of the potential challenges, Nadella believes Microsoft will ultimately close the deal.
“Of course, any acquisition of this size will go through scrutiny, but we feel very, very confident that we’ll come out,” he said in a Bloomberg Television interview.
Nadella is also confident Microsoft will be able to weather the current economic challenges, as well as help its customers to do the same. Nadella believes the company’s software is the key to achieving that.
“The constraints are real—inflation is definitely all around us,” he said. “I always go back to the point that in an uncertain time, in an inflationary time, software is the deflationary force.”
YouTube users smashing the “Dislike” button are likely wasting their time, according to new research from Mozilla.
YouTube, like many online platforms, provides a button for individuals to dislike content. The idea is that disliking something will fine-tune the platform’s algorithm to show the user less content of a similar nature.
Indeed, Mozilla’s research found that people who are experiencing unwanted recommendations and turn to the platform’s user controls for assistance prevent less than half of unwanted recommendations.
The issue is made even worse as a result of the type of content often found on YouTube.
This is especially troubling because Mozilla’s past research shows that YouTube recommends videos that violate its very own community guidelines, like misinformation, violent content, hate speech, and spam. For example, one user in this most recent research asked YouTube to stop recommending war footage from Ukraine — but shortly after was recommended even more grisly content from the region.
Needless to say, users don’t trust YouTube’s controls to provide them with the tailored experience they’re looking for.
“We learned that people don’t feel YouTube’s user controls are effective tools for managing the content they see,” says Becca Ricks, Senior Researcher at Mozilla. “Our research validates these experiences — the data shows that people don’t actually have much control over the YouTube algorithm.”
“Our study found that YouTube’s user controls have a negligible impact on preventing unwanted recommendations, leaving people at the mercy of YouTube’s recommender system,” adds Jesse McCrosky, data scientist with Mozilla. “As a result, YouTube continues to recommend videos that people have clearly signaled they do not want to see, including war footage and gruesome horror clips.”
YouTube is eliminating a major pain point for content creators, paving the way for them to be able to monetize videos containing licensed music.
Content creators have had to tiptoe around licensed music for years. Even something as simple as showing off video gameplay often requires creators to mute the audio to avoid running afoul of licensing issues.
YouTube is working on a solution, dubbed Creator Music, that will allow creators to buy licensed music for use in their videos. Creators will also be able to monetize those videos. Best of all, creators will have a choice whether to pay upfront or split revenue from their videos with the artist behind the music.
We’re introducing Creator Music, a new destination in YouTube Studio that gives YouTube creators easy access to an ever-growing catalog of music for use in their long-form videos. Creators can now buy affordable, high-quality music licenses that offer them full monetizing potential—they will keep the same revenue share they’d usually make on videos without any music.
And for creators who don’t want to buy a license up front, they’ll be able to use songs and share revenue with the track’s artist and associated rights holders. Creator Music, currently in beta in the US and expanding to more countries in 2023, will offer a streamlined process for creators—they’ll be able to instantly see the terms for their song selection.
The new feature will be a welcome improvement for content creators, giving them more freedom and flexibility than they have previously enjoyed.
DirecTV users were up in arms after the streaming service dropped the ball again on NFL Sunday Ticket.
For the second week in a row, DirecTV users lost access to the NFL games they are paying to watch. The company confirmed the issue after a flurry of tweets from angry users.
“We’re aware customers are temporarily unable to stream NFL Sunday Ticket through the app, and will share more when we restore the programming.”
Roughly an hour later, the company tweeted the issue was fixed and that it would continue to monitor it:
"Today’s NFL Sunday Ticket games have returned for streaming. We will continue to monitor, apologize for the inconvenience and thank our customers for their patience."
Only time will tell if the issue is fixed for good. If not, the company is going to have major issues on its hands if its users can’t access the games they’re paying for.
YouTube TV announced that Apple TV and Fire TV users can now enjoy Dolby 5.1 surround sound with compatible content.
YouTube TV is one of the most popular streaming TV services, but has not supported surround sound. After announcing support a year ago, and bringing the feature to Roku and its own Google TV devices in June, YouTube TV has finally added support for the Apple TV and Fire TV.
The company made the announcement in a tweet:
5.1 Audio Update! 🔈🔉🔊 We now support 5.1 audio on Apple TV & Fire TV devices for compatible YouTube TV content (live, DVR, & video on-demand).
If you’re a game console user, we’re working on getting this available to you as soon as possible, and will share live updates here. pic.twitter.com/8Pmxrt1WqU
Microsoft’s plans to purchase Activision Blizzard are facing pushback, with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) challenging the deal.
Microsoft announced its plans to purchase Activision Blizzard in early January for a whopping $68.7 billion, making it one of the biggest tech deals in history. Microsoft has been purchasing game studios as a way to help it compete in the burgeoning metaverse. Since Microsoft is one of the top three console makers, however, the CMA has concerns the purchase could harm competition and consumers, concerns it outlined in a press release:
The CMA has also received evidence about the potential impact of combining Activision Blizzard with Microsoft’s broader ecosystem. Microsoft already has a leading gaming console (Xbox), a leading cloud platform (Azure), and the leading PC operating system (Windows OS), all of which could be important to its success in cloud gaming. The CMA is concerned that Microsoft could leverage Activision Blizzard’s games together with Microsoft’s strength across console, cloud, and PC operating systems to damage competition in the nascent market for cloud gaming services.
The CMA’s investigation has been a Phase 1 investigation until now. After discovering valid reasons for concern, the investigation will move to Phase 2:
At Phase 2, the CMA appoints an independent panel to examine the deal in more depth and evaluate whether it is more likely than not that a substantial lessening of competition will occur as a result of the merger – a higher threshold than Phase 1. It typically builds on the work and evidence from Phase 1 with more third-party engagement via requests for information and use of its statutory powers in gathering internal documents. At Phase 2, the CMA will also carry out further in-depth review of the merging parties’ internal documents which show how they view competition and the market.
Legislators and regulators around the world have been cracking down on Big Tech acquisitions and mergers. If the US or the UK torpedo the Microsoft/Activision deal, it will send a clear signal to tech companies about the current state of affairs.
As Netflix rolls out an ad-supported tier, the company has poached a top exec from Snap to take the lead.
Jeremi Gorman was Snap’s Chief Business Officer and ran the platform’s ad business. According to The Verge, Gorman is leaving Snap to help run Netflix’s ad-based endeavors.
“Jeremi’s deep experience in running ad businesses and Peter’s background in leading ad sales teams together will be key as we expand membership options for consumers through a new ad-supported offering,” Netflix COO Greg Peters said in a statement.
Netflix was long-rumored to be working on an ad-supported plan as the company looked to revive its subscriber growth. The company reported its first subscriber loss in nearly a decade in 2022, adding further impetus to the need for a cheaper, ad-supported plan.
“Microsoft has the proven ability to support all our advertising needs as we work together to build a new ad-supported offering,” Peters wrote at the time. “More importantly, Microsoft offered the flexibility to innovate over time on both the technology and sales side, as well as strong privacy protections for our members.”
With the hiring of Gorman, Netflix’s plans are coming into focus more and more.
YouTube TV (YTTV) may be on the verge of gaining one of fuboTV’s biggest advantages, a feature that will allow multiple simultaneous livestreams.
According to Protocol, YTTV is working on “Mosaic Mode,” a feature that will allow up to four simultaneous livestreams. The feature is designed to appeal to sports fans, giving them the ability to watch multiple games or events at the same time.
Rival fuboTV is currently one of the only streaming services that offer a similar feature. The service is geared toward sports fans, but has struggled over the last couple of years to deliver on that promise. For example, fuboTV lost the Turner family of channels, including both TBS and TNT, two channels that many sports fans consider must-haves.
With YTTV preparing to duplicate fuboTV’s signature feature, the latter service may lose what competitive advantage it had — even among its core market.
Netflix is working to roll out an ad-supported plan, but it will come with a major limitation: no downloads.
Netflix announced it would roll out an ad-supported plan as the streaming platform struggles to continue growing its subscriber base. The company partnered with Microsoft to help it develop the necessary infrastructure and provide ongoing assistance.
According to Bloomberg, however, the new plan will not allow users to download shows or movies. The revelation came via developer Steve Moser, who discovered the following statement in code hidden in the new iPhone app:
“Downloads available on all plans except Netflix with ads.”
The news is sure to disappoint users looking forward to the free plan, but it’s not entirely unexpected.
