REPORT: 60% of Netflix Subscribers Would Rather Pay More Than See Ads

| January 10, 2017 | Netflix, Top Picks | No Comments

Netflix subscribers have enjoyed streaming thousands of movies and TV shows commercial free for almost 10 years now. It’s one of the biggest draws to the service, that for about $11 a month, you can get plenty of entertainment without having to deal with the increasing number of television ads seen on standard television broadcasts.

We’ve reported on a few interesting metrics around this, that Netflix saves us all from about 130 hours of commercials a year, and even more interestingly, saves our children from about 150 hours of commercials a year.

But Netflix saw a bit of backlash this year over a price increase, paired alongside a declining library size as the service aims to be more HBO-like in its offerings of original content, but less overall total titles. Rumors have also spread that Netflix might consider advertising, but the service was quick to squash these rumors, at least for the time being.

We wanted to dive in a little deeper though, and see if Netflix subscribers would prefer another price increase, or if they’d prefer to start seeing commercials on the service to subsidize the cost of new content.

We polled 784 people, here are the results:

  • 59% of people said they would prefer to pay more for Netflix than see advertisements.
  • 41% of people said they would prefer advertisements instead of paying more for Netflix.

Age matters…

Age was the biggest divider here on the graph, as older audiences seemed way more willing to tolerate commercials, while younger audiences were far more likely to want to pay more instead of dealing with ads.

  • Ages 18-34 strongly preferred the option of paying more for Netflix, 65%-35%
  • Ages 55+ was much more equal, with a split closer to 50% preferring ads, 50% preferring to pay more.

This makes a lot of sense, as those who have been watching commercials their entire lives probably don’t have as much of a problem with them, especially when compared to younger audiences. Many young people have grown up with Netflix as their main entertainment, so to switch back to advertisements is probably an unlikely outcome.

What about you? Would you prefer to pay more for Netflix or would you be willing to deal with ads?