According to an article a few days ago in the Australian online newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald, Netflix has reportedly decided not to accept crypto themed ads.
While documentaries about Bitcoin and TV series mentioning crypto, including those produced by Netflix, are flourishing, the streaming giant has stated that it cannot accept ads on its platform that sponsor cryptocurrencies in any way.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Netflix has reportedly decided to accept only customers from the service’s country and nothing about politics, gambling, crypto or anything that targets children. Pharmaceuticals will probably also be excluded.
Crypto themed documentaries on Netflix
In addition to several documentaries specifically about Bitcoin such as “Banking on Bitcoin” or the documentary on the QuadrigaCX exchange case, almost every TV series and movie on Netflix now mentions crypto in some way.
Whether it is a short sketch or a small mention of Bitcoin, more and more Netflix products are seeing the presence of cryptocurrencies.
Even the Elon Musk documentary obviously mentions Dogecoin and cryptocurrencies.
In short, although these technologies can be freely talked about on Netflix, the company has decided not to give crypto companies a chance to advertise. Probably so as not to run into fraud, scams, or even just to avoid the solicitation of public savings.
The agreement with Google for ads
To manage these ads, Netflix is reportedly in discussions with Google through the Ad Manager platform, which provides online advertising services already for Disney Plus.
However, Google is still accepting crypto ads so perhaps Netflix will put an extra filter on Google‘s ads.
Does Netflix really want to invest in Bitcoin?
This news probably dismisses the rumor that Netflix wanted to invest in Bitcoin. First circulated last March, the rumor came from an interview with Tim Draper.
During an episode of “The Unstoppable Podcast” titled “Building in a Freer World on Blockchain”, the well-known investor had responded to a question from Unstoppable Domains co-founder and CEO Matthew Gould by saying that Netflix could be the next Fortune 500 company to add Bitcoin to its balance sheet.
Social media versus crypto-themed ads
That is indeed what not only Netflix but dozens of social media platforms have done so far, starting with Mailchimp. The popular service for sending newsletters has been banning crypto, airdrop or ICO-themed content since 2017.
The same goes for Facebook, which while launching projects in the metaverse, nonetheless does not want people exploiting the platform to sponsor crypto or NFTs. Even on Twitter it is increasingly difficult to do this kind of advertising, the same goes for Instagram.
Even Medium has frequently in the past banned articles and shut down entire blogs that talked about crypto and airdrops.
Netflix and ads with a new, more affordable subscription price
The company has now confirmed that it will add the option of having a lower-cost account but with commercials that cannot be skipped.
The news was reportedly confirmed just today by The Guardian, which revealed that the low-cost subscriptions with adv are expected to start taking off in November, without waiting for the initial target date of 2023.
This new pricing plan for Netflix is expected to start in the United States, France, Germany, Australia, and Canada with a price tag between $7 and $9, as currently the basic subscription costs around $10 instead.
It appears that this pricing plan would be in addition to the current ones, meaning that those who have subscribed to a plan today will continue to have that one, without ads.
In any case, a Netflix spokesperson said the company has not yet made any decisions.
“We are still in the early days of deciding how to launch a lower priced, ad-supported option and no decisions have been made. So this is all just speculation at this point.”
Netflix declines between stocks and subscriptions
In early 2022, subscriptions on Netflix were already starting to decline, probably due to the end of Covid-19, the spread of competing platforms, and the ongoing economic crisis. That is why, at the beginning of the year, JP Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth had lowered user estimates for the first quarter of 2022 from 6.5 million to 5.5 million, and also lowered the target price from $750 to $725 per share.
In April, the stock had started to fall in value, reaching 20 April when at the opening, the stock on the New York Stock Exchange lost 38% and then closed with a slightly better -35% in a single day.
This crisis led Netflix to decide on cheaper subscriptions justifying the lower cost by introducing advertisements.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/09/06/netflix-yes-documentaries-no-cryptoads/