Netflix pulls basic ad-free tier in select territories

Netflix has been undergoing a lot of changes in the last year or so, with the introduction of a cheaper tier with adverts, as well as the widespread crackdown on password sharing. Now though, it’s been confirmed that the streaming giant is phasing out the Basic tier in Canada, for some reason.

As reported by the Winnipeg Free Press, the Basic tier is already missing in Canada for those who weren’t subscribed to it, and Netflix has confirmed that the tier will be gone even for existing subscribers “in the near future”. This unfortunately removes a middle ground option for those who don’t want to sit through adverts while watching their favourite shows, but equally don’t want to pay an extra amount of money per month to watch on multiple devices when they weren't doing so already.

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In Canada, the soon-to-be-defunct Basic tier costs $9.99 (CAD) per month. This costs significantly less than the Standard tier, which is now the country’s cheapest option to watch Netflix without ads at $16.49 (CAD) per month. The ad-supported tier is $5.99 (CAD) per month, which thankfully means that there is still a less expensive option available for users, but there’s no doubt that it could be a rough change for those who’ve been used to watching content ad-free.

As IGN writes, it’s not clear at this point if this change will eventually be rolled out in any other territories. Previously, Netflix slowly introduced its password-sharing crackdown into multiple countries before it began enforcing the rules elsewhere, so it wouldn’t be out of the way for the company to take a similar approach here to test the waters. However, at this point, that’s pure speculation - we’ll have to wait and see what happens.