Skip to main content

Netflix

See All Stories

Netflix members with older subscriptions might get cut off if they don’t update

netflix

Update (Feb. 27 at 5:53 p.m. ET): Netflix says that this change impacts subscribers of the Basic plan in certain countries, including the United States and Canada.

Netflix is severing ties with Apple’s App Store billing system for good. Netflix stopped allowing new and rejoining subscribers to sign up with App Store billing back in 2018, but Netflix subscribers who were paying through Apple at the time were allowed to continue doing so. Now, that’s finally about to change.

Expand Expanding Close

Vision Pro apps: Why some big brands have actively opted out

Vision Pro apps | Apple promo image on a plane

With pre-orders open, we know which of Apple’s Vision Pro apps will be pre-installed – but we also know some major third-party apps have no current plans to support the device.

While there’s still time for things to change, it’s already clear that some developers have made a deliberate decision to stay off Vision Pro, going so far as to block their iPad apps from running. That’s likely for three reasons …

Expand Expanding Close

Streaming TV services may be struggling with attention as well as subscription costs

Streaming TV services | Apple TV apps shown on modern flatscreen

A report yesterday revealed that a set of popular streaming TV services can now cost more than traditional cable TV packages.

It pointed out that subscription costs have risen dramatically, which creates an obvious risk of people cutting back on the number of services. But I think there’s a second issue, too, and that’s the competition for attention …

Expand Expanding Close

Netflix is silently killing its basic plan without ads

Netflix subscription plans down

Netflix last year introduced a cheaper ad-based plan in an attempt to attract more subscribers, as people had been abandoning the platform due to the cost of regular plans. Even so, the company still offers a basic plan without ads – but that may not last long. In Canada, Netflix has now quietly killed this tier, forcing users to subscribe to the ad-based plan or pay more for higher tiers.

Expand Expanding Close

Netflix kills DVD-in-the-mail business, upgrades ad-supported plan from 720p

The newsiest part of this story may be that Netflix has continued to mail DVDs to customers as a subscription service. The development, however, is that the company is officially ending the red-envelope-in-the-mail part of its business.

Physical media from Netflix was such a relic in 2011 that company leadership proposed rebranding the DVD rentals to Qwikster. The Twitter handle @qwikster was occupied by a random dude at the time who had no intentions of letting it go. Qwikster lost a million subscribers over the weird name and a price increase, and the branding plan from another planet was canceled.

Still, the service that was the origin of Netflix lived on for another dozen years. Eventually “DVD.com, a Netflix company” was born.

To recap, Netflix killed Blockbuster with its no due dates or late fees DVD business, then Netflix killed its own movie rental business, and now the remnants of what kickstarted Netflix as we know it today have now gone.

Expand Expanding Close