Netflix is no longer releasing its subscriber figures, choosing instead to put its focus on revenue and income, as it experiments with different revenue models like advertising and with the price of subscriptions in different markets remaining somewhat variable.
Remember that enshittification (defined briefly) describes the shift between making users happy (to acquire them) and doing things to them to monetize them. Why would Netflix shift their publicly stated measure of success from "subscriber figures" to "revenue and income"? Because they're making that shift between delighting their users to acquire and retain them and, now that they're somewhat captive, wringing all the money they can from them. Their new metrics are about measuring what they now care most about—and that is not delighting users.
“We recorded our best ad sales quarter ever. We’re now on track to more than double ad revenue this year,” Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters told analysts during an after-market call. He added the company doubled its U.S. Upfront commitments stretching into 2026, and Netflix is driving additional growth in programmatic advertising sales as the streamer offered more ways to buy advertising and measure outcomes.
No one really likes ads. Sure, they might like the occasional creative one, or tolerate them to get a lower cost for something, especially when the ads aren't all that egregious. But as Netflix (and others) need to raise that revenue number, you can bet that the deal will, as Darth Vader put it, get "altered". They're saying as much right now:
“In Q4, we are using AI to test new ad formats, to generate the most relevant ad creative and placement for members, and for faster development of media plans,” the company wrote in its letter. “With these advancements, we’ll be able to test, iterate and innovate on dozens of ad formats by 2026.”
Prepare to be the slowly boiled frog. Ads will continue to get worse even as prices continue to rise.