Netflix Australia Are Scrapping Their Basic Plan

In some terrible news for all of us already struggling in this dumpster fire of an economy, Netflix Australia has announced its plans to nix its Basic streaming plan.

The change was announced in a letter to shareholders yesterday (Oct. 19), where they revealed the $10.99 a month plan would be “phased out” for new and returning users (current users will not be required to get a new plan).

“This growth has been driven by improvements to our offering — including two streams, higher quality video and a programming slate that’s now essentially on par with our other plans— as well as the phasing out of our Basic plan for new and rejoining members in the US, the UK, Italy and Canada,” Netflix said.

“This change boosted adoption of our ads and Standard plans, and we’ll be making the same change in Germany, Spain, Japan, Mexico, Australia and Brazil next week.”

They added, “Going forward, we’ll continue to improve the feature set, for example, next month we’re introducing downloads, while also working to include the ads plan in device and ISP partner bundles.”

In a statement to TVBlackBox, Netflix said the change would be taking place within the next few days: “From 23 October, we’re updating our plans in Germany, Spain, Japan, Mexico, Australia and Brazil so that new members, rejoiners, and existing members looking to switch plans, will have the choice of our Ads plan, as well as our ads free Standard and Premium plans.”

The Standard plan is AUD$16.99 per month and allows downloading and full HD viewing experiences, while the Standard with ads is $6.99 per month.

The news comes following Netflix announcing their global crackdown on password sharing in May this year, with the streaming giants complaining that more than 100 million households were sharing accounts.

The controversial move was followed by a decline in Netflix Australia’s subscribers — a first since 2015.