While the idea of an ad-supported Netflix subscription might seem interesting to those of you—Netflix presents it as ‘everything people love about Netflix at a lower price—the amount of ads being shown may be enough to put off potential customers. For starters, the ads will each be 15 to 30 seconds in length, and will be shown not just before you start watching but also during the show itself. Netflix will also be showing ‘between four to five minutes of ads’ every hour.
Furthermore, the Basic with Ads plan will have a number of other restrictions. While you’re still limited to streaming on just one supported device at a time like the regular, ad-free Basic plan, Netflix says that ‘some’ movies and TV shows will be unavailable due to licensing restrictions. There’s also no ability to download titles, and you’re limited to video quality of up to 720p only.
There’s so far no information on whether or not Netflix plans to bring Basic with Ads to our region, but Peters does mention that they’re already looking forward to launching Basic with Ads in other countries over time. If they do launch Basic with Ads in Malaysia though, it would have to be quite a bit cheaper than the current cheapest plan offered by Netflix Malaysia, which is the Mobile plan.