20 Things You Didn't Know About Netflix
6. The Reason Why They Don't Use Adverts
One of the very best things about Netflix, from a viewer's perspective, is the lack of adverts.
Honestly, it would be pretty simple for the company to just slot in a ten second ad-break in-between each episode of their original shows (or even add a free subscription tier that's supported by ads), and it's hard to imagine that it would ruin the user experience too much, but so far, they've resisted the temptation.
Now, it might seem like an odd decision to leave so much potential cash on the table, especially for such a big company. But their reasoning for not including adverts is actually quite interesting: they want to collect as little of your data as possible.
In a recent earnings call, CEO Reed Hastings explained that he wanted to keep Netflix's business model "focused on streaming and customer pleasure", and that, to implement ads, they would have to track more data about their subscribers, which isn't something he wants to do - "exploiting users", he called it.
It's hard to say if Netflix will stay ad-free in perpetuity (with the streaming wars heating up, revenue is going to be further divided up between all the competitors), but for now, we don't have anything to worry about in this regard.