If you were an adult back in 2012, you may remember when Netflix seemed like the most amazing value. Back then, £5.99 a month got me a huge library of films and shows, with no ads, no contract and no need for a satellite dish. It felt amazing. It felt like the future had arrived.
In 2026, though, it feels different. Following the latest UK price hike, Netflix’s cheapest ad-free plan costs £13.99 a month, and Premium costs £20.99.
But if Netflix were worried they'd take some heat, then Disney+ has done them a favour. Last month, it updated its UK subscriber agreement to say all its tiers “may include” promotional content, sponsorships and “advertisements before/after playback”.
Disney insists that ad-free subscribers aren't going to suddenly see traditional ads interrupting films and shows. But it seems pretty clear we're heading in that direction eventually.
How did we get here?
It's not that long ago that any ads on paid-for streaming seemed like a distant dream. It was only in November 2022 that Netflix launched its first ad-supported plan in the UK for £4.99 a month, pitching it as a budget option to offer people "more choice". Then in 2023, it stopped offering its cheapest ad-free plan to new UK subscribers, so the entry price for ad-free viewing jumped up a bit.
Meanwhile, in February 2024, Amazon Prime Video started showing ads to everyone by default, and charged £2.99 a month extra to switch them off. Disney+ followed suit with its own ad tier that November.
Spotted the pattern yet? Ads arrive as a cheap option, offering "choice". Then once people are used to the idea, the gap between cheap and ad-free widens, until ad-free starts to feel like a luxury. Even the cheap option doesn’t stay cheap for long: Netflix’s ad tier has just gone up a third already, from £5.99 to £7.99.
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None of this is because streaming bosses hate us. It’s just maths. For years, streaming was all about subscriber growth, and investors were happy to carry big losses as long as the numbers kept going up.
Then in 2022, Netflix reported its first downturn in subscribers for a decade, and Wall Street changed its mind. Since then, profit has mattered more than growth.
Trouble is, most people who want a streaming service already have it, so the companies have to make more money from each viewer instead. They can do that in two ways: raise the price, or sell ads. An ad tier lets a streamer do both.
So where has all this brought us to? Several monthly subscriptions, live sport with ad breaks, ads before shows, and streamers sold to us in bundles by Sky and Virgin Media. Similarly, in the US, Disney now sells Disney+, Hulu and Max together in a single package.
We thought we'd seen the end of the cable or satellite TV package. We've just reinvented them on the internet instead. We thought streaming had freed us from expense, ads and hassle. We thought wrong.
Remember, though, we still have one weapon that cable and satellite customers never did. In the old days, cancelling was an old and cumbersome process. With streaming, cancelling takes about 30 seconds. And there are now plenty of free ad-supported services to take the place of the ones you've been paying for.
That's worth bearing in mind, next time you pull up that streaming interface on your TV, yet still can't find anything to watch.
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Tom May is an award-winning journalist specialising in art, design, photography and technology. He is the author of the books The 50 Greatest Designers (Arcturus) and Great TED Talks: Creativity (Pavilion). Tom was previously editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine.