The Ads and Ads-Nots — The Great Divider
You’ve been waiting for that special date all week and finally the big day arrives. You head to his place because he’s making you dinner. The wine, the appetizer, the main course, and the conversation are all better than expected. Not only is the night going well, it’s exceeding your wildest expectations. And made better by that Frank Ocean and xx playlist streaming through nearby speakers.
Until that commercial for a mattress store. And followed by that awful jingle for the local burger chain. Suddenly, the flow of the evening smashes into a brick wall. Just minutes ago, you were convinced this man had it all together. Where’s the ring? Now he just seems cheap. Where’s the door?
The paid subscription model used by video and music streaming services, news outlets, and satellite radio giants gives us a simple choice: Buy in or suffer the tax of endless commercials. As more media companies compete in this space, the consumer buy-in will get lower. Look at streaming services: Spotify Premium and Apple Music’s ad-free subscription both have monthly price points of $9.99, which will surely be re-assessed now that Pandora launched Pandora Premium, the company’s first on-demand streaming service which debuted this year. This cold war is good for you and me because enjoying premium content in your home will soon cost pennies a day.
So it is inevitable that the divide between those who can afford those pennies per day and those who cannot — Or just won’t — will grow wider. We first saw this during the cable revolution decades ago when entire blocks were divided up by households that afforded commercial-free movies and those that were still loyal to their rooftop rabbit ears. And we all know which house we wanted to end up in on Saturday night, right?
With the paid subscription model occupying more living space in our lives — SiriusXM in the car, Blue Apron in the kitchen, Netflix in the living room, Dollar Shave Club in the bathroom, and Headspace in the bedroom — going commercial-free will become a new barometer of status. Just as Millennials grew up in the age assuming all online content was free, so too will younger generations never grasp why they need to pause to watch an advertisement when they want to go there now.
Think about it: Hulu lets you go ad-free at $11.99 per month or go with commercials at $7.99 per month. Choosing the latter means you are forced to watch 15 commercials during a single hour-long drama. Hulu calls that “limited” because it’s fewer spots than the broadcast networks. But not that much less.
Four dollars a month, or a dollar a week. That’s the difference between an evening at home that’s enjoyable or one that is irritable every couple of minutes. The economics of ad-free subscriptions ultimately means a growing intolerance for speed bumps that commercials represent. That’s bad news for advertisers but worse news for people who can afford to go ad-free but don’t. Being judged for not getting the foam right in a whisky sour will pass. Being judged for being cheap is forever.
