Netflix users may find some disappointing news when they launch the service today. The video streaming giant is now testing video ads which play in the time between two episodes of a show.
The discovery was made by a Reddit user - whose comment has interestingly been removed since - and many others chimed in to confirm the sightings. In a statement to Cordcuttersnews.com, Netflix confirmed that it is indeed showing recommended content in between episodes, but says that they can be skipped, which differs from what was reported in the Reddit post above:
"(...) we are testing whether surfacing recommendations between episodes helps members discover stories they will enjoy faster. It is important to note that a member is able to skip a video preview at anytime if they are not interested."
Despite the ability to skip these video previews at any time, users are still not too happy about the test. This is only natural seeing as Netflix is a paid service to begin with, which many people relied on precisely to avoid this kind of unwanted content. As the company states, this is only a test for now, and customers can hope that the backlash in reponse to the experiment means that it won't get past that.
This isn't the first time Netflix has made decisions that seem to do more harm than good for its users in recent times. Back in July, the streaming service was found to be testing a new, more expensive tier that would pare down the number of simultaneous streams allowed on some of the currently existing tiers, though those changes haven't been implemented so far.
Source: Reddit, Cord Cutters News via Mashable
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