Netflix added an ad-supported tier because platforms at massive scale need advertising revenue to satisfy shareholders. Amazon, DoorDash, and Instacart all became ad networks too. It's not great for users, but the math is unavoidable.
So Netflix is becoming an ad network, but did you know that everything eventually becomes an ad network? Now the argument here is that as you grow an audience, you can then monetize that audience by selling ads to them. It's not the most ideal thing, but if you have a lot of volume, it makes a lot of sense. So for example, we mentioned that Netflix has now become an ad network. Amazon became an ad network over time. DoorDash became an ad network as well. You see they sell ads on the site. Instacart also sells ads as well. And so over time, when you look at a lot of these large platforms, they have to think about other ways to monetize because they have to also please their shareholders as well. So again, even though ads aren't ideal, eventually almost everything becomes an ad network if it has enough scale.
