When news broke at the beginning of the year that T-Mobile was preparing a major revision of its longstanding Netflix freebie for some customers, we have to admit… we were far from shocked. While that likely also applied to many of the “Un-carrier’s” impacted users, who probably saw the change coming a long time ago as Netflix kept jacking up its prices, what followed after the initial revelation was indeed surprising for everyone.
Without any warning, it appears that the Netflix “Standard with ads” plan offered for free to high-paying T-Mobile customers has also started to restrict some content. That’s right, certain movies and TV shows that are technically available on Netflix can’t actually be streamed by T-Mo subscribers even with ad support, and as insane as it sounds, that’s intended behavior on the streaming platform’s part rather than the result of some temporary glitch or error.
Of course, this is not technicallyT-Mobile‘s fault, but rather entirely Netflix’s doing, which is not stopping people from shouting in frustration at their carrier all across social media. It’s also not a new situation… and that’s part of the problem.
When T-Mobile communicated to its users that their Netflix benefit was about to be “updated” back in January, there was absolutely no mention of this “little” detail. That continued after the change took effect, and even right now no content restrictions of any sort are mentioned or detailed on Magenta’s “Netflix on Us” webpage.
For its part, Netflix is also keeping things awfully vague about the “lock icon” that sometimes appears on TV shows and movies that “aren’t available with your current plan”, so we’re afraid you’ll just have to discover for yourselves what content you can and cannot watch with ads.
Before getting too angry at T-Mobile, it’s important to remember that you’re not really paying anything for your Netflix Standard with ads subscription, which would otherwise cost you $6.99 a month. And if you simply can’t accept these compromises, you can always upgrade to a no-ads Standard or Premium streaming plan at a discount. That doesn’t make the whole thing right, but it arguably makes it a little easier to stomach.