It appears that Netflix may be introducing an advertisement sponsored tier to their subscription options shortly.
This new tier is rumoured to be scheduled for introduction at the end of 2022 and is in response to the mass subscriber losses suffered by Netflix that were recently reported by Variety, which believes another larger wave of subscribers will be pulling the plug.
Hopefully this will be done in an unobtrusive manner, by adding unanimated adverts to the main page, when one browses the titles, and on those reminders that ask you if you want to keep watching. But I suspect they will add adverts prior to the film, halfway in the film, and during the end credits, which could annoy some people if they’re more than 30 second long and run over bonus content.
If a 30 second advert ran in-between the episodes of a series, i’d be fine with that. But I don’t think I would personally like the momentum of an episode interrupted halfway, especially when the episode is 45 minutes or less.
Another option would be clickable adverts, placed strategically in the menus, with special offer coupons exclusive to Netflix that would appear on the screen prior to a film or episode. I wouldn’t mind those running on my paid subscription.
Basically they’re going to need to thread softly and consult with their customers, especially if they’re going to ask for people to both pay for a subscription and still be subjected to adverts.