Disney+ reportedly considering launching free plan, streaming platform strives for advertising customers

Free plans may be one way Hollywood studios increasingly view YouTube as a major competitor. According to reports, streaming platforms such as Disney+ and Paramount+ are considering adding free plans in the hope of building audiences, increasing advertising revenue, and attracting users to upgrade to paid subscriptions. Free plans become breakout strategy Reports indicate that Disney and Paramount Skydance are studying adding free plans to subscription services to build an audience, increase advertising revenue, and convert interested new users into paying customers. Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters also said in mid-July that a free plan might make sense in some markets. Free content attracts upgrades. Adam Smith, Disney’s chief product and technology director, reportedly spoke about opening up free program content at an all-hands meeting of the streaming department. The move is aimed at broadening the service's reach by removing friction from Disney+'s paywall, making it easier for Disney to sell paid subscriptions to viewers once they already use the app regularly. The pressure on audio-visual platforms is increasing. Paramount has similar ideas. Its flagship streaming platform plans to allow users without subscriptions to watch more movies and shows. Netflix's remarks about the free plan are currently only for markets outside the United States. Whether it will change in the future still depends on the performance of other streaming platforms' free plans. Each streaming platform seems to be driven to some extent by YouTube's rising user engagement and market share; Disney+ had earlier planned to introduce user-generated content similar to YouTube for free, but with the termination of Sora-related plans and the termination of Disney's cooperation with OpenAI, the future of these plans has become unclear.