As someone who hated the commercials on TV, nothing felt more zen than my Netflix disc-by-mail subscription in about 2005. Not only weren’t there any ads in the content (because it was on DVDs); there wasn’t any ad text anywhere, or even any artwork on the paper sleeves. It was pure cinema. Those days are gone. There aren’t any DVDs, and Netflix’s ad business is responsible for a rapidly growing share of its revenue. If Netflix’s own claims are to be believed, its with-ads tier is seen by 250 million viewers per month . By my math, that’s about 3% of humanity, all within the 12 mostly affluent countries where Netflix serves ads, soon to be expanded to 27. Netflix also claimed around this time last year that ad-supported Netflix was reaching 94 million people—a more-than-doubling of claimed viewership. And 2025’s number was more than double its claimed viewership from May of 2024 . That would mean viewership with ads is absolutely ballooning year by year.…