Bad new for all those folks coasting on that free trial of Netflix with a copious amount of email addresses. It looks like you’ll have to go legit or get out as Netflix is tired of folks watching what they want for free and then ditching the service completely. It is pretty lame that they’re removing the option completely but it does make sense from a business perspective. Never fear though, as you’ll still be able to access some Netflix shows for free… just not the entire service which, we’ll all agree, stings if you’re a consumer looking at just testing out a service you’re still unsure of.
Spotted by Phillip Swann, who is apparently The TV Answer Man, and then confirmed by TNW after a scan of Netflix’s help centre page, it appears that the free trial is officially a dead feature that won’t be returning any time soon. After plugging in South Africa as a region, we were able to confirm that South Africa is included in the list of countries that no longer have the free trial service. Pour one out.
You can still watch some Netflix shows for free…
If you want to watch a handful of Netflix shows for free to get a taste of whether or not you’ll enjoy the streaming service’s brand of original content. You’ll get access to a handful of movies and single episodes of TV shows so we guess it’s more like a demo than a trial? Once you’ve completed one of the free offerings you’ll be prompted to sign up and make an account. Which is totally a demo, yes.
The list of “Watch Free” series and movies includes:
- Stranger Things
- Murder Mystery
- Elite
- Boss Baby: Back in Business
- Bird Box
- When They See Us
- Love Is Blind
- The Two Popes
- Our Planet
- Grace and Frankie
If those don’t quite scratch your itch of (very limted) free Netflix well, then we’ve got some bad news for you. You can grab Netflix Premium for R170 per month, which is honestly a great price given the amount of content available on the service. We recently went and ran a comparison between Netflix Premium and Showmax Pro, the latter of which will cost you R450 and nets you considerably less… but also offers sport of that’s a thing you’re into.