The free version of Peacock is completely gone. Peacock used to be free for Xfinity subscribers. Business Insider states that “However, members who signed up for the free plan before February 2023 can still access select content without paying for a subscription.”

Though the article claims to offer select content, Peacock is virtually useless as the free plan. Those who have the free plan now have no access to Peacock. There were some movies that were free to stream on Peacock but since the free option is no longer active, anytime free users go into the app it says it is available on Peacock Premium for every show and movie.

According to COMINGSOON.NET, “NBCUniversal no longer feels the need to provide Peacock Premium for free,” and so that offer is coming to an end. I feel like this is a bad move because a lot of streaming services are expensive.

The free version originally had a fair amount of shows and movies to choose from but contained ads. I suspect they took it out because the Premium plan is essentially the same but maybe has fewer ads and the Premium Plus has almost no ads.

Free users were probably not warned about their trials ending. In fact, I had Peacock for free and went to watch a newly released movie but it said I had to upgrade to premium. I spent a good amount of time looking for something to watch but everything I clicked on said you have to upgrade to Peacock Premium.

I understand the fact that having to compete with other streaming services might be a factor in the decision to end the free tier, but they went about it the wrong way. Not only is it an inconvenience that the service is no longer free, but it’s also wrong how users likely didn’t receive a direct warning.

Peacock made a mistake canceling their free tier. They could have kept it with ads and just given the option to upgrade to Premium. In fact that’s what was so great about the service.

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