Netflix provides free, limited access to some of its original content

Netflix is providing limited, free access to some of its original content including “Stranger Things” without the need for a free trial.

The company added a new webpage featuring free access to “Murder Mystery,” “Élite,” “Boss Baby: Back in Business,” “Bird Box,” “When They See Us,” “Love Is Blind,” “The Two Popes,” “Our Planet” and “Grace and Frankie.” The feature only offers the first episode of season one of the available series and it’s only available PCs and Macs (via a web browser) or with an Android device. According to Gadgets 360, a 30-second pre-roll ad for Netflix plays before each title.

“We're looking at different marketing promotions to attract new members and give them a great Netflix experience,” the company told the publication. It’s unclear how long the free content offer has been available.

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Netflix is not the first subscription service to provide free sneak peeks at content to hopefully attract customers. Earlier this year, Quibi made some of its shows available for free on YouTube.

Netflix has already seen huge subscriber growth in 2020, thanks largely to the pandemic. The company added 10.1 million new paid subscribers – well ahead of the 7.5 million net additions it forecast in April and significantly higher than the 2.7 million subscribers it added in the second quarter of 2019. In the first half of the year, Netflix said it’s added 26 million paid memberships. It added 28 million new subscribers in all of 2019.

“However, as we expected… growth is slowing as consumers get through the initial shock of Covid and social restrictions. Our paid net additions for the month of June also included the subscriptions we cancelled for the small percentage of members who had not used the service recently,” the company wrote in a letter to shareholders.