Netflix’s ad-supported tier arrived in late 2022 with a bang, followed by a whimper. While unpalatable for Netflix investors, the unenthusiastic early reception for the new $6.99 a month plan was not entirely unexpected on many fronts. Following launch on November 3, only 0.2% of Netflix’s total US user base were subscribed to the Basic with Ads tier by the end of November. With 73.4 million US and Canadian subscribers as of Q3 2022, that works out at less than 150,000 individual ad viewers, according to analytics firm Antenna, which compiles streaming subscription analyses based on third-party data from billing records. However, following the publication of these figures in the Wall Street Journal, Netflix contested Antenna’s data, claiming it contained…