Received this email. Blech.
Dear Prime member,
We are writing to you today about an upcoming change to your Prime Video experience. Starting January 29, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements. This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership. We will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional $2.99 per month* that you can sign up for here.
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I’ve been getting spammed with podcast ads lately, telling me I should switch to Amazon for podcasts bc it is ad free. Then the fast, fine print portion at the end says “some content may include ads”.
Fuck all of that.
Not to defend Amazon, but my assumption there would be that they’re covering themselves for podcasts that include sponsored ad reads in the podcast (ie, not inserted by amazon themselves). If it’s anything other than that, it seems like misadvertising.
Just canceled.
Probably should have done it sooner, but fuck that.
Fuck Amazon. I cancelled amazon prime years ago when the facts came out on how much damage they were doing to us and to our environment. I use it as little as possible now, and I’d certainly never consider using their steaming services. I’m forced by some 3rd-party companies to use AWS, since many sites exclusively host their content on them. But, that’s as far as I’ll go.
Pretty much every amazon employee is strangled by the fucking neck and kept on as little pay as will avoid federal lawsuits. I’m not going to be any more complict in this total monopoly if I can help it.
Smoking unfiltered crack if they introduce ads to a paid service and expect people to pay even more for no ads. Freemium experience without being free.
There was a time when Hulu was totally free and without ads. Then they introduced ads. Then they introduced a premium subscription that didn’t even remove the ads and no tier above it to remove the ads. All before landing on their current model of paid with ads and a higher tier that has no ads.
Unfortunately, it works. Somehow.
… And the price comparison moves to consider ONLY the ad-free, better-than-cable offering.
With-ads can DIAF.
You can get all the content they offer ad-free elsewhere.
So screw it.
Will be cancelling.
Canceled and installed Adblock in Fire TV.
Lol. They already charge $140 a year. Good thing I don’t give a shit about prime video, and I have Amazon prime just for the fast shipping.
I agree. That said, I’d like to see Amazon make Prime Video ad free for those already paying $140/yr for Prime. To me that would make the Prime membership extremely attractive for customers. But it doesn’t look like Amazon really gives a shit about that. This is about maximizing revenue and profit. Full stop.
If the ads are really annoying then just pirate whatever you want to watch.
Yep, that’s an option.
Article on El Reg: https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/29/amazon_prime_video_ads_coming/
SMH. I haven’t seen this email yet, so I will keep an eye open for it. Seems with Amazon it was FOMO, trying to stay lock step with Netflix, Disney+ etc.
