Amazon Prime Video will soon come with ads, or a $2.99 monthly charge to dodge them

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 469 points – Amazon Prime Video will soon come with ads, or a $2.99 monthly charge to dodge them
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Amazon Prime Video will soon come with ads, or a $2.99 monthly charge to dodge them::Amazon’s Prime Video will begin showing ads during shows and movies early next year.

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The only reason I used prime video was because it came with prime. I’m just going to stop using it altogether if there’s ads

I’m probably just going to cancel prime. It’s only gotten worse and worse. I can wait a week for shipping

I think Prime is up to $140 a year now. They used to promise 2 day delivery, but that is now 2 day shipping, and delays prior to shipment aren't counted. We are not renewing when it comes up later this month. It's no longer worth it.

I like the same day delivery stuff. A lot of their catalog gets to me in a couple hours if my cart is over $25

Honestly, that’s the only thing keeping me paying for prime. Most of the shit in their catalog comes in less than a week without prime. But if I need something today, Prime is cheaper than a lot of the competing same-day delivery services.

We're also in an area where same-day is possible, but I don't mind waiting for stuff anymore. Typically there's only been a few times a year I really need something today or tomorrow. I'm betting/hoping the charges for fast shipping when I need it will total less than $140.

I swear the actual gain from prime is virtually indecipherable. The less you understand it, the less you can actually complain about what you are paying for.

It also does not boost my confidence when they use deceptive patterns to sneak you back into prime, or keep you from leaving.

The average person doesn't give a hoot though, and will get actively upset at you for pointing out deceptive patterns when it's a brand they use, so I we can probably expect things to get worse whenever physically possible.

I have appreciated Amazon’s tactics in trying to get me back to subscribing to audible. I’ve gotten 4 books this year for free, I just set a reminder to cancel the sub once the free month is almost over.

Someone else said they will do the same thing with prime if you don't order a lot.

Can confirm.

I only order off Amazon 4-5 times a year, and almost every time they offer me either a month free trial, a week free trial, or a month for $2.99.

I just say yes, then immediately go to the account page and set it to cancel at the end of the period instead of autorenewing.

Fun fact. If your cancel prime and dont order that frequently they will offer a month free over and over no matter how times they've given you free months. Then i do a whole buncha ordering in that one month and cancel prime. Free prime forever.

Sounds like what they do with my audible account, nice

Thanks for the reminder to cancel my audible!

Look into libro.fm! It has a subscription/credit service just like audible (if you want that; you can also just buy the books outright), except your subscription helps to support a local bookstore of your choice.

I switched prolly two years ago or so and haven't looked back.

We cancelled back in 2022. It was noticable for about a month, then we got used to buying much less and going to a store for what we needed. I feel better about buying directly from a company's site when I need to get their product online and most places offer free shipping anyway.

Exactly, also its better to cancel to send a message that this shit won't be tolerated

same tbf, but this might be the reason they are doing it, they know a majority of the users only use it cause it's there, and the ones who will care enough would buy the ad free. Less cost on bandwidth and more money from ads or subscriptions. It's a win-win for them

Right? Or maybe watching the first part of a show until the first commercial to determine if I want to take the time to find it elsewhere.

During COViD, I did get addicted to Prime, so I guess they’re just trying to help with the cure? Anyhow, now I can goto stores again, plus my kids are off on their own so it’s just me, so it does seem excessive. Actually,Prime TV has already gotten harder to watch, as they keep steering g you to ad supported networks. Just when I get less use out of it, they raise their prices and add ads?

“Amazon gross profit for the twelve months ending June 30, 2023 was $244.974B, a 18.22% increase year-over-year.”

“Amazon operating income for the twelve months ending June 30, 2023 was $17.717B, a 15.81% increase year-over-year.”

Poor company. I can see how they have been forced to do this as a last resort effort to salvage their struggling corporation.

Prime Video isn't profitable and they need it to be. They included it with Prime to build a user base but they were always going to charge or make you watch ads after that. And that's perfectly fine because running a service that's never going to make any money is fucking stupid.

If you don't like it, don't pay but stop with that "big corp makes enough money so keep giving me shit for free" bullshit.

Would love to read your pitch for a streaming service that doesn't charge money and doesn't show any ads though

The multi-billionaire owned Amazon (A company that pays no taxes) already charges for their service.

They charge for Prime (Delivery) and until now, Prime Video was included in that price. I hate Amazon as much as the next guy (don't even haven an account) but all i read from you guys is exactly this kind of unconstructive rambling.

What the fuck do you expect? That a listed mega corporation just goes like "Oh you know what we make billions, what does it even matter if one of our services doesn't make any money, let's just keep going, not like we have shareholders to answer to".

Remember when people used to pay 5 bucks to rent a VHS for ONE DAY and no one lost their mind about it? Without constantly whining about Blockbusters profit margin?

But thanks for clearing up that Amazon is a billionaire owned company, only read that for the 500th time this week.

Sure, but pointing out that this strategy of carpet pulling isn’t the best consumer feeling is valid. And, um, Prime isn’t free.

Not what they pointed out though. It's just the usual, mindless big corp rant you can't escape on here.

Existing Prime users got all this content without additional charges for years, that's what I meant when I said free but you probably know that. If you think that's a sustainable way to keep producing content for billions of dollars, it's very naive imo.

But feel free to point out what would have been a better strategy and maybe actually start a discussion

Wow. You need to Netflix and chill.

I have been a Prime member since 2014 and joined exclusively for Prime Video access. Of course nothing is free. I am now going to pay more, yes you heard right, and will choose to continue being a paying member even at the higher cost, so that I can receive the SAME service and not have it degraded with ads. I hate ads and for all the services I subscribe to, 4 video streaming and 1 music streaming, I always pay the premium to not see ads.

You need to have a good hard look at yourself if you think defending Amazon puts you on the right ethical side of the fence. These cheap extra ad based profits, that deliver no new customer value, will not go to raising the low salaries many of their workforce endure, or relieve the pressure with their mandated 6% non-regrettable attrition policies, or stop their practices of stealing designs from small businesses and undercutting them with Amazon branded equivalents, or ensure taxes are paid in the relevant countries, or prevent further large scale lay offs.

This additional subscription cost is a first world problem for me but Amazon is not only an easy target for constant criticism, but a deserving one.

You guys just keep throwing everything in the same pot. I don't like Amazon and don't even have an account.

To raise the price (by 3 measly bucks) for a service that doesn't make money is something a listed company IS REQUIRED to do. That's all I am saying.

It has nothing to do with how much money the company makes in other areas and is a completely separate issue from the horrible working conditions, which is a political one.

But i guess it's easier to just cry about everything while still throwing money at them and then jerking each other off because you commented "aMaZon SuCks". Talk about the right side of the fence

It is not uncommon for a corporation to have areas of the business that are not profitable if those parts of the business are considered loss leaders. In this case Amazon has been trying to build up a larger Prime user base (220+ million globally now) as it helps drive other more profitable parts of the business such as online Amazon sales.

“Consumer Intelligence Research Partners reports that Prime members shop about 25 times annually on the site, versus non-Prime members' mere 14 purchases.”

This increase is understandable, ad revenue was actually a bigger business than subscriptions last year, but annoying as there is nothing of value for a consumer behind it and yes many of us are cynical that these additional profits would bring much broader benefit.

This has been interesting to read. This is my first comment in Lemmy that has actually generated any meaningful debate.

Thanks internet stranger for actually putting an opinion forward. We don’t have to always agree but it is fun to engage with other real people.

Exactly, of course there a correlation between the two but they must have gotten to a point where Prime Video sign-ups don't boost their regular Prime user base anymore, so they had to do something about Prime Video operating at a net loss.

As i said before, Prime Video was never intended to be a "free" addition to regular Prime forever, this is something everyone should have seen coming.

Thanks for your kind words, to have an actual debate about this is all i wanted instead of reading the same, undifferentiated bullshit that seems to take over Lemmy more and more...

in Bird Culture this is considered a dick move

In dick culture this is considered a Richard move.

Cool, early next year I'll ditch Prime.

EDIT: Nvm, just cancelled. Amazon is pretty terrible.

Thats a funny way to say amazon are raising the cost by 2.99 per momth.

Yup raising the price and adding a lower tier at the current price, which everyone is moved to

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Odd, all the Amazon show I watch are on Plex.

Plex is clamping down on uses violating the TOS though. They're banning whole hosting provider IP blocks next month that were popular with people selling access to Plex servers.

I've also seen reports of them banning individual users sharing large libraries with family and friends over residential connections. And then sending notifications to those people that their friend/family member was running a commercial piracy operation.

Well time to switch to jellyfish then, I guess

Hope it was worth the 0.005 cents you made per video to lose all those subscribers.

They won't lose too many, most will just not pay the extra fee, and the ad revenue will more than make up for it.

So the $140/year subscription they're already collecting isn't enough for them?

I guess this is as good a reminder as any to look at what I'm actually using Prime for these days.

LOL, I dropped it last week, but it quickly became apparent I have to have it to save on shipping, no brainer for me.

Still, don't care about their video service. Who isn't pirating that stuff anyway?!

Just need to get it in October and cancel after Christmas. That's the only time I ever get value from it.

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Just cancelled my prime membership because of this, I encourage all of you to do the same.

I use prime mainly for Prime gaming, which gives me my money back.

I use it for shopping. I live in the country side, not a lot of options around here, and in a country where the concept of free shipping does not exist. So Prime saves me a lot. I barely use prime video though...

Was going to say the same. You get so much shit from Prime Gaming. Given, half of it is actual shit that you’ll never use. But if you play games on PC, it’s something worth looking into.

It's about time to cancel Prime and greedy Bezos anyway

Amazon is just barely holding on in my streaming stable, this will be enough to push it out.

Lol its trillion dollar company. What they are doing is a tactic to check if consumers will leave their streaming service. They know few people will leave but they don't care however most people won't and will be paying more that usual.

Well it's a stupid move because it's bundled with everything. I am not going to pay for add free, I am just going to cancel after Christmas shopping is done. That means I will be less likely to buy from Amazon in the future. It's not like anything comes in 2 days anymore anyway.

The old Microsoft approach, slowly make it shitter, then charge you (make you upgrade) to remove the shit we've snuck in.

Except you can’t buy a version of Windows that isn’t shit.

Amazon wants peoplento pirate 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

There's already services out there where you pay like $20 a year and can stream basically anything, no need to download anything. Access to pretty much any show on Netflix, Amazon, apple, Disney, etc with about a days delay from new episodes. Can even stream movies still in theater, although it's hit and miss on those can be more like a week or two from release before you can stream them reliably.

Sounds good, why don't you stop wasting everyone's time and spit out a name

I guess being a trillion dollar company isn't enough for them, you see. It has to go into quintillion, and then into infinity profits. And also poor Amazon is so poor they can't provide the user free grocery delivery, UPS pick up anymore, or even Prime video.

On one hand, it is quite cheap but on the other hand their catalog is very bad. I wonder how long will these streaming services survive before they go all the way through the enshittification and kill themselves.

Crazy because I feel like their catalog was better at one point, but has gotten worse as studios make their own services and claw back their programs into them.

So glad I canceled prime about 9 months ago at our annual renewal. Turns out, packages arrive within a couple days regardless. It’ll say Thur but arrive Tue, consistently.

Prime Video, I don’t miss it at all.

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Isn't there already a monthly charge on Amazon prime?

Amazon Prime is a yearly subscription that gets you discounts on on shipping on stuff you order from Amazon... and gets you access to Prime Video.

It doesn't seem clear from the article whether the ads or 2.99 fee will get someone access to the streaming service without having the Prime shipping service. Probably not, since disentangling these services would be good, and Amazon only does evil things.

IIRC they also sell only Prime Video already if you really want it, though it's usually a better deal to get the free shipping too. I presume this applies to both.

I was looking for a reason to cancel, thanks.

It must be "squeeze more money out of Prime Video" month at Amazon.

Most people will not care enough to cancel or stop watching if the service deteriorates a bit. Those who do will pay $3.

Those who won't do either, well, there are alternatives.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Amazon Prime Video will include advertising during shows and movies starting early next year, joining other streaming services that have added different tiers of subscriptions.

Members of Amazon Prime can pay $2.99 per month in the U.S. to keep their service ad-free, the company said Friday.

Disney will begin charging $13.99 a month in the U.S. for ad-free Disney+ in mid-October, 75% more than the ad-supported service.

Ads in Prime Video content will start in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada in early 2024, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in the year.

For U.S. users, Amazon said it will send out an email to Prime members several weeks before ads are introduced into its programs with information on how to sign up for the ad-free option if they choose to do so.

Members also get free shipping for goods bought on Amazon.com, groceries, online music and more.

The original article contains 365 words, the summary contains 151 words. Saved 59%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

I don't really use prime video much other than to watch the grand tour. This still sucks to hear though.

May be worth the 3 bucks if the freevee stuff is ad free too then. Otherwise they can go f themselves.

So glad I didn't renew my prime subscription this year. I could smell this turd coming from down the road.

I was casually browsing Prime the other month and stumbled upon the movie Cohesion. Was pretty great and under 90 minutes long.

Shane I'll have to delete the app now.

Except you still pay for Prime so it doesn't really matter if your delete the app...

I would stop paying for prime if I deleted the app.

I am paying close attention to their charges. I am sure that at some point the discounts will not be worth the fees.