Amazon Gives Giant Middle Finger To Prime Video Customers, Will Charge $3 Extra A Month To Avoid Ads Starting In January
from the oh-look-we've-learned-nothing dept
Thanks to industry consolidation and saturated market growth, the streaming industry has started behaving much like the traditional cable giants they once disrupted.
As with most industries suffering from “enshittification,” that generally means imposing obnoxious new restrictions (see: Netflix password sharing), endless price hikes, and obnoxious and dubious new fees geared toward pleasing Wall Street’s utterly insatiable demand for improved quarterly returns at any cost.
All while the underlying product quality deteriorates due to corner cutting and employees struggle to get paid (see: the giant, ridiculous turd that is the Time Warner Discovery merger).
Case in point: Amazon customers already pay $15 per month, or $139 annually for Amazon Prime, which includes a subscription to Amazon’s streaming TV service. In a bid to make Wall Street happy, Amazon recently announced it would start hitting those users with entirely new streaming TV ads, something you can only avoid if you’re willing to shell out an additional $3 a month.
There was ample backlash to Amazon’s plan, but it apparently accomplished nothing. Amazon says it’s moving full steam ahead with the plan, which will begin on January 29th:
“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,” the company wrote. Customers have the option of paying an additional $2.99 per month to keep avoiding advertisements.”
If you recall, it took the cable TV, film, music, and broadcast sectors the better part of two decades before they were willing to give users affordable, online access to their content as part of a broader bid to combat piracy. There was just an endless amount of teeth gnashing by industry executives as they were pulled kicking and screaming into the future.
Despite having just gone through that experience, streaming executives refuse to learn anything from it, and are dead set on nickel and diming their users. This will inevitably drive a non-insignificant amount of those users back to piracy, at which point executives will blame the shift on absolutely everything and anything other than themselves. And the cycle continues in perpetuity…
Filed Under: ads, advertisements, amazon prime, cabletv, enshittification, piracy, price hike, streaming, video
Companies: amazon
Comments on “Amazon Gives Giant Middle Finger To Prime Video Customers, Will Charge $3 Extra A Month To Avoid Ads Starting In January”
When entrepreneurial Italian-American independent business owners do it...
….it’s “a felony under RICO”…..
If you don’t like Amazon’s “giant finger”, just turn around. They have something even larger aimed at your nether regions…
I’d be fine with this if there was also a stripped down version of Prime for people that only use it for shopping. I don’t need Prime Video, Music, Photos, Gaming, etc.
Give me back my $99/yr for prime shopping/shipping and I’d happily pay it.
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There is! Cancel Prime and spend at least $25 anytime you order and you still get free shipping on anything that qualified for prime. It takes a day or two longer, but if you plan ahead for most things, and have a little patience for everything else, it works fine.
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I tried this a few years ago. Yes, I still got 2 day shipping, but Amazon would take days if not a week at times to ‘process’ the order before shipping. Once it shipped, I would get it within a day or two.
Maybe I should try again.
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The next-day and two day shipping can be a huge positive for certain items. Dismissing that advantage as “have a little patience” and “plan ahead” is insulting.
Looking at my recent purchases, I spot a few where quick delivery was very important. Cold medicine, a car window regulator for a stuck-open window, dishwasher parts, a washing machine lid switch, and a few other replacement parts. For some of those the alternative to quick delivery would have been an immediate drive to a shop that had them in stock.
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I have never trusted Amazon, or any online retailer, for stuff I really needed in a day or two. If I need cold medication, I’ll go to the local drug store and buy it, thereby insuring I have it when I need it.
I don’t know if it’s a temporary promo or what, but our last 2 or 3 online orders with Walgreens have been delivered by Doordash within a couple of hours of placing the order, without paying for any upcharge in shipping. Walmart also frequently dispatches the delivery from the local store and delivers same day under the normal free shipping option. Prime’s advantage on delivery times evaporated a while ago.
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I’d say, drive to the shop. Support your local options, or Amazon may end up being your only option.
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Oh noes, a trip to a shop?! What is this world coming to?
I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.
I get the feeling Amazon will tell me they are enhancing the customer experience?
Make book on it! In a few months, Amazon prime will place pop-up QR codes in the middle of the screen during the film that link to the Amazon page with the shirt the actor is wearing, or their electronic device, or the furniture, or the song…
Follows Google image search that can immediately identify clothing (and where to buy it), but seems lost in identifying the person you are searching.
2nd Make book on it: Amazon will hide the switch to turn off the QR codes, knowing you’ll give up soon enough.
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Your chocolate ration has been increased.
It’s a price increase disguised as an optional feature. (“Want to keep getting what you’ve been getting? Here… give us more money!”)
Sometimes, it’s almost as if these companies are trying to push people towards piracy.
We’re paying for freevee.
Prime Subscriber will drop annual subscription
In response to Amazon giving the middle finger to Prime Subscribers, at least one annual Prime subscriber has publicly stated that the subscription will not be renewed for 2024.
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Arrrr!
We managed to keep Amazon out of our country when they tried to build their headquarters on sacred indigenous land. So glad I live in Africa.
More competition in the advertising market, reducing the value of any slot, resulting in the advertiser being able to buy more slots, and services selling more slots to try to keep up income, and more adverts are shoved in front of people. Also, with the same advertising budgets spread across more services, the less each service can make from advertising.
yi...fuuu
FUUUUUU<UUUUUUUUUUUUXK!A!!!AA IT WILL always BE A HELLSCPAPE!
We’ve been trying some other online ordering, 2-day delivery services. Walmart turns out to be excellent. I use Amazon Prime for many fixit items, ranging from computer gizmos to tools and tractor parts. Maybe Home Depot will wake up and appreciate the opportunity to disrupt a goodly part of Amazon’s business…or not 🙁
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Home Depot is the absolute wrong horse to root for here.
hurry up and watch the 2 things worth watching on Amazon!
I’d be more upset if Amazon produced content worth watching in the first place. Like Netflix, their quality is in the toilet.
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They have many highly-rated police procedurals and true crime stories, to the point that it’s getting out of hand. A few days ago, I scrolled through like 20 Netflix series before finding anything not in those categories.
I got that email last night
I got that email last night.
So let me get this straight: one of the largest companies on the planet, which brings in billions of dollars needs MORE money from advertising to fund their shows?
I watch Amazon Prime BECAUSE there are no commercials. If I want to want TV with commercials, I’ll turn on any of my cable channels.
And I don’t see if this policy includes movies people pay to rent or buy. If I pay $4.50 to rent a movie, will I have to sit through the same ads as if the movie was shown on network TV?
In that case, I’ll go to Redbox and rent it, and not give Amazon any more money.
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[…]needs MORE money from advertising to fund their
showsstockholders.ftfy.
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The articles I read said that there will be no ads for rentals or purchased videos
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I spoke with CSR and they said rented or purchased movies would not include commercials.
Enshittification update
FreeVee (“watch it for free (with advertisements)”) scales the advertisements.
The further into the show you are, the more frequent and lengthy the advertisements.
I was introduced to FreeVee over the weekend, and I can definitely recommend … DVDs.
I canceled my prime membership
…about a month ago. The $2.99 extortion was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Over the years, I’ve spent thousands of dollars with amazon (in addition to the $139 yearly prime membership). And they want an extra $3 to NOT show me commercials in their shows? FUCK THEM!
I’ve quit shopping at amazon. Instead, I drive to Best Buy, to Target, to my local hardware store and buy whatever I need. Or occasionally, I’ll use eBay.
The only thing I’m buying off amazon now are kindle books and new (digital) movies (although eBay does have most new release 4K UHD movies available, and cheaper than amazon, often with free shipping).
Fuck jeff bezos and the horse he rode in on.
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What did the horse ever do to you?
There is no way this isn’t going to backfire on Amazon, especially where people are only interested in streaming choices. They are much more expensive than Disney+, yet their content is much worse, and consumers have a plethora of better choices.
Even YouTube Premium is a better deal because there is so much more and so much better content to be had ad free.
It’s just going to make customers go ‘yeah, nah’, and find better things to do with their money.
Paid subscription channels
Does anyone know of the paid subscription channels are getting ads too? I have Stars, Britbox and Acorn that pay for that have been ads if I just get the app instead.
Legal?
I renewed Prime several months ago for 1 year — is it legal that they raise prices before my year is up?
Legal?
Paid for 1 year of Prime a few months back — is it legal to raise prices before the year is up?
theft of service?
It seems to me that if I have a (Amazon Prime) contract, then they are required to provide the services contracted. To take away some of those services during the contract period seems to me to be theft of service or conversion of funds.
A different pricing model might be more effective and less regressive: how many Amazon orders do you make in a year? or spend how much money on those products? how many of hours of ad-supported streaming are you already watching?
Now model that info and come up with a per customer value with some upper limit charge / month.
'For only $3 extra you'll get a burger we haven't spat in.'
Nothing like a seller charging you money for a product, deliberately making that product worse and then ‘graciously’ offering to let you pay to undo their sabotage.
Hmmmmm
So, first it was 1 day shipping that constantly took 2 or more days. Now 2 day takes 3 or more days. Before this latest BS, I noticed pricing on Amazon has now exceeded where you can get it elsewhere with the same shipping for a less monthly charge; hmmmmm. And now you want to add a $3 charge to the monthly amount so I’m not inundated with relentless advertising.
Blow me Amazon, do you hear the door shutting?
Re: I do miss old Amazon
Sunday delivery after a Sat night purchase was nice to enjoy while it lasted.
Good Bye Netflix
Back to piracy full time for me.
I’m debating
Depends on what they mean by advertising. If it’s useful targeted advertising, and limited in times and duration, I’m not bothered by it. If it’s a new 2 minute advert ever 5 or 10 minutes, the $2.99 would be worth it.
The cost increases in prime are well below inflation so I’m not bothered. The site is my primary shopping source and I rarely have items delayed or late. I use the video service almost daily. Sounds fair to me.
The torrent must flow.
Seriously???
At 1st I thought this was a joke: Amazon is going to charge me to watch the shows that I purchased in my library…(the majority of which have been there for over 8 years…30 or so…entire TV series & movies…)if I DON’T want to see ADS??? This is a bajillion dollar company who keeps jacking up our Prime rates year after year…now THIS??? How much money do they need???
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Whatever it takes to increase their profits quarter on quarter, even if that is more than all the money in the world.
Re: I’m debating
From what was in my email and whet is online for the pre registration, it’s only for the streaming service, not purchases or rentals.
Lets fight!
Want to stop this? Take the fight direct to the advertisers. Go talk crap and leave negative comments about every advertiser that pays Amazon to spam for them. It’s going to take all of us doing this together if we want to change the world.
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You have multiple issues with this idea.
The big one is most people aren’t as bothered as you are by advertising.
But if you boycott advertisers enough, they will leave. The price of the service will go up, or the content will be removed. Or both.
What a wonderful Christmas/New Year present!
Why don’t they just ask their customers to drop their pants and bend over while they’re at it? It’s not like 75% of their crap is garbage rubbish shot in someone’s back yard.
KODI is my friend
Nope
Well, I won’t be increasing my payment and I won’t be watching Prime Video any longer.
To be fair, I only subscribed to Prime for the FOC same day/next day deliveries so watching Prime Video isn’t important to me.
I’m deleting my Amazon Prime streaming as of their ad-begin date. It’s too much for me. I do streaming because I don’t want ads.
Two things they need to change
Charging for no ads on prime video
We already pay more and more each year for prime membership. Jeff Bezos will never spend all the income he gets from us. Amazon is rich beyond belief. They have no competition to speak of. And now they black mail us to watch movies without ads. That was what we agreed to in the first place. This move is called GREED. Pure and simple. Why not take super care of your customers instead of giving them the finger, because that is what this is. Amazon needs to be punished is it does not give this greed up. We are the ones making it successful. Wouldn’t it be righteous is a $3 a month charge put them in their place.
Paying to avoid ads
I am disappointed in the GREED of this enormous, and
very wealthy company.
Simply we need to leave amazon
I belive in the mass will always can and will drive the market
We should all unsubscribe from this cunt amazon prime
and they will learn they lesson that they are not in charge