Amazon Prime Video Starts Charging Extra To Avoid Ads, As The Enshittification Of Streaming Video Truly Begins
from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept
Starting this week, Amazon Prime Video customers (who already pay $140 per year) will be charged $3 extra every month just to avoid ads that didn’t previously exist. Shifting toward ad-based tiers has been popular among streaming companies like Netflix, Max, Disney+, and Paramount. But whereas those services make a cheaper ad-based tier an opt-in choice for consumers, Amazon isn’t being so subtle:
“A key piece of Amazon’s ad model is that they are throwing you into its ad-filled tier as its default when you originally could watch Prime Video with no interruptions. Most competitors haven’t been so brash, and have introduced ads more subtly by offering a cheaper option.”
As new growth in streaming customers has slowed down, giant media companies have relegated to seeking new ways to give Wall Street their sweet, sweet, improved quarterly returns. That means not just price hikes, layoffs, pointless mergers, or less money spent on quality content, but crackdowns on things that used to be consumer benefits, like the lax treatment of things like password sharing.
Implementing advertising into the existing streaming model lets companies not only steadily jack up the price of subscription service, but steadily jack up the rates they charge advertisers. A big win for them, but a lower quality product for the actual user.
The problem is: once your on this particular road, there’s no end to it. Just ask Comcast. Or any company that has to shift from pesky disruptive upstart to giant turf protector.
It’s simply not good enough for publicly-traded companies to offer consumers an affordable product that people really like. They’ve got to provide steady quarter over quarter boosts to profits — at any cost. That results in a sort of self-cannibalization, recently popularized by Cory Doctorow as “enshittification.”
The streaming sector’s just getting started. It begins with price hikes, lower quality service, layoffs, pointless mergers (see: Max) and charging users more money to bypass annoyances that didn’t exist previously (Amazon is here!). But will eventually morph into things like lower quality customer service, entirely new restrictions, hidden fees, or making it hard as hell to actually cancel service.
Streaming is only at the beginning of the enshittification cycle, so I’d expect the value proposition to remain semi-respectable for another few years. But as the sector consolidates into a dwindling number of companies — all prioritizing Wall Street’s wishes over consumer satisfaction or product quality — I’d expect streaming to steadily become more and more like the shitty old cable industry it once disrupted.
At which point new entertainment business modes, free services (Twitch, YouTube, Tiktok) and piracy re-enter the frame as revitalized disruption agents, and the cycle repeats all over again.
Filed Under: advertising, amazon prime, amazon prime video ads, competition, enshittification, streaming, video
Companies: amazon
Comments on “Amazon Prime Video Starts Charging Extra To Avoid Ads, As The Enshittification Of Streaming Video Truly Begins”
Bad Headline
In truth, the enshitification of streaming video began quite awhile ago.
I saw that prompt to “upgrade” yesterday. Watched a movie on Prime through Brave, saw no ads. The moment I see an ad, I’m dropping Prime.
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Same situation. I suspect my ad blocker is already proactively blocking ads. So now I just need to include a block for the prompts to pay more for the same service.
Finished Mrs Maisel and Reacher in anticipation of finally dropping my Prime subscription. Paying for shipping will also help me curb my now only occasional Amazon purchase.
Probably won’t change anything, as numbers shown Prime subscriptions are up once again.
But at least I’ll feel better about it.
PBS keeps looking better
In the US PBS passport gives you a lot of stuff to watch as long as you don’t mind subtitles and the ads are ony at the beginning. Kanoppy is also worth setting up since it’s done through public libraries which means you already pay for it via taxes.
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TBH, closed captions are good even for people who don’t need them.
That was a weird sentence. Was that supposed to say “It’s simply not good enough for publicly-traded companies to offer consumers[…]”?
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Maybe “companions” is like some mates, the ones that are always broke, that like to borrows some change to park their cars or take the last beer in the fridge. Except it talks during hours about useless products and now ask you more money just to shut up.
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Don’t you publicly trade your companions?
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Let’s check back in 10 years. It could be the next big bubble.
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Appears to be corrected now, but the “your” that should be “you’re” still shines out from the preceding paragraph.
Perhaps Karl is trialling AI proofreaders
And
Plop plop, Fizz fizz,
Oh! what a release it is..
(if you know that line, you are OLD)
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Well, that’s a relief.
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Thank you for this.
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i don’t know what’s funnier, the correction, or the original error. But why choose?!
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Dude, I’m in my 20s and from the wrong side of the Pond, but even I can recognise an obvious Alka-Seltzer advert.
I dropped prime because of this...
…a couple months ago. I don’t miss it at all.
Strangely, I still have plenty of options for free shipping from amazon – not next day, but so far, they’ve all been within 3-4 days of when I make a purchase. I was very surprised. I only use this for items not easily available locally or from other etailers (Best Buy, REI, ebay, etc).
Most stuff (electronics, sporting good, clothes and other stuff I would have gotten off amazon) I now go buy locally in-person at actual stores (how 1990’s-ish of me). It’s not instant and does involve me getting up and going out and actually shopping, but I feel better for it. Amazon is a world-class shitty employer (think employees peeing in jars because they’re afraid to take time to go to the restroom). I can’t in good conscience support that sort of business.
As for content, I’ve been buying physical copies of media off ebay, as opposed to amazon. You can’t get first run stuff that way usually, but if you wait, everything ends up selling on ebay. And at cheaper prices than amazon.
Fuck bezos!
Re: I quit Prime too, but don't think eBay isn't enshittifying
I too find that free shipping isn’t hard to get without Prime, and I only spent $300 in the past year compared to thousands the previous years.
But eBay is on its way deeper down the enshittification curve, not to mention Paypal. I deleted the eBay account I created in 1999 in 2022 when my seller account wouldn’t allow me to get at my funds with my banking info I had on file for decades. They’ve interpreted KYC to apply to them with the “unfortunate” side effect of giving them access to real names and addresses despite only needing to send your funds to a real bank.
Townsend, 1971
Pete Townsend got it right in 1971:
Meet the new boss,
Same as the old boss.
It applies in so many ways…
Already Crap
Amazon Prime was already the worst streaming service. It’s confusing mix of prime-included and freevie (or whatever the heck that is), rent and buy makes browsing its videos a frustrating and non-rewarding experience. The only reason to use Amazon Prime is for the free shipping and even that is getting less and less worth it. Amazon is the canary in the coal mine.
I wonder how this will balance out:
revenue gained from upselling $3 subs + ads vs revenue lost from people cancelling Prime entirely
As one of the lost, I’ll find my video consolation elsewhere.
What’s that acronym that describes the peak of the enshittification cycle? “BOHICA”?
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Correct, 10/10.
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Why doesn’t TD take a break from pushing anti-police, pro-LGBTQ+ degenerate propaganda and write a post providing great insights into pirating content in 2024.
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Well, that isn’t what they do, so not sure how they can take a break from it. You bloody well could drop your shtick, or off the face of the Earth, whichever.
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Why don’t you take a break from pushing pro-police violence, anti-minority group degenerate propaganda and write a comment providing great insights into pirating content in 2024? Just askin’.
Greed
Greed!
Monopoly fun
Until the USA decides to actually take a true hardline on anti-trust enforcement and the M&A space Amazon can continue to enshitify practically up to the point where they literally decide to up this quarter’s profits by saving on their warehouse sewerage fees and just hooking the sewage lines up to the packaging conveyer belt and we all get some free shit with every purchase.
The problem with the “enshittification” of Amazon is that is has practically monopolized the online shopping marketplace as to make the end part of the cycle where some disruptive new company comes in and starts the whole thing over highly unlikely (although I hope not impossible).The barrier of entry into the shopping space is so high now that many brands that want to have an online shopping presence have to (to some degree) rely on listing on Amazon and then paying their practically extortionate fees and as well as also pay to advertise on Amazon so their product shows up when customers search for it rather than a competitor, clone, or outright counterfeit. Thanks to its highly profitable cloud services side Amazon has an almost limitless funding source to undercut, out-lobby, or just absorb through merger and acquisition any potentially disruptive competitor that comes along. The only thing that Amazon has not managed yet is full-on regulatory capture, but all it takes is the right administration coming to power and the right contributions and lobbyists for that to complete the monopoly.
(There’s a whole ‘nother conversation to be had about Amazon being not only a monopoly but in some areas moving rapidly towards becoming a monopsony as well).
Up next: Roku.
Roku has already started down the enshitification path, by severely limiting rendezvous linking.