Amazon Faces Class Action For Enshittifying Prime Video
from the I-am-altering-the-deal.-Pray-I-don't-alter-it-any-further. dept
Last week Amazon began charging Amazon Prime Video customers (who already pay $140 per year) an extra $3 extra per month to avoid ads that didn’t previously exist. One added wrinkle: apparently Amazon also pulled Dolby Vision and Atmos audio support from Prime Video unless users pay the additional toll to avoid ads, a change the company couldn’t be bothered to inform users of.
The move this week resulted in a class action lawsuit by annoyed subscribers, whose lawyers insist that Amazon violated subscriber agreements by suddenly charging for something that subscribers understood they were already paying for:
“Reasonable consumers expect that, if you purchase a subscription with ad-free
streaming of movies and tv shows, that the ad-free streaming for movies and tv shows is available for the duration of the purchased subscription.”
We’ll see if this class action results in anything more than lawyers getting a new boat and Prime Video subscribers getting a $3 check sometime by 2027.
Prime Video’s efforts to nickel-and-dime customers is the latest example of the steady enshittification of a streaming video industry that appears to have learned nothing from the scale-chasing issues that plagued cable TV. Now that the market has saturated, streaming companies are looking for creative ways to provide Wall Street the unrealistic endlessly improved quarterly returns bean counters demand.
That inevitably results in a brand quality cannibalization, as once disruptive and innovative upstarts shift toward “creative” efforts to goose profits and lower costs. That generally means price hikes, layoffs, pointless mergers, and less money spent on quality content, as well as crackdowns on things that used to be consumer benefits, like the lax treatment of things like password sharing.
This kind of behavior, in turn, opens the doors to more affordable and convenient alternatives to streaming video subscriptions, whether that’s piracy or free services like Twitch or TikTok. At which point, executives at places like Netflix and Amazon blame everyone but themselves for the subscriber exodus. It’s simply how this never-ending cycle works.
Filed Under: ads, competition, consumer protection, enshittification, password sharing, prime, prime video, streaming, video
Companies: amazon
Comments on “Amazon Faces Class Action For Enshittifying Prime Video”
It will be interesting. What gets me is the triple dipping.
Paying for prime.
Paying for a bought or rented item.
Having to pay on top of that for ads.
Re:
No, no. You misunderstand. They provide the ads for free!
I’d like to think this will go somewhere but I doubt it will. I already dropped my Prime account mainly because of this.
Since it appears you can cancel Prime at any time and get a pro-rated refund does this case have any legs at all? I cancelled my prime membership because of the change but I wouldn’t be too surprised if the $3 payment in 3 years is too optimistic.
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I didn’t know about that. It does make the case seem kind of dubious, now from both ends: it was also dumb on Amazon’s part to not hold off on the ads till each person’s renewal date.
Perhaps it’ll be found to be “misleading” to make people think they have to pay to remove ads, when in fact they can get that refund. Still, the maximum damages per person can hardly be more than $3 times 12 months, right? Half that on average if we assume evenly distributed renewal dates, so $18 per affected person. The actual settlement will likely be less than the maximum, then they lawyers will take half, so Karl’s estimate of $3 seems about right.
You also have to pay for the Ad-Free tier in order to do Viewing parties now. Thanks for making date night with my long distance girlfriend more expensive now Jeff!
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What does this mean? How would Amazon know if you’re having a party?
Re: Re:
Presumably the Amazon Prime Video Watch Party feature.
Re: Re: Re:
“Error 462 Not allowed.”
Are they specifically disabling the feature, whatever it is, for those who don’t pay? Or is the problem just that differently-timed ads will make it really annoying, as a sibling comment suggested?
In either case, one could certainly invite others to one’s home for a viewing party. Decades ago, when TV had advertising, it didn’t stop people from doing this. It was an annoyance, of course, and will be a worse annoyance for people who didn’t grow up with advertising.
It could backfire on Amazon if people actually decide to do parties that way, with everyone but the hosts cancelling their subscriptions (whether the hosts pay that extra $3/month or not).
Re: Re:
Different adverts at different times result in them not staying in sync while watching the video together, while in different locations.
You pay extra for no advertising only to be subjected to advertising, so you pay more for no advertising .. again.
What’s next .. it will become like the no call list where there are some ads that you can not pay extra to skip, the political and religious ads will be force fed. One will still be allowed to get up and use the restroom during advertisement time, for now.
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You haven’t seen the special features of the Amazon Prime Chair yet, have you?
I never signed up for Prime to begin with because PAYING FOR FREE SHIPPING is a selling point for fools. That’d be like knowingly entering an abusive relationship and not expecting it to get worse. I’m a patient person, and I’ve only ever paid extra for next day shipping once in the many years I’ve been a customer, and it didn’t even come close to the yearly cost of Prime. Otherwise, I usually wait ’til I have enough to order to get me over the randomly changing minimum threshold for free shipping. Even if I don’t, I’ve never paid enough for shipping throughout the year to add up to the cost of Prime’s “free shipping”.
This extra charge has made the decision easy for me to cancel my Prime membership. This additional charge has given me reason to evaluate my Prime membership. As I only purchase twelve to fifteen times a year and shipping is often free if you spend over $25 the only thing holding me back was justifying the video service and laziness. With that now being of limited dubious value the decision to leave has become quickly evident. Thanks Prime for highlighting how valueless Prime has become.
But, But...
Why not all the rest?
Food
Cars
Rental property
All property values
Candy
Re:
Don’t give them ideas!
Amazon needs to change the name of Prime. Maybe “Choice” would be a more apt name? (And, BTW, their choice, not yours–as we see here.)
I’m not a lawyer, but I’m going to guess that Amazon’s lawyers pull out this claim:
People pay for Amazon Prime to get free shipping and faster shipping, so the video streaming service is just a bonus.
Though the end result of this argument may be that Amazon is forced to separate the Prime shipping service from Prime video. Then people can choose whether to pay for Prime video or just ftee shipping.
So people are shocked that the guy who killed bookstores & rode a dick into space did something to screw them over.
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Psst, Jeff Bezos isn’t CEO anymore! Your trendy hatred drivers need updated to Andrew R. Jassy.
Re: Re: Bezos isn't CEO
Really. And the Yorkshire Ripper isn’t killing anymore. Should we just let people off as soon as they stop doing evil shit?
Ffs
Re: Re: Re:
Bezos isn’t even gone, and is apparently now leading the board of directors. Probably has a good deal of influence and voting power, too, as a major shareholder. If Bezos came out against this “enshittification”, it would almost certainly stop.
*enshittificating.
Amazon Spying
This company is listening in on our conversations. How did I confirm this you might ask? They started by interrupting the Pro Sovereignty political channels I subscribe to on my “Fire TV” Devices I own. When.I said to my wife “I’m going to (Deregister My Devices)” Amazon shut them down rendering them useless.
Dead lawsuit
“May change without notice”
Dead class action!
Read what they sign and agree to. Not only did Amazon have no requirement to inform anyone of the change before hand, they gave months of prior notice.
Not surprised this comes out of California. I hope an intelligent judge puts an end to this nonsense before lawyers get rich off of it.