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I cancelled my Prime subscription within five minutes of getting their email announcing the 'upgrade'. It was barely worth it anyway, given how little content they get, and I'm not paying all of that money each year only to watch ads on the content! They should just have marketed it as a price rise, which I would have accepted (and it's effectively what it is) because it's 2024 and I'm not wasting time with adverts on premium services!

Ad-supported tiers for people who care more about their wallets than time are fine, of course. Amazon did this poorly.

R
 
Thankfully dont use Amazon Prime anymore. Canceled my subscription about 5 years ago

Really messed up with imo. They could have made:

A Prime TV only subscription, ad supported for £2.99

Regular prime for £7.99

Prime Premium for 9.99 that includes exclusive TV shows + kindle benefits

(Adjust prices accordingly)

But to ask for extra money just for ad free? 😹😹😹😹
 
The issue with streaming companies in general is there are so many of them, each having their own exclusive content so instead of being able to sign up to one particular provider you need to sign up for multiple providers if you want to watch such a show/movie. Just look at how much content has been removed from Amazon Prime over the year, either it disappearing behind a pay wall or disappearing completely.

No wonder pirating is on the up
 
Prime has turned into such a weird, lumbering beast. They've tacked so many different services onto it in the name of perceived value, but each of its individual components offer sub-par value on their own.

I only ever subscribed to Prime for the deliveries, with the rest as fringe benefits, so its bloating price has been getting worse and worse value for me. The amount of subscription content in Prime Video is, and always has been, trash. I might watch one or two movies a year that don't have to be paid for separately.

I'll have to run the numbers on whether the number of deliveries I have per year come close to justifying the cost.
 
Dai said:
Prime has turned into such a weird, lumbering beast. They've tacked so many different services onto it in the name of perceived value, but each of its individual components offer sub-par value on their own.

I only ever subscribed to Prime for the deliveries, with the rest as fringe benefits, so its bloating price has been getting worse and worse value for me. The amount of subscription content in Prime Video is, and always has been, trash. I might watch one or two movies a year that don't have to be paid for separately.

I'll have to run the numbers on whether the number of deliveries I have per year come close to justifying the cost.
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For me the cost is justified on Prime delivery (even though I don't really like Amazon and have prob bought less from them this/last year than in 2022), but I'm not keen on this price increase, don't blame you all (Dai and other posters here) for questioning it! :)
 
Regarding the Amazon ad debacle, quite frankly it’s disgraceful, ads are a necessary evil to allow free services to be sustainable, including them in a service that costs any money to use is avaricious, if I pay for a service, it should not have ads, if Amazon want to put ads in, the tier that has them should be free.
It’s not the only service doing this either, Netflix, Now TV and whoever else does this also deserve the criticism for it, it’s nothing but greed.
 
The reason for the adverts being introduced into Amazon prime video is directly linked back to the deal for actor royalties for streaming. The adverts are designed to cover the costs that accumulate based on the popularity of the streamed media. Without the adverts a really popular show would just become a loss maker due to paying out royalties, while the adverts present provide an alternative income that covers the royalties.
 
Gemsy-chan said:
It's snowing here in Gosport on the south coast.
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We got about 2" of very wet, heavy snow on Saturday afternoon, but then it warmed up over freezing and we got rain on top of it, so in the morning we had about an inch of watery slush on the diveway and sidewalks. Poor me hobbled with my two knee replacements had to go outside and shovel about 80 feet of sidewalk and the 12 steps going up to my front door, so I had my four-footed cane in my left hand and the push-shovel in my right, trying to clear all the slop off the concrete without falling. What a fun adventure... 🥺
 
CommanderZx2 said:
The reason for the adverts being introduced into Amazon prime video is directly linked back to the deal for actor royalties for streaming. The adverts are designed to cover the costs that accumulate based on the popularity of the streamed media. Without the adverts a really popular show would just become a loss maker due to paying out royalties, while the adverts present provide an alternative income that covers the royalties.
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I’m a bit late to respond I know but I will say that Amazon can afford to eat the cost considering that they are worth billions and have numerous methods of making money such as their main e-commerce platform that will probably leave them better off than before, even if they did eat the cost of actor royalties, instead they decide to pass it on to the customer, for a company as colossal as Amazon, it’s not need, it’s greed.

Girls with Guns said:
We got about 2" of very wet, heavy snow on Saturday afternoon, but then it warmed up over freezing and we got rain on top of it, so in the morning we had about an inch of watery slush on the diveway and sidewalks. Poor me hobbled with my two knee replacements had to go outside and shovel about 80 feet of sidewalk and the 12 steps going up to my front door, so I had my four-footed cane in my left hand and the push-shovel in my right, trying to clear all the slop off the concrete without falling. What a fun adventure...
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Reminds me of a time late 2022 when I actually did fall on the ice, it left me dizzy for a few minutes, despite the fact that it was my backside that I bumped, immediately after I simply cancelled my going out plans and went straight home; TLDR falling on the ice is not fun.
 
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Aeon said:
I’m a bit late to respond I know but I will say that Amazon can afford to eat the cost considering that they are worth billions and have numerous methods of making money such as their main e-commerce platform that will probably leave them better off than before, even if they did eat the cost of actor royalties, instead they decide to pass it on to the customer, for a company as colossal as Amazon, it’s not need, it’s greed.


Reminds me of a time late 2022 when I actually did fall on the ice, it left me dizzy for a few minutes, despite the fact that it was my backside that I bumped, immediately after I simply cancelled my going out plans and went straight home; TLDR falling on the ice is not fun.
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Eat the additional cost? Not a chance of them doing that, all of them are already implementing advertising tiers in their services. Besides as it is, the vast majority of these streaming services make no money.
 
CommanderZx2 said:
Besides as it is, the vast majority of these streaming services make no money.
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If that were still the case, as it was during the early inception of Netflix, they wouldn't exist; giants like Amazon pleading poverty is just a joke.

The reality is the constant growth that shareholders expect just isn't fast enough but I have zero sympathy for any company that goes public as it's an unrealistic concept that never benefits consumers or the product long-term.
To that end, any company who's business model is based around user experience that then chooses to repeatedly cripple that experience for profit deserves to fail; though they seldom do.

I quit watching TV many years ago due to adverts becoming louder & more frequent & if I can get a better experience pirating than watching on a service that I already pay for, then I will.
 
CommanderZx2 said:
Eat the additional cost? Not a chance of them doing that, all of them are already implementing advertising tiers in their services. Besides as it is, the vast majority of these streaming services make no money.
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While I know that they won’t eat the cost, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t, they make hundreds of billions a year in profit, eating the cost might knock that down a couple billion but to them that’s like a reasonably well off person dropping a pound in a donation box, especially seeing as they have more than one way of making their immense profit year after year.

Netflix has a bit more of an excuse as their whole business revolves around streaming but they also make billions per year and can afford to go without forcing ads down a paying customer’s throat, in any case the big ones at least are certainly making a lot of money.

If these were small companies I’d be more understanding but they are massive businesses that are rolling in money and still want more despite having already won.
 
The difference between Netflix and Amazon is that when Netflix introduced the tier with adverts included is that it was at a lower cost where customers could choose to downgrade to save money (although at the same time as increasing the cost of the other tiers and limiting use across other devices)

Rather than the standard tier getting adverts with customers forced to pay more to avoid the adverts
 
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