Amazon is adding commercials to Prime Video, but you can pay extra to disable them

[captaincranky]

Nobody wants to pay an extra fee on top of an existing fee, but it is an option. Another would be to simply not watch anymore, but again, who wants to do that?

What do streaming services and heroin have in common? If you never start either one, you'll never miss it, and likewise, never suffer any withdrawal symptoms if you've used them and have to go "cold turkey" without them.

 

[3volv3d]

I agree with just about all of this except to download games it does cost them money to host the content so you can download it whenever and as often as you like. That is worth something.

Hell no. The games aren't worth £30 let alone £100. They don't have fuel costs, they don't have driver transports costs. They don't have packagaing costs. They take your money yearly and put the sub's up. When you have left over credit that's in their account gaining interest.
They super fleece customers. In fact I wouldn't even allow data centers. and they did bitorrent mgs4 I think so everyone was sharing in the downloading of that game.
But data centers are just energy wasters too. And if you're saying a datacenter serving games is more costly monetarily then I'd assume we may as well just make discs and packaging to sell and end up in landfill.
Which one ruins my planet more?

Capitalism needs to f off.

 

[Gastec]

"Another would be to simply not watch anymore, but again, who wants to do that?"

Certainly not me. Binge-watching series on Amazon Prime Video is all I do, I wouldn't know what to do with my life without it, without watching the epic, high-production value, inclusive and progressive cinematographic masterpieces like "The Wheel of Time" and "The Rings of Power".

 

[Gastec]

Why not stop putting prices up to stream crap old stuff and new stuff that's even worse than the older stuff.

And advertising just should be banned world wide. People should hear things from word of mouth. People do stupid life hack videos on YouTube and reviews. Which in this day and age should be enough.
The German retailer aldi sells cheaper self branded items for less because it doesn't pay a team of money grubbing advertisers and possibly some over paid celebrity that then inflates the price of the product you once bought for 50 cents to $5.
Save energy, save money. Stop scamming your customers. Stop shrinking the quantity and quality while charging more.
And stop games makers charging full rrp for downloads that require no transport and packing material costs.
Welcome to corporate theft. The legal way to steal your money.

May I add another entry to your hypocritical rant? Stop consuming. Stop consuming those expensive video games, those expensive smartphones, those expensive gadgets and cars, stop consuming those streaming video services, stop consuming socialnetworkism, SJW-ism, cancel-culturalism and other such expensive drugs (that doesn't imply you have to switch to heroine because it is cheaper).
PS: I'm a bit under the influence of Trainspotting 1&2.

 

[GoldenGoat]

I don't think the type of people who pay for prime are going to be willing to watch commercials. The people who might be willing to sit through commercials are going to be the people who shop on Amazon without Prime. This is just a price increase in disguise and an extra annoyance for subscribers.

 

[Gastec]

I don't think the type of people who pay for prime are going to be willing to watch commercials. The people who might be willing to sit through commercials are going to be the people who shop on Amazon without Prime. This is just a price increase in disguise and an extra annoyance for subscribers.

I don't know what's going on in the USA but this year I've payed 50€ for Amazon Prime (which includes Prime Video), a price which was increased from €36 in September 2022. If they raise the price again to something proposterous like $139/131€ per year I will unsubscribe in a heart beat and make sure all my payment methods are deleted from Amazon. The whole point of streamed television was to have an unimpeded watching experience.

 

[lirva1]

Screw that. I'm out.

 

[PaulDeemer]

I got the 4k Netflix and 4k Max commercial free plans and that is a huge amount of content that Prime Video can't touch. It's not even close. So Amazon can keep their commercials and increasing fees. The worst offender for commercials is (Google) YouTube TV. Can't enjoy watching anything on there with commercials interrupting every 5 min or so. Never seen so many in my life! Even Cable wasn't that bad so YouTubeTV getting cancelled and I will settle for an over the air antenna for Local channels and Netflix + Max for everything else.

 

[TheElder]

To be fair, Amazon Prime is pretty competitively priced when you consider all the benefits you get for the subscription. I'm sure the reason they aren't raising the price of Prime is because of the way Prime is bundled into the shopping experience and their other services.

I'm not thrilled with downgrading the quality of service (by adding ads) or forced price hikes, but this doesn't seem like a terribly egregious thing to me. What makes it distasteful is that we know the reason is because Amazon is "penny pinching" to keep its profits high - it isn't really hurting financially so it doesn't actually have to do this.

The pending anti-trust suite from 17 states and the federal government in addition to exorbitant production costs, e.g. Wheel of Time, LOTR spinoff, need to be recouped someway not to mention he needs to refill his yacht for the next cruise.

I sucked up the last price increase but addition of commercials will finish my subscription with Prime. Most local stores now offer competitive prices and free shipping. Prefer to have my money work for my community. I have other viewing services.

 

[Tinderbox]

I've already been reconsidering my AP membership ever since they switched to free two-day shipping only for "eligible items", of which there seems to be nothing eligible in most of my orders.

 

[Archean]

What do streaming services and heroin have in common? If you never start either one, you'll never miss it, and likewise, never suffer any withdrawal symptoms if you've used them and have to go "cold turkey" without them.

I always wonder why I never want to have netflix or AP subscriptions, finally, now I know the answer.

By the way, its been while Captain, hope all is well at your side.