Amber Neely
Amazon Prime Video will include "limited" advertising during shows and movies starting in early 2024, requiring customers to pay an additional fee to remove the ads.
Amazon says the move will allow the company "to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time." The announcement goes on to say that the company aims to have "meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers."
If customers do not want to see advertisements, they will need to pay $2.99 per month to remove the advertisements as part of a new "ad-free option."
The company has not given an exact date for the change, but Amazon says it will alert Prime members several weeks before the ads are introduced. It will also provide instructions on how to sign up for the ad-free option.
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In June, the FTC said that Amazon had enrolled millions of customers into the paid subscription service without their consent. When customers attempted to cancel Prime, they faced a multi-step process designed to be deliberately difficult.
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16 Comments
Shocked. SHOCKED I say!
Amazon is free to choose to price its services at any level it wants. I defend Apple's services the same way (e.g., Apple is free to charge 0% to 15% to 30% for some software on its store.) Neither company is a monopoly.
Not surprised. Today's streaming services are very cheap for the amount of quality content that's available. I used to be solely Netflix, but tried out Crave and Prime Video and was amazed at all the great content I had been missing out on!
I'm just annoyed by how TV+ displays previews of other shows at the beginning of its own shows, same as Prime Video. Sure, it is definitely effective at surfacing content that may not have otherwise been discovered, but I choose those services specifically for the content that I choose, not to have content pushed onto me.
I could care less, I don’t watch Prime video anyway
I think they should have Prime memberships without the video —I only use Prime for shipping upgrade and Whole Foods discounts. Just make video a separate add-on option.