Amazon Prime Video Ads Start From Today - Up To 3.5 Mins Per Hour (9to5mac.com) 108
An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon Prime Video has been a free perk for those who subscribe to the ecommerce giant's free shipping service, but if you're a US Prime subscriber, things change from today. We first learned of the planned change back in September of last year, with the implementation date announced in an email to customers in December. If you want to retain the ad-free experience, you have to hand over an extra $2.99 per month. The WSJ notes Amazon's claim that it has a lower ad-load than most ad-supported services. Amazon's presentation said the average ad load per hour is expected to be between two and three-and-half minutes, which would be meaningfully smaller than traditional television and most other streaming services. Some commercials would appear before a program begins playing, while others would interrupt it.
No thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll just keep watching for free on the various pirate sites.
Re: No thanks (Score:3)
The rare time I've actually wanted to watch stuff on prime video, I just pirated it anyways because the stupid app bombards you with pay per view shit and makes it hard as fuck to tell what's included with your subscription.
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So far I'm finding netflix fine, I haven't seen an advert yet so will keep with it.
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Remember when Cable TV offered an ad-free television viewing experience, for a monthly subscription fee?
Is this like a test to see if you're Gen-X or older? I'm a Xennial and from where I sit, cable TV has always had ads. I do remember a time when VHS was king and you could fast forward past the previews, though.
Re: No thanks (Score:2)
It always has had ads from the very start. A bunch of idiots on slashdot keep claiming otherwise but they never can seem to substantiate that. It's called the Mandela effect.
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Or, maybe, just maybe, we are drawing on personal experience that does not match any official histories. It is not like that has ever happened before. Like in August of 1998 when Bin Laden published what he was going to do to with airplanes in America after Bill Clinton launched a series of Tomahawk cruise missiles into his camps in Afghanistan. One 'dud' even fell in Iran. But of course, that never happened either.
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AND...since this is no longer a "perk" of the ever increasing prices of the Prime program, I am about to start seriously reconsidering my involvement of that program, since it is becoming no longer a good ROI to my mind.
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I'll be cancelling my Prime membership.
The other perk of Prime is free shipping but I just don't buy that much stuff these days and it's easy to combine orders to get free shipping.
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The other perk of Prime is free shipping but I just don't buy that much stuff these days and it's easy to combine orders to get free shipping.
Our household is the opposite. We have Prime for free shipping on the odds and ends that just aren't available in retail stores anymore (like the other day I needed some diodes for a project) and couldn't care less about the streaming. Amazon could replace it entirely with cat videos tomorrow and we'd still keep Prime.
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The rare time I've actually wanted to watch stuff on prime video, I just pirated it anyways because the stupid app bombards you with pay per view shit and makes it hard as fuck to tell what's included with your subscription.
Oh man, that last bit. So many times I'll see a movie up I've been waiting for, only to click in twice or three times or five or however many it takes to get to the actual playing screen, only to be told you have to buy it, or rent it, or purchase a subscription to Showtime or some shit. And there's no setting that says, "Only show me titles available to me." It's almost as if the primary driver of Prime is leveraging it to make still more money, rather than make a decent customer experience. Sometimes on t
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There used to be a "Free to me" setting, but they removed it after the last UI update that start putting those damned Freevee titles every damned place.
Amazon's encouraging piracy. Why should someone who has watched a particular series for ages suddenly need to see it ion Freevee with ads? Fuck them. Rip everything.
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It's almost as if the primary driver of Prime is leveraging it to make still more money
Ya think?
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You took the words EXACTLY out of my mouth!
So is your son arglebargle_xiii?
Enshittification marches on. (Score:2)
Up to 3.5 min per hour they said:
I'll just keep watching for free on the various pirate sites.
Yup, looking up on ThePirateBay [piratebayo...coid.onion] and torrenting it seem to be a lot more convenient.
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I was already on the fence (Score:5, Insightful)
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Indeed it is. I don't order enough stuff to make the free delivery worth it, ...
Also, I think for some, many (most?) orders, if it's more than a certain dollar amount, you get Prime/free shipping on that order. If so, simply try to batch your orders to exceed that threshold ...
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Prime Video was always a semi-scam since they charged for lots of their content. It seems like every time I found something I wanted to watch, there was a fee and it was never worth it.
3.5 min... to start with. (Score:5, Insightful)
Start small, bite and switch, change blindness and all that. We all know that this time is going to double or maybe triple over the next couple months. Step by step. Minute by minute.
Re:3.5 min... to start with. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's just it. It would stay 3.5 min. Already they had (admittedly skipable) BS trailers for other crap that was NOT always 'included with prime' in front of content that was.
Betcha that does not count toward that 3.5min. I have zero doubt the plan is:
1) Game the stats a bit by adding more stuff like trailers and ad videos between episodes/chapters if you are just letting it play and don't actively click 'skip' so they can say its only 3.5min for a while but if you are lying on the sofa and don't make a special effort it will be almost immediately more like 5-6min.
2) year by year crank up the time, until they hit the same 15-17min/hour cable tv is at.
3) keep increasing the price of the ad-free sub until it costs as much as Netflix/Disney/Hulu etc does over ontop of the cost of Prime.
Its obvious from 50miles away.
Re: 3.5 min... to start with. (Score:1)
Re:3.5 min... to start with. (Score:5, Interesting)
That's just it. It would stay 3.5 min. Already they had (admittedly skipable) BS trailers for other crap that was NOT always 'included with prime' in front of content that was.
Betcha that does not count toward that 3.5min.
I've been making this argument for the past year. As soon as Amazon started playing trailers before show episodes, I knew the ad-encroachment was coming soon -- because trailers ARE ads. Playing interstitial/autoloading trailers was 100% a deliberate dry-run to gather data on how to roll out other ads, and condition our behavior to normalize [thing plays before what I want but it's not big deal I just skip it right?].
Content is a commercially-available product. An "ad-free content service" is a service where content is shown to the user if and only if the user requested that content. If the user clicks on the button that plays episode 4 of "The Outer Range" and Amazon first shows the user a trailer for "Reacher", that trailer is an advertisement which violates the ad-free service agreement. The user did not click on "play trailers" or "show me other shows I might like". The user clicked on the triangle/Play button situated next to "Outer Range Episode 4" in the list. To do anything other than performing the user's request for that clicked episode, is, by definition, an advertisement. It does not matter that the trailers were skippable; they were not requested and should never ever ever have preloaded to begin with. YT ads used to be skippable too, and we see how that's going.
On the other hand, when the user is scrolling the browse page, or performing searches, or clicking buttons labeled "Recommended for me" or "Top 10 shows in the US", then the user is specifically asking to see advertisements for other content. So that's a 100% acceptable place for Amazon to push the content they want you to see.
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Youtube hasn't be particularly successful in circumventing common browser adblockers, so they've resorted to trying to slow them down (which will open Amazon up to all kinds of law suits as we're actually paying for this).
And the enshittification continues (Score:2)
even on payed content. It was nice while it lasted.
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Cory nailed it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Enshitification
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such "changes" always reminds me of ... (Score:3)
... this line from "Ready Player One" - "... studies show that we can cover up to 80% of user's visual area without inducing seizure."
Unfortunately the way of increasing revenues by shifting basic services to extra subscriptions is such a norm that it borders with cliche. One lesson to take is to never believe in "extra perks", because they'll go away sooner or later.
For me - a moment to think whether ~$140 per year for "free" shipment is worth it.
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"Free" shipping is now standard at all major retailers, no subscription required. The only thing Prime gets you is slightly faster "free" shipping, but only on some items. For most things I buy online, I rarely care whether it takes 2 or 5 days to come. For the rare times when I care, I can pay extra for faster shipping. It doesn't add up to anything like $140 per year.
Walmart+ (Score:3)
Does anyone know what Walmart+ is doing?
It used to give you Paramount+ and Pluto - ad free?
If that is still the case, I can easily see switching when my prime sub is up. I hate being forced to watch ads; to the point I'd take suffering with walmart's awful website..just vote with my wallet against this.
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It's not the full Paramount+, it's a partial version.
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Does anyone know what Walmart+ is doing?
Nag you incessantly to sign up every time you use their mobile app.
In all seriousness though, the problem with Walmart+ is that if you have a brick and mortar Walmart store nearby (or in my case, several), it's only worth getting if you're too lazy to drive to the store and shop the old fashioned way. The product selection for anything fulfilled by Walmart is almost identical to what is stocked in the physical stores. What I like about Amazon is that they have a much wider range of products available that
Bye Bye Amazon (Score:1)
More Ads (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't stand ads. But I feel like most people don't care, so this is a trend that will continue. Anyone remember the scene from Idiocracy where Frito is watching "Ow My Balls!" with the video surrounded by ads and interrupted by more ads? Give it time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
That said, has anyone watched broadcast TV recently? It's all ads for medication and retirement homes, even during prime time. Nobody under the age of 60 watches real TV anymore.
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I sometimes watch the evening news broadcast OTA. In my area, the ads are mostly for home improvement contractors.
I dislike ads as much as the next guy, but mostly it's the repetition that I get annoyed with.
Some ads are good. For example, I like the Progressive auto-insurance ads for the most part. But, if I have to watch even a good ad more than twice per hour, it gets cumbersome.
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At times, I'm seeing the same ad repeating within the same ad block.
I will not watch ads (Score:5, Insightful)
I will do whatever is needed to avoid ads
The only way this will ever change is if ads actually delivered some value to me, instead of wasting my time and making me angry
I find it unbelievable that advertisers believe that forcing someone to watch ads they hate will increase their sales
Ads make me angry and I don't support companies that make me angry
Re:I will not watch ads (Score:4, Informative)
"Whatever is needed"? That's REALLY easy. Don't watch the content. You are not owed it.
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Oh bullshit. I pay taxes that pay for roads. I don't get a slice of everything that travels on them. What an entitled load of crap.
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Me too, yet they are all still full of pot holes and are not maintained well at all. Meanwhile, they are repaving perfectly fine roads, and spend 3 months doing it.
This is what it's like to pay and see ads on Amazon.
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This article reminded me to cancel Prime (Score:2)
Re:This article reminded me to cancel Prime (Score:4, Informative)
For accuracy: there are 6 seasons of The Expanse, which roughly coincide with the first 6 books. 3 seasons were on SyFy, and then Amazon picked it up and filmed 3 more, ending with the events in book 6: 'Babylon's Ashes.' Between book 6 and 7 there is something like a 20 year gap, so it's a natural place to break if they don't want to continue with the Laconia story arc, or maybe want to revisit it in the future.
For the record, I would love it if they did, as the last three books and interstitial novellas are also fantastic, and the screenplay treatment they have given the first 6 books has been quite good. There are differences between the two, but really only to cut out things that would be very hard to drive home through television without a lot of tricky production work, or to compress time - nothing meaningful, and there aren't any quick "convenience" changes that conflict with other parts of the story - where they make changes, they cascade those changes through the rest so that there is still an overall congruence within the story.
It's some of the best science fiction that has been produced in the last decade, imo.
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For accuracy: there are 6 seasons of The Expanse, which roughly coincide with the first 6 books. 3 seasons were on SyFy, and then Amazon picked it up and filmed 3 more, ending with the events in book 6: 'Babylon's Ashes.' Between book 6 and 7 there is something like a 20 year gap, so it's a natural place to break if they don't want to continue with the Laconia story arc, or maybe want to revisit it in the future.
For the record, I would love it if they did, as the last three books and interstitial novellas are also fantastic, and the screenplay treatment they have given the first 6 books has been quite good. There are differences between the two, but really only to cut out things that would be very hard to drive home through television without a lot of tricky production work, or to compress time - nothing meaningful, and there aren't any quick "convenience" changes that conflict with other parts of the story - where they make changes, they cascade those changes through the rest so that there is still an overall congruence within the story.
It's some of the best science fiction that has been produced in the last decade, imo.
I agree, but lets face it, it's over. We should let it go.
Better that it ends now with the audience wanting more than to drudge on and on and on until we're sick of it (sadly Doctor Who has done this).
If anything, I'd like to see other popular and original Sci Fi books turned into film/TV.
easy come, easy go. (Score:5, Interesting)
I signed up for Prime for the faster shipping many years ago.
Then Prime Video came out, and for a while it was pretty decent. Nowadays I don't find myself watching it at all. Even navigating is painful anymore because they make it hard to find the included (free to me) stuff amongst all the pay-to-view. And I don't seem to find much in the way of compelling new shows, or ability to watch my fav movies.
Paying extra to get rid of ads, when the content is already very stale? what a joke.
So long Prime Video.
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There is a section in the app that specifically only shows the free stuff. .
My Stuff -> Prime.
Not that this fixes the ad problem here, but if you don't want to see the stuff that costs more then this is how it's done.
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ok, thanks.
So they have moved it around a few different times, and also there seem to be different UI for different devices. Overall the experience has been downhill for the past couple of years to the point that I'm no longer even interested in trying out the latest changes.
If it works for you, that's great... maybe you are closer to their target demographic.
I am a Prime subscriber. (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a Prime subscriber. I also love film and cartoons, of all sorts.
But no force on this earth will make me pay on top of the already princely sum Prime costs a year for what is a catalog packed with nothing of consequence. The only worthy thing in there is The Grand Tour, and only if you are open to the Three Stooges' (Clarkson, May, Hammond) particular brand of anarchy and disdain for the governing class.
Sorry, Amazon -- there's a line, and Prime itself gets close to stepping on it -- but asking for more money when you already take so much from your customers in Prime fees is crossing the line and then some. Not a single penny more for you than is absolutely necessary.
Oh and.. I'm re-evaluating my Prime membership. It's up in April. I may just choose to not renew, and buy my junk -- whatever junk it may be -- from either the retailer's website directly, or from other merchants.
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I would suggest, Reacher, Upload, Terminal List, Tales from the Loop, are all pretty good as modern television goes.
They are certainly light years ahead of yet-another-mcu spin off on Disney, or more of that adult-targeted-cartoon that is run a decade to long on Hulu. As well as Netflix's brand of ensemble show that shows up on all three platforms where 3-6 characters stand around and come up with 'creative' new ways to cuss.
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I would suggest, Reacher, Upload, Terminal List, Tales from the Loop, are all pretty good as modern television goes.
I'll second "Upload", I enjoyed it a lot -- haven't seen the other two. I also enjoyed "Citadel" and "The Peripheral", the latter more that I thought I would . "Catastrophe" was funny as was, to a lessor extent, "Fleabag" and "Flack". I enjoyed "The Expanse" enough to want to actually read the books.
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I would suggest not paying for Prime since you can get free shipping if you just save up your order and buy several items at once.
Amazon Video does have a stand-alone subscription that you can purchase, which is not subject to ads.
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I gave up on prime exactly because of this move. I now get free shipping by having them deliver to the post office. It's actually quite convenient because you can go and get your stuff when it's convenient for you, instead of waiting for a guy who doesn't knock and then leaves the package inside the dirty wheelie bin.
It's still advertising in something I paid for. (Score:2)
This is still advertising in a service I paid for and I don't accept that.
This means that Amazon are changing this from a package delivery and media service for £95/year to a package delivery service with some useless shit on the side for £95/year, and raising the price of the package delivery and media service to £131/year.
I'll be deciding if I want to pay that over the next few months. Amazon had better check their content offering to see if the price rise is justified by the content off
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Well, you are paying for free 2 day shipping. Video was always just a value add onto the subscription.
Prime Video has a stand-alone subscription that you can purchase. I don't pay for Prime, but I do sometimes pop in to the Prime Video sub for a month to watch the latest series.
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I buy series on DVD. mostly from used stuff stores. They are literally sold for a pound, sometimes 50 pence a disk.
Goodbye, Prime (Score:1)
I signed up for Prime in the early 201x for the "guaranteed two day shipping" that it offered. Then all these other perks starting coming out and I was like "hey that's cool."
Then, Amazon started taking over its own logistics, and the two-day delivery guarantee went away. Then, delivery dates started slipping even more. And then half the stuff we bought arrived damaged or was left out in the rain or whatever.
So... we checked... we looked at Walmart+ and found that we could get the vast majority of what we b
Bad selection anyway (Score:2)
One of the few shows they had that gave me hope was when they continued the story of The Expanse only to see them bail on season 6 with a paltry 6 episodes.
Anything else you want, it's always an extra subscription or rental anyway so what's the point? I think they should just stop providing it and just make shows to sell to other streamers,
In other news... (Score:2)
... in other news, piracy rates of Amazon Studios content has had a marked increase starting today.
The greedy never learn that if you increase the pain of using your service for no purpose more virtuous than lining your pockets, people are going to look for ways to make it less painful, or stop using it altogether. See: all the ad blockers that shitcan ads on YouTube.
Just block the ads (Score:2)
It isn't hard. I have basic ass ad-supported Hulu. I watch a ton of Twitch (which is owned by Amazon) streamers. I have blocked all the ads via Ublock Origin. And I will block any ads that come through on Prime.
There is a really simple way all these companies could completely defeat adblocking permanently, but they're too stupid to ever figure it out, so get to blocking the ads everyone.
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Not sure about a firestick, but I block ads on my Google Chromecast w/ Google TV no problem as well, though, admittingly it's not quite as simple. Most of the time I cast from my PC, which is already blocking the ads, to the Chromecast. Changing your routers DNS settings to an ad blocking DNS should work for firestick.
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You can only block ads on stuff you have control over, i.e. a computer. They are going more and more toward the direction where you have little if no control over what you can install or do on your platform.
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I have control over my entire network once the data hits my router.
I use a DNS based ad blocker on my phone, for when I'm not at home. And, while I personally don't need it right now, others who might need it can use DNS based blocking at the router level. It's still really easy. This should block ads on devices where you have less control (firestick, most smart tvs, etc).
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Ad blockers don't work on most non-browser viewing mechanisms (e.g. Roku, Apple TV, Fire stick).
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But router-based DNS ad blocking does. Which is also super easy to do. And if you don't own your own router, you've already failed at home internet setup.
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But router-based DNS ad blocking does. Which is also super easy to do. And if you don't own your own router, you've already failed at home internet setup.
Ad blocking at the DNS level does not work for many video streaming services
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Then you aren't using the right ones (or they aren't being updated in a timely manner). The only way a video streaming services bypass it is changing where they come from OR by pre-embedding the ad directly into the video before serving any of it to the user.
I'm in the "OK. Whatever." Group (Score:2)
I subscribed to Amazon Prime years ago before they had a streaming video service. They added it on with no explicit price increase. Prime has increased in price since then, but the value of prime for delivery and returns is absolutely worth it for me before even considering the streaming. Now, I also happen to like a few of the Prime-only shows they've produced and I appreciate non-Prime things being made available. They're not my go-to but I like it.
Commercials are not offensive to me. I doubt I will notic
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Amazon Prime? Is that you?
Sorry if not, but is sounds too much like a commercial.
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Nope. Just being honest. I'd be surprised if more than 20% of Amazon Prime subscribers even watch a Prime Streaming video once per week. It's not THE reason most people pay for the service. It's effectively "free" for most people (before they consider how much more expensive their Prime membership is because of the streaming service).
Perfect Timing (Score:2)
I was planning on cancelling my Amazon Prime account and was waiting until after the holidays.
Welp, holidays are passed. I had one other occasion I was waiting for, it has passed. Time to kill it.
RIP my prime subscription.
Canceled it because of it (Score:2)
I am tired of every service to stuff in ads as an annoyance to force people to shell out more.
I used to have Prime for the one day shipping, and occasionally I used Prime Video to watch a movie. After this move, I actually canceled the service altogether.
Get greedy, I close my wallet. It's that simple.
Amazon's claim that it has a lower ad-load (Score:2)
Ads Everywhere: Get Used To It (Score:2)
They just can't stop showing ads in internet services. Free? Lots of ads. premium/paid service? We'll just show a few and see if anyone notices. Ne cancellations? Ha! More ads. It's internet evolution as predictable as thr sun rising in the east.
In short (Score:2)
The length of one song.
Considering the drivel people willingly listen to for that length of time, this doesn't seem unreasonable (even though I wouldn't watch the ad anyway).
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This is the slippery slope. It's been proven again and again to not be a fallacy when it comes to "entertainment with advertisement". The correct amount of ads to accept in a service you pay for is NONE.
Since Amazon is bundling a video streaming service with a subscription based delivery service, it's a hard ask to say "I'll cancel Prime" when my primary use case is to have crap delivered to my house "quickly". I suspect I'll just uninstall the Prime Video apps from my streaming devices and leave it at t
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I'm not arguing the point of ads. It's one of the reasons I cut cable about a decade ago (with the real issue being cost and lack of shows to watch). I'm only saying, and somewhat agreeing with Amazon (for as much as it pains me), three minutes of ads over a one hour period isn't bad considering most shows have 17 minutes of ads in an hour.
It's good to not be a consumer (Score:2)
I stopped watching tv and the first commercial channels in this country when I realised I turned it on after work more out of habit than to actually watch anything, and cancelled my vable subscription when a fiber internet connection became available.
I never looked back because I don't miss regular tv, and it brings about a sense of freedom to not be addicted to the boobtube.
Since then, most new movies and series I watched was more about knowing what other were talking about if I was curious enough, and I b
Time to Split Prime and Video (Score:2)
Right now they're suffering under the mixed perception as to what people are paying for. Near as I can tell, they've been pretty consistent that what you're paying for is actually the delivery service. Historically they've granted "free" access to Prime Video to subscribers to that delivery service. That made sense, since Prime Video is mostly a poor cousin of other streaming services. Trying to grow a subscriber base makes sense.
They should probably be unbundled now, especially if they're trying to align
Paying for their failed woke series (Score:1)
They took a big loss on The Rings of Power which didn't really bring in subscribers. It also angered more people than it satisfied. The Wheel of Time series was written a bit too woke as well. The books had a good balance between the abilities of men and women, but their TV series has no balance at all. It comes across as pure feminist writings, aka did not bring in subscribers either.
Well, they need to fix their "billion dollar" loss somehow. Ads are probably the choice that they thought would cause the le
Don't worry (Score:2)
Things Probably Won't Change Much (Score:2)
Compare that to YouTube. They recently helped me curtail my addiction to their content by completely saturating it with ads. It got bad enough that I eventually downloaded a third-party app to watch it on my tablet without ads. However, then the
3.5 mins/hour is just right ... (Score:2)
to go and have a piss and make a cup of tea that will make me want to go again 1 hour later.
Disclaimer: I do not have amazon prime, indeed I buy nothing from them.
What? (Score:1)
Amazon backtracking? (Score:1)
You recently signed up for the upcoming ad free subscription for Prime Video. You've been selected to continue to receive an ad free experience for a limited period of time as part of our ongoing testing so we have canceled your pre-order. You’ll get the same benefits as customers subscribed to ad free for Prime Video, but you won’t be charged. No action is required.
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It could be the percent of people who drop their subscription who get this deal vs those that don't. However that does not make sense because if you pre-signed up for the no-ad subscription then you are not likely to be dropping.
"Free perk"? (Score:2)
Amazon Prime Video has been a free perk for those who subscribe to the ecommerce giant's free shipping service...
Not sure how they figure that. Prime Video has been part of the Prime offering for years. It's what I expect. Sure, it might have been an addition when it was first offered (seatbelts, radios, and GPS all used to be add-ons) but by now it's just part of the offering.
I wonder if they've thought about offering Prime Video as a separate, unbundled service. It would make sense. I'm sure there are a number of people who want all-you-can-eat shipping without watching videos, and vice versa. I'm going to assume Am
Why is there video streamining the first place? (Score:2)
Amazon is an online retailer, and Prime is a subscription that offers some advantages related to it, mainly free shipping. That has nothing to do with video streaming.
The only thing in common is that the same company does both. The worst part is that you can't have free shipping without streaming, a streaming service you are paying for, you don't think it is actually a gift do you? Anyways it is a dubious commercial practice, that is probably illegal in some places. If you consider you are paying for that s
Remember when streaming services were ad-free? (Score:2)
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Don't worry. In 40 years, they will be saying that no streaming services were ever ad free and that it is just the Mandela effect causing us to think otherwise.
Fuck the gaslighting. There really was a cornucopia in the 1970s Fruit of the Loom commercials. The apple was a slightly overweight white guy in an apple costume and the grapes were a skinnyish black guy.
Don't try to tell me I didn't see what I saw. I forget the other 'fruits', but I recall both guys pretty clearly.
Sounds good to me (Score:2)
Good Idea, more ads for Temu and Tiktok (Score:1)
If Jeff Bezos needs the money, why not include commercial breaks that distract you from the extended commercial you are already watching? It probably improves the impact of product placeme
oh joy. (Score:2)
I just start using that service and now I need to abandon it completely.
Because there is no way IN HELL that they would manage to make 3 bucks a month off of ads for how little I watch and I refuse to pay more than they would make from me in ad revenure to make ads go away.
Gimme a pro-rated rate and I'll -consider- not unceremoniously dumping this bullshit directly into the trash where it belongs.
Ads Ain't So Bad (Score:1)
What I do mind -- a whole friggin' lot -- is that ads are SOOO much louder than the programming they interrupt. That was the case back in the days of cable, too, but it has gotten way worse in these days of streaming. They can be so loud as to startle, literally: waking pets from sleep; causing me to knock over a glass in my mad rush to find the remote so I could mute the damn thing; etc.
If Amazon