Time to ditch Amazon Prime?
Time to ditch Amazon Prime?
Amazon says its Prime Video users will see ads on TV shows and movies unless they pay extra.
This will be the straw that breaks the camel's back for me.
According to the comments, I might be the only person on earth that subscribed to Prime exclusively for their shipping.
I am with you. Their streaming service was always subpar to competitors. In fact, I watched only one series there -the expanse, and that’s it.
God forgive me, I'm going defend Prime. I always thought that because Prime was also required for faster shipping, they were willing to explore artistic shows that something like Netflix wouldn't touch these days. People likely aren't subscribing or cancelling because of the video offer, so they have more freedom to greenlight interesting concepts.
Prime shows like Solos and Tales from the Loop probably aren't great for getting new subscribers, but they're absolutely wonderful, especially compared to season 47 of [generic low-budget comedy baking reality show]. Shows like The Expanse, Mr Robot, Homecoming are all solid and Prime seems far less likely to cancel shows before they end properly.
Paper Girls is pretty good too.
I pay $0 for my streaming service, and it has everything i want on it. Yaaaaarrrrrr
I think we had Prime before streaming even started, so that was like a bonus.
But lately we hardly use it. The site is so janky and bloated with trash, I’d rather pay shipping and buy directly from a brand website or a normal retailer. Most have free shipping nowadays anyway.
I just bought an Apple USB wall adapter from Amazon because Best Buy was out of them. I spent like 20 minutes inspecting it and the package and watching videos about how to make sure it isn’t counterfeit. Buying a $20 thing shouldn’t be a stressful ordeal.
Naw, I was too. Haven't been for a year or two, but I've only ever subscribed to them for the shipping. Barely used their streaming when I did cause, also, yarr 🏴☠️
Imagine for a second you were a paid member of a gym, but decided to do most of your exercise outside the gym you just paid for.
That's most streaming platforms for a large amount of people. They're so inconvenient that people will pay for them, and still not use the service they paid for.
A damning indictment of modern day streaming platforms tbh.
the music is a more significant boost to the shipping than the video.
We just write down things we need to get from Amazon, then wait until they give us another free trial month of Prime and do it all at once lol.
based
And piracy is yet again the superior experience.
I started pirating their shows, even though I pay for prime. Their UX is just so absolutely bad, that it was easier to use torrents
Haven’t paid for a streaming service since 2020. Piracy proves yet again to be the only real option.
And execs wonder why we torrent.
Time to buy more hard drives for my Plex server.
If you're selfhosting then you should consider Jellyfin. It does all the important stuff Plex does without the ever-increasing bloat as they try to monetize it.
I’ve run a Plex server for over a decade. It just works and the barrier to entry for family is extremely low. I’ll keep using Plex for now.
Yaaar, we had ourselves a good run goin' legit, mateys, but it looks like it be time to hoist the jolly roger again.
I guess we arrived at the giant whirlpool fight vs the East India Trading Company in Pirates of the Caribbean pt. 3
You mean I get to pay for the privilege of watching your ads? Wow thank you so much amazon how could I be so lucky wow I am not worthy
It already forces you to watch many trailers anyways ahahaha
You can skip those trailers... don't think that will work with those ads.
If you subscribe to other channels via Amazon Prime (e.g., Paramount+ through the Prime app), they already serve you 70-90s unskippable ads. Often ads for the very show you are about to watch. It's infuriating.
If I were paying for it myself it would be totally unacceptable. Since I'm just using someone else's account, it still makes me mad but I'll tolerate it.
I don’t know about other channels, but Paramount+ shows a crapton of ads even on their official platform. That may not be Amazon’s fault.
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I wish they had the option for prime shipping only. I barely use prime video, only for the occasional Grand Tour special and a couple of movies a year
paying is fine, and free with ads is fine, but pay to see ads. no thank you.
Guess I’ll be pirating their shows then
Will be cancelling prime, little used anyway, but kept it going.... this latest news, is the impetus to ditch it... thanks Amazon..
There is something that I really don’t get. Aren’t we close to critical advertisement mass by now? With all the silly advertising at this point, Amazon, for example, must be advertising on Disney+, while Disney+ is advertising on Netflix.
Advertising going up, prices going up, quality going down, consumer disposable income going down.
Plus the writer and actor strikes that are going to hit content releases hard once they finished releasing already-finished content.
This happens. I’ve seen Prime ads on Hulu where their streaming platform is a prominent feature.
The only time I had amazon prime was a free trial.
Always used it for free shipping and ordered all the small things which i normally wouldn't order because of shipping costs
You can still do that without prime as long as your purchase totals to $25 (and is shipped by Amazon). I just wait till I hit $25 before buying everything at the same time. Anything important or critical I buy direct and not through amazon anyway.
I canceled it at the beginning of the year. Im not missing anything and I try to diversify the stores I purchase from.
The only thing that sucks is when I HAVE to use amazon for something. They will nag you so hard to get prime. It only makes me avoid them even more.
Why would you HAVE to use amazon?
There have been many items I've looked at or bought, mostly from small-ish manufacturers, that are only available through amazon due to the manufacturer not have the resources to handle all the logistics and web store that come with selling through amazon. I do everything I can to avoid buying from them because I can't stand their bull shit.
If you live remote, say, an hour or more from real shopping and such it’s the way to get fast delivery on anything, though Walmart does ok with this, though their “fast” is fairly unreliable. (Great for front door delivery of kitty litter, dog food, etc)
But no, most people don’t need it because most people don’t live remote.
Dude, the time to ditch Amazon as a whole was like 10 years ago.
Stremio asked me to say hi.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Amazon is set to introduce adverts to its Prime Video streaming service in 2024 as it seeks to put more cash into creating TV shows and films.
UK Prime customers, along with those in the US, Germany and Canada, will see ads early next year unless they subscribe for an "ad-free" option at an additional cost.
At the moment, a Prime subscription, which includes free one-day delivery on goods as well as access to its streaming service, costs £8.99 per month, or £95 a year, in the UK.
The company said it would get in touch with Prime members a few weeks before ads are introduced to show how to sign-up for the ad-free option if they wish to.
Live event broadcasts, like sports matches, will still include adverts even for those who sign up to the ad-free option.
Data previously released by analysts Kantar showed that people cut back on video streaming services in their droves last year as they sought out different ways to deal with the spike in the cost of living.
The original article contains 398 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 56%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
We were already leaning towards replacing it with WalMart+ before this announcement. It used to be worth it when it was cheaper and got you next day delivery, but those are gone. We have little use for it's various features, so we figure give W+ a try for a year, it's cheaper, and seems to cover our needs, though there's a good chance that'll be a one and done thing, since I don't think we'll find it worth it, but I don't see us going back to Prime.
I will be switching from Amazon Prime to RealDebrid. It's cheaper, and the service seems better. 🏴☠️
Yep. I'm moving this month and not renewing.
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One of the rare cases in which Betteridge's law doesn't apply.
Even though I have prime, I think I've used their video service like 2 or 4 times. The interface is shit and the included media was sub par the vast majority of the time unless I wanted to pay to watch something that wasn't included.
They recently updated the app interface across the board, it is much more like Netflix or others streaming apps than it was. They’ve gotten a lot of good original content and taken over some things that were cancelled elsewhere (like The Expanse).
I don’t like this change although it seems they’re all doing it, but their platform and content are pretty good these days. They are also one of the cheaper services these days if you just do a video sub, and they don’t charge a premium for 4k.
meh. if I could set an option for only media where the audio was in my language that would go far.
We already pay for prime, all this will do is make me watch the shows I already pay for from my Unraid server.