season 3 will have ads

[Scarloc99]

On 10/7/2023 at 7:22 PM, VooDooNut said:

I won't be subjected to ads. I avoid them like the plague. It's sad to see that people who already pay so much for Prime get squeezed even more. As @Mirefox said, I believe this will jeopardize the quality of the show, even if it adds to the production budget.

How do you want your TV to be made? It needs to be paid for and streamers have demonstrated that subscriptions alone can’t pay the bills and keep the lights on. Let alone pay for quality tv. Disney plus is generating immense losses, Netflix is making money but not as much as it should be, and who knows what the Amazon model is. 

 

Linear cable tv paid for big budget tv through selling tv ads on top of the subscription you paid to watch. Why should streamers be different? 

[Mirefox]

52 minutes ago, Scarloc99 said:

If it is like other streamers it won’t be during the show, you will get mandatory ads at the start before the show plays. 

Amazon already does that.

[Ralph]

1 minute ago, Mirefox said:

Amazon already does that.

not on mine. it starts a trailer but can skip immediately

Edited October 9, 2023 by Ralph

[Mirefox]

3 minutes ago, Ralph said:

not on mine. it starts a trailer but can skip immediately

True, I guess you can skip.  Im usually just getting a snack.

[VooDooNut]

1 hour ago, Scarloc99 said:

How do you want your TV to be made? It needs to be paid for and streamers have demonstrated that subscriptions alone can’t pay the bills and keep the lights on. Let alone pay for quality tv. Disney plus is generating immense losses, Netflix is making money but not as much as it should be, and who knows what the Amazon model is. 

 

Linear cable tv paid for big budget tv through selling tv ads on top of the subscription you paid to watch. Why should streamers be different? 

My stance is that if I can’t avoid ads, either by

 

a) paying directly for a service, like Prime (used to be) or,

 

b) other means…

 

then I won’t partake in the service. It’s not worth the brainwashing to me. 

[Scarloc99]

4 hours ago, VooDooNut said:

My stance is that if I can’t avoid ads, either by

 

a) paying directly for a service, like Prime (used to be) or,

 

b) other means…

 

then I won’t partake in the service. It’s not worth the brainwashing to me. 

But prime your not just paying for TV, your paying for Amazon music, free delivery, I think some audible stuff (never used audible), and maybe other extras that prime membership gets you. 

[LightHelpMe]

2 hours ago, Scarloc99 said:

think some audible stuff (never used audible), and maybe other extras that prime membership gets you. 

No, Audible is a completely separate service. Same if you want Kindle Unlimited, and even Prime Music has limitations but I don't use it so I can't remember what.

[LightHelpMe]

I am glad I saw this. Somehow I don't think Netflix is gonna email me and ask me if I want the cheaper package with ads. Although I would have heard eventually.

 

What really irks me is I have shows that I purchased digitally on Prime years ago that have since been added to their Freevee streaming platform, which includes ads, so now I have to watch the ads!

 

As a rule ads don't bother me too much. I grew up watching TV that way.

[Ralph]

An update on Prime Video

Dear Prime member,   We are writing to you today about an upcoming change to your Prime Video experience. Starting February 5, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements. This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than ad-supported TV channels and other streaming TV providers. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership. We will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional £2.99 per month* that you can sign up for here.

[Pandemonium]

If Amazon does ads and still cancels season 4 of wheel of time that is when I finally cancel my prime subscription 

[WheelofJuke]

Convinced my wife to finally cut Amazon completely, after years of seeing diminishing returns. Enshittification (aka platform decay) is a real thing and Amazon is one of the world leaders at it. 

Certainly not going to help a show like WoT...

 

I'm increasingly glad I bailed after season 1.

Edited January 5 by WheelofJuke

[Sabio]

Why is Amazon doing it?  $$$$$$ People are less likely to get upset paying extra for no commercials then if they raised subscription costs again.  Yes some won't pay it, but customers are less likely to end their subscription over it.  This way Amazon makes more money in a way that's less likely to upset their customers.  It's basicly the same as raising subscription costs but just in a more discreet way.

 

If I watched more on Prime I might pay it, but as it is Prime doesn't offer many free movies.  It seems like a lot of what they push you need to download another app for like Tubi/Freevee etc or the only option is to buy/rent.  I won't pay $2.99 a month just to watch WOT which might not be out for another 2 years and IMO is just an ok series.

Edited January 14 by Sabio

[BookMattBetterThanShow]

In my case getting Prime Video was kind of free because we had Prime already, so spending $36 a year for no commercial is pretty cheap streaming service. 

[Jaccsen]

22 hours ago, BookMattBetterThanShow said:

In my case getting Prime Video was kind of free because we had Prime already, so spending $36 a year for no commercial is pretty cheap streaming service. 

Their UI, at least on Roku, is terrible. This makes the experience just poor. I used to purchase movies and TV shows via Amazon but the UI is so bad that it makes it not worth it. For example, I purchased Macross 2. It is unavailable for purchase now. I still have it but I have to scroll through everything to find it (search does not work). You cannot even organize your purchases alphabetically.

 

I barely use Prime Video any longer because of it. Paying a monthly fee for a service that has maybe 1-2 watchable shows is just not worth it.

 

 

[BookMattBetterThanShow]

I use AppleTV and yes the Prime UI sucks, not sure why they won't fix it. Their Marketing also sucks, they have lots of issues, but what they charge compared to others is not an issue for me. Also they have good shows, just no one can find them.

[BenPatient]

Sorry if this gets long. I have been an Amazon Prime subscriber since a year before my first child was born. It was I think $79? My first child is now 16 and has had a license for 6 months. So roughly 17 years of Prime membership.

 

We were one of those "order everything from Amazon" families because things were cheaper AND it was nicer to just pick up a box from the porch. We occasionally lost a box to a porch pirate (something like 1 every 2 years), and on occasion we would have a package disappear. Every time, a call to Amazon customer service (and later, a chat session) would always fix it quickly. 

 

They added Prime Video and Prime Music. They added Prime pictures at some point. Subscribe and Save. All cool and useful. There was something for Kindle users, too.

 

Prime Music was completely ad-free, with "only" a couple million albums. Sometimes albums would disappear and be replaced with others, but it was on par with Spotify for what felt like "free." You just had to pick things you liked from what was available. Certainly better than Pandora, and much better than Spotify with Ads. 

 

Prime Video started adding first-party shows. Some were great (Mozart in the Jungle, Catastrophe, Bosch, Goliath), some not so much. Prime Video had a ton of old HBO "marquee" shows on it in HD at a time when Netflix was charging more for HD and we were still paying an extra fee for an HD DVR from Dish Network. Certainly not enough to compete with Netflix really, but an actual perk to Prime membership that I appreciated.

 

Then slowly, things shifted. The price of Prime itself started creeping up. They started announcing these high-dollar video projects (LOTR most notably). They started shutting down popular shows with no warning, Netflix-style. We're up to $139/year. 

 

They started mixing in the Prime and rent/buy titles in the app interface, intentionally confusing the two and making it harder to just see the Prime content. They added pre-roll promos. They added "add-on" subscriptions and started prioritizing them over anything else. The HBO content went away. A bunch of old Criterion content went away. They bought IMDBtv and rebranded it FreeVee. It's full of ads and the bitrate is noticeably poor. They started pushing "real" shows to it that would have just gone on Prime before (Bosch Legacy, Jury Duty, etc). They started adding 1 episode of popular shows so they would appear in search results for that show, with no intention of ever even offering the rest of the show. 

 

Prime Music added HD, but made it a higher price, then started moving more and more of the content from Prime to the paid version. Last year they "re-launched" a "new, improved" Prime Music with "100 million" songs, but it's a Pandora-style radio system, where you pick a song and it plays "similar" things. It almost never does a good job, and it regularly pulls from random crap tracks. Want to listen to "The Beatles - Yellow Submarine" and similar songs? I hope you like track 47 of the ultra-super-edition of Revolver where John Lennon makes fart noises into a bass drum mic and plays a 1-string banjo, because that's probably coming at you in the next 20 minutes. But don't skip it because you only get 4 skips an hour! I complained a bunch, and they gave me a couple free months of the paid version. Fine. Once that ran out, it went back to Ignorant Pandora mode. We went from using 10-15 hours of Amazon Music per day to literally zero within a month. I guess that's what they were hoping for...

 

Actual Amazon (the store) has been raising prices (relative to the market) at a steady clip for a decade. Reviews are all either AI or scam posts. At this point you can buy a case of Kirkland Signature [whatever] AND a Costco annual membership for less than the "shipped and sold by Amazon" price on the same item with Prime, and there's a decent chance you will get a used/refurb/counterfeit version even then. Last month I ordered spark plugs from "shipped and sold by Amazon" seller to save about 10 dollars on the whole order. Instead of 2 days, it took 8, and instead of 6 new items, I got a plastic bag with another plastic bag inside it, held together by a rubber band, with 2 new-ish spark plugs, two very, very used ones that had obviously been returned, and a handful of used Amazon Basics AA batteries to get the weight up to spec. This supposedly straight from the mega-scale distribution center that employs half of the small town 10 minutes down the road. One of my wife's Christmas presents, ordered Dec 12, expected delivery Dec 15, still hasn't arrived. I got regular "it's still coming, but running late" messages from them until January, and then they told me I could ask for a refund. At this point I'm just waiting to see what they do if I don't click that button. 

 

And now they want me to pay an extra $2.99 to skip commercials on the handful of things I would still watch on Prime Video? Oh look, my membership is up a week before that goes into effect. Pretty silly when I see it all laid out like that, but straw, camel, etc. 

 

Unsubscribe. 

[Mirefox]

On 1/16/2024 at 8:14 AM, Jaccsen said:

Their UI, at least on Roku, is terrible. This makes the experience just poor. I used to purchase movies and TV shows via Amazon but the UI is so bad that it makes it not worth it. For example, I purchased Macross 2. It is unavailable for purchase now. I still have it but I have to scroll through everything to find it (search does not work). You cannot even organize your purchases alphabetically.

 

I barely use Prime Video any longer because of it. Paying a monthly fee for a service that has maybe 1-2 watchable shows is just not worth it.

 

 

Prime’s UI is one of the worst I have ever seen.

[CaddySedai]

To be honest I wish we would just make shows 2 hours long, save about 20 mins worth of ads and put them in the middle like an intermission at a play. Let ya get up, stretch your legs, get some poppy for the second half. 

 

And do this for everything including the NFL. Ads only during the game intermissions between quarters. lol

[DojoToad]

I was just getting ready to stream 'The Office' on Peacock last night.  Five minutes in  - commercial.  A few minutes after that - 90 second commercial.  Done.  I've already seen all the episodes without ads, not going to sit through them with ads.  I too grew up watching ads growing up but have now been too spoiled by the streaming age.  I can't go back and don't watch network TV anymore.

 

I never see an ad when reading, running, working on hobbies or playing a video game.  Sorry to see Amazon is going this way.  The glowing screen will be seeing me a lot less - except for video games, of course 😁

[Skipp]

4 hours ago, DojoToad said:

I was just getting ready to stream 'The Office' on Peacock last night.  Five minutes in  - commercial.  A few minutes after that - 90 second commercial.  Done.  I've already seen all the episodes without ads, not going to sit through them with ads.  I too grew up watching ads growing up but have now been too spoiled by the streaming age.  I can't go back and don't watch network TV anymore.

 

I never see an ad when reading, running, working on hobbies or playing a video game.  Sorry to see Amazon is going this way.  The glowing screen will be seeing me a lot less - except for video games, of course 😁

This was in peacock?  When Amazon was announcing ads I assumed they would be preroll ads which I wouldn't have a major issue with.  Otherwise I kinda agree with you, if ads start appearing in the middle of my shows then I am going to be cutting back on my streaming services.

Edited January 26 by Skipp