Amazon Prime Video to start showing ads unless you pay an extra monthly fee

victor2

Terry46_2 said:

My annual sub for Prime was renewed on 14 Dec 23. Is it legal for them to change the terms during the contract?

Probably. Read the T&Cs that you accepted by renewing.

teddysmum

A pricing policy which I have found annoying is the termination of a long series, followed by the appearance of this series on a pay channel, even charging for instalments already shown on Amazon. eg Outlanders is now on membership charging Lionsgate, with an extra episode charge for earlier Amazon viewed content.

I don't know whether they still do this, but for one  Australian series I enjoyed, they made the centre two series sets, rent only. This meant that, if you didn't pay up, the last couple of shows were difficult to follow. However, a viewer reported that UKTV , a free service, was showing the same show, so Amazon lost out.

steviebuk

Cancelled as soon as I got the e-mail about this. When will these companies learn, appears never, its all about greed. If we look at Amazon finances we see they made a massive profit last year so its not like they need the money. This is just pure greed.

What do I mean by the industry never understanding. Well lets take a look at Napster all those years back. The music industry went nuts, mainly the producers who take a large chunk of the artists money anyway, they claimed it was causing a massive lose in sales, it wasn't. If you looked at the data back then, it was increasing sales. People were previewing albums, then actually buying them because they want to support the artist, want the media for collection and the art work.

Then we move to movies. We were all paying for VHS, DVS, Blu-ray and were forced to sit through anti-piracy adverts for items we'd paid for, the pirates didn't. I purchased a Blu-ray with Ultra Violet, this allowed me to download a digital copy. To claim that digital copy I first had to sign up to about 4-5 different other services first. Once the video had downloaded it could only be played on certain devices because of DRM. As the Ultra Violet service is now dead, I've lost access to that. What happens if I pirate? I get no adverts, the piracy warners are all removed, I get sub-titles, I can watch on ANY device I choose and the copy isn't removed when "Our rights have run out".

We then moved to steaming services. This is it, this is the industry waking up. Its convenient, I can rent a movie and instantly watch it on the TV. Its good. No adverts. Then we slowly learn we're paying Netflix for HD and they default to a lower quality stream. Disney+, Paramount, Apple etc all come a long and want a piece of the pie. So they remove their vids from the other providers so you now have to pay for several a month. Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, Paramount, Apple and so on. No one can pay for all those, so what happens? People turn back to piracy again.

We pay for Amazon Prime because WE WANT NO ADVERTS. But the money's not enough, they want more, so will now ad adverts.

I buy and support a kick starter for Will Work for Views: The Lo-Fi Life of Weird Paul. We were supposed to get given a DRM free copy, that never happened. It ended up being given via Amazon Prime, fine but means you had to have an Amazon Prime sub. Watch it, all OK. Then a year or so passes, go to watch it again, no longer available in the UK. So something I paid for I can no longer watch!

We then have Sony "ony Pulls Discovery Videos PlayStation Users Already Own" https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-pulls-discovery-videos-playstation-users-already-own-sparking-concern-over-our-digital-future this, quite rightly, caused outrage and Sony realised their mistake (greed) and reversed the decision.

When pirates give you a better service than the industry does, there is something very wrong with the industry.

*I don't endorse or promote piracy. Its illegal. But the post has a point.

steviebuk

Terry46_2 said:

My annual sub for Prime was renewed on 14 Dec 23. Is it legal for them to change the terms during the contract?

Yes, but as its a contract change you're then entitled to cancel with no penality. Looks like they are refunding people that cancel.

thriftytracey

We have Prime, like others purchased mainly for the next day delivery service.  I accept that the price is built in but it is very convenient.

I am wondering about the frequency and duration of the ads.  If it is just at the beginning of a film or episode I will stick with them but if it several times during viewing, well, I will consider cancelling.  Although the Prime TV offering is quite poor.  I like watching fairly obscure films with good reviews but on the last few occasions I found I have to pay to view them.

Another thing I have noticed with Amazon music.  As a pianist, I used to be able to request certain pieces of music to be played from the baroque period, so well out of copyright fees, but now I am being told to pay for the Amazon music upgrade.  Anyone else noticed this?

Cornucopia

thriftytracey said:

... Another thing I have noticed with Amazon music.  As a pianist, I used to be able to request certain pieces of music to be played from the baroque period, so well out of copyright fees, but now I am being told to pay for the Amazon music upgrade.  Anyone else noticed this?

They changed the Prime version of Amazon Music (which is effectively a middle tier of service).  It used to be any track from a more limited catalog, and they changed it to a shuffled mix based on an artist or theme from the whole catalog.  

Sea_Shell

Well, we watched something on Prime last night, and they had 2 short ads before the start and 1 ad part way through.

If that's all it is, then we're not paying to remove them!

Storm in a teacup? 

Will the most popular series have more?

Time will tell.

DullGreyGuy

teddysmum said:

A pricing policy which I have found annoying is the termination of a long series, followed by the appearance of this series on a pay channel, even charging for instalments already shown on Amazon. eg Outlanders is now on membership charging Lionsgate, with an extra episode charge for earlier Amazon viewed content.

I don't know whether they still do this, but for one  Australian series I enjoyed, they made the centre two series sets, rent only. This meant that, if you didn't pay up, the last couple of shows were difficult to follow. However, a viewer reported that UKTV , a free service, was showing the same show, so Amazon lost out.

That is more to do with distribution rights and commercial agreements ending/companies launching new services etc. 

It's why we don't see HBO Max in the UK because they signed an agreement with Sky that runs until 2025. It wouldn't be surprising if in 2026 you see Max start in the UK and Sky losing some content (or at least not getting early release of Warner Bros films). 

With the explosion of apps and streaming etc there are increasing options for direct to consumers etc. 

You similarly get situations where ABC don't want to finance a new series but the writers get a deal with XYZ. There will be discussions on who keeps the previous series and what can be included in subscriptions or what has to be pay per view. Like the series Lucifer where season 1-3 were done by Fox, when they refused to do season 4 Warner Bro picked it up and it moved onto Netflix 

Sea_Shell said:

Well, we watched something on Prime last night, and they had 2 short ads before the start and 1 ad part way through.

If that's all it is, then we're not paying to remove them!

Storm in a teacup? 

Will the most popular series have more?

Watched a film last night and think there were 3 advert breaks in it but they were fairly well timed to be at high intensity moments - don't know if thats coincidence or design. 

I don't watch Prime enough to pay to remove the ads but it was a bit annoying for someone who hasn't watched live TV in years and so total unused to films/programs being broken up by ads. 

Farway

I watched and only had one ad so can't say I found it annoying.

I wonder if the ads are targeted? If so, that could explain my lack of them because I'm probably not a target buyer for items or services?

DullGreyGuy

Farway said:

I wonder if the ads are targeted? If so, that could explain my lack of them because I'm probably not a target buyer for items or services?

Targeting just tries to make the ads more relevant but they'll show a generic advert if they cannot find one thats a strong match to you. Sometimes they can be epic fails too... was shown adverts for a bra brand specialising in AA-B sized women... that aint targeting me or the Mrs successfully!