Ads are coming to Prime Video’s entertainment content. Commercials in movies and series will be introduced in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada in early 2024, followed by France, Italy, Spa…
They are the worst streaming service. They looked at cable TV and said "this is perfect" while being apparently oblivious that most people who pay for streaming services HATE cable TV.
The only thing that made Prime worth it was shipping, but then Amazon decided they wanted to own the whole shipping process and stopped using reliable shippers and brought it all in house and now its a dice roll if you are going to get your package or if its going to be lost, and half the time its damaged.
I have prime for 70% shipping, 25% automatic photo/video uploads, and 5% video streaming.
I think the only amazon things I’ve watched are The Boys and Swarm. Both good but not worth a subscription. I also have other ways to get these shows if needed.
Then they tried with groceries - fail, then they tried with healthcare - fail. The whole of the stock market is wondering what Amazon's "next big thing" will be. Likely going down the toilet is my guess.
Too much chinese garbage most of America has realized they don't really need.
I quit prime after the last prime day and have saved so much money. It's really something how much influence that subscription had on me, and how cancelling it changed my buying habits.
It's crazy isn't it? I canceled mine probably around the same time. Now I actually shop around online and either find a better deal or buy straight from the manufacturer for the same price (meaning they end up with more money since Amazon doesn't get a cut). Amazon is now my LAST resort instead of the first place I land.
The unlimited full resolution photo storage is what keeps me subscribed. Everything else is just extra.
The Prime shipping I don't really care about; it's easy enough to just wait until the cart hits the free shipping spend. Prime streaming was fine, previously. We like a few of their shows, but it's just as convenient to pirate then now that they're adding ads.
Is there a better option for cheap off-site unlimited photo storage?
First they increase prices for content I don’t watch - Live and Sports. Next, I found out they don’t allow Amazon Whole Foods employees to wear BLM masks if they want, and now increasing prices again to avoid ads.
Meanwhile, I was able to get a Walmart+ membership (on sale) for $50/year, and their prices are very competitive with Amazon, which comes with Free shipping and Paramount+ subscription, as well as other perks.
I know you're probably joking but I recently picked up a 4TB WD Red Plus for $70... the drive isn't perfect but that price blew my mind, great for storing simple media.
I will cancel. Obviously not everyone will but I was always on the piracy grind until it was easier not to be. I'll be happy to to back to it. Fuck these cunts who up prices every few months and then don't pay the creatives.
We are the minority though. 99% of people will happily drop their pants and bend over just to not lose their streaming services. Look at Netflix and their ad tier and cutting of sharing.
The average user is a complacent meat bag ready to take whatever corporations want to shove down their throats. So for anyone capable I highly recommend torrenting absolutely every piece of media you consume, and simply buying a physical disk if you want to support said media. If the media doesn't have a physical way to buy it fuck them, just steal it
It's even easier than that, now. For like $20/6 months, you can get a debrid service account that will host everything (that's not obscure) for you. Hook it up to an app like Stremio and you basically have Netflix for all media. It even has panels for show/film discovery, sorted by genre categories.
The only big difference is that you select the quality of stream you want each time you start playing something.
I was going to set up my own system, but a debrid service is cheaper than buying the hard drives and a lot easier to set up.
As far as I’m concerned, the presence of commercial “breaks” makes a movie unwatchable. A good writer, director, or editor carefully manages things like pace, timing, and emotional impact. Interrupting that with an ad for car insurance completely destroys the mood, and cheapens the entire experience. I don’t care if commercials are “limited”. They shouldn’t be there at all.
I only tolerate commercials if I’ve already seen a movie a million times, and I’m only half paying attention anyway.
I remember back in the day, they at least inserted the commercials by hand and usually put them in during a scene transition or something to not fuck up the pace.
The Internet and streaming services are fucking lazy and just insert ads every X seconds or whatever, which can often lead to an ad being played mid fucking sentence. It's so much worse than watching a movie on public access cable with ads and censorship. At least those ads are carefully edited in, and not thrown about willy-nilly. And the censorship can be just as funny (this is what happens when you find a stranger in the alps, Larry!).
The Internet and streaming services are fucking lazy and just insert ads every X seconds or whatever, which can often lead to an ad being played mid fucking sentence.
That is not laziness. This is a typical dark pattern, designed that way on purpose to annoy you into paying.
Youtube (without ad blockers) is the absolute worst at this, as it seems to insert mid roll ads specifically to disrupt the video.
So I canceled Netflix over Cuties, and prematurely canceling shows. I canceled Hulu for rising prices and ads. I stopped paying Max because of their inability to keep their own shows on their own platform. Now it looks like I'll be canceling Prime. I don't order that many things online these days.
I buy maybe one TV show and three movies a year. Much cheaper than these "services". Also, no ads, and they aren't disappearing. They stay right where I left them and I can watch them any time I want. I like reading, maybe I'll do more of that, or complete my backlog of games I haven't finished.
All that being said, my wife started paying for all of the above services because they each "have something" she likes to watch. She also subscribes to Acorn, Peacock, Paramount+, Disney+....I guess she can part ways with her money on this bs. I am done.
Do it, no one can take them away from you at that point. They're usually the highest quality, and you can rip them and stream them yourself. I'm not into... alternatives... anymore, but I do buy blu rays and 4ks whenever I can
I saw these last two price increases coming when they dropped a billion dollars on the Lord of the Rings show and then again when the show got mediocre reviews and low viewing numbers.
When my student discount for Prime is over I'm canceling. This is the last straw.