Amazon To Start Running Ads In Prime Video Series and Movies, Will Launch Ad-Free Tier For Extra Fee
Amazon To Start Running Ads In Prime Video Series & Movies, Will Launch Ad-Free Tier For Extra Fee
With Netflix already having ads we are now 75% of the way to "cutting the cord" going back to reinventing cable again.
And that's why people started sailing the high seas again.
if it was still just netflix, and everybody didn't have their own streaming service, that would be different.
but when you add up netflix, prime, disney, paramount, peacock, max, and whatever else, the wallet definitely says it's just like cable.
do one at a time and rotate, maybe have one you 'always' have. you can't watch 10 different services at once anyway.
Or just download what you want and say “fuck ‘em”
"Again"?
I've still been out here since Napster. Welcome back aboard, we kept the torrents warm for you.
I like something I saw on here awhile ago that was something like " streaming services where only successful because they where slightly more convenient that pirating " for a while I mostly used a couple of streaming services despite most of the apps having really bad interfaces . But my Plex server has been growing in size lately while the streaming services are being cancelled.
As someone who doesn't sail the high seas, I thank you. Sometimes it looks like there won't be any classic media left without your efforts.
What are the cool kids using these days?
Some of us never stopped sailing the high seas matey. Yarrrrr!
@OldWoodFrame @ZeroCool yeah I will never, Comcast/Xfinity are total scum bags and I would pay extra to never give them money ever again. Unfortunately I am forced to use them for Internet, there’s no way I’m paying for their cable TV programming.
The internet has gotten 3x shittier in the last 12 months.
There's a reason for it, people don't push back enough. We all need to push back more than we have been.
They're noticing the pushback so far, but they're thinking they can break through it and come out victorious on the other side.
Do you really want to pay a monthly fee to be forced to watch commercials?
The whole point of commercials was that you didn't have to pay otherwise to watch the show.
I've cancelled everything in my life that requires a monthly payment (asides vehicle and rent).
It's not that I can't afford it, it's that I'm fucking sick of it.
Apparently this is how cable started, and then they did the same thing lol
Eternal September is real. It's sad
Partly, this is because "the free market will solve it" is just a neoliberal lie. Sometimes, there's simply no other choice as corporations race each other to the bottom.
So this streaming service might have gotten shitty, espensive or unethical, but you can move to another right? Oh no, looks like they're shitty and unethical too, just slightly differently.
Then in six months time, they've each absorbed one another's shitty, greedy practises anyway, ensuring consumers are fully exploited with nowhere else to go.
But the true power of neoliberalism lies in its giant book of premade excuses, so neoliberals (or neoliberals in disguise) will of course read from the next page:
"Oh that's just because there isn't enough competition. We just need to deregulate heavily and allow companies to do whatever the streaming equivalent of dumping toxic by-products in the river is!"
But of course, that won't ever come true either. The companies that already exist will grow more profitable polluting the river and new entries into the market will be either stamped out, bought and stripped for parts or enshittified by the same greed over time.
Following the flowchart taught at exclusive, expensive schools the world over, the next excuse is to blame the consumers.
"Oh if people really cared, they'd simply stop buying things entirely. But they don't, because these companies continue to bring in record profits. So secretly, consumers actually love their chocolate being picked by child slaves".
While they do fight back with boycotts, public outcry and (in this case) things like password sharing and piracy, it's nothing companies can't crush if it looks like it might actually dent their profits.
At some point, consumers need to pick their misery and the choices are bleak but obvious.
They can accept the minor misery of advertising, even as they pay a subscription, just like the corporation knew they would.
They can escalate their own misery further by boycotting the entire platform or industry.
But the moral high ground doesn't make spending your few hours of personal time each day staring at the wall suddenly as entertaining as whatever content you're no longer watching.
Also, the company doesn't care. That was part of their calculations and they're still making even more money.
Or finally, they could maximise their misery and actually do something, like busting out the guillotines or becoming a politician that opposes neoliberalism yet is somehow allowed power.
So anyway, people are tired. The fight never ends and some people have fought it for 50 years already. Encourage them to take the third option by all means, but don't shame them for taking the first option.
They might already be miserable enough.
the money is drying up, gotta find new ways to monetise
All these services turning into shit, are the services without a viable business model to begin with. What I find interesting is that it is obviously possible to become leading in a field, just by burning investors money.
It wouldn't matter if they were drowning in money, if you told them they could have a few pennies more from each customer, they'll do it. It's how greed works.
Covid kindness is over. Buckle up buckaroos.
We have shrinkflation and now adflation.
$2.99/mo. + $14.99/mo. Prime subscription = $17.98 totes.
🤮
Price gouging and corporate greed basically.
The pendulum is swinging back towards the monopoly model that destroyed cable. Time to dust off the old Jolly Roger and teach streaming an old lesson of what happens when you price gouge people.
I keep saying, we already fought this war, we already won.
Fuck around and find out 🏴☠️
People were obviously pissed off at cable's fragmented model, but what killed it was the existence of video on demand services over the internet. The fact that at a certain point Netflix had everything certainly helped in adoption, but the biggest factor was not having to view at a specific time.
There is no such killer improvement on the horizon. All there is is the fragmented streaming market, or piracy.
Those on demand services arose to plug the hole of piracy.
Yarr, the killer improvement was here all along!
Ahoy 🏴☠️
Arrr me matey
I'm baffled by the unrealistic demand for constant infinite growth from corporate shareholders and management. Those days are numbered.
It's basically one massive Tragedy Of The Commons (if one is being nice, Ponzi Scheme if one is not being nice) were "somebody else" is supposed to pay people good salaries and "somebody else" is supposed to pay the taxes that support the whole damn structure in which these people are getting rich and get to keep their riches and "somebody else" is supposed to "buy my shares" at a higher price.
Everybody expects "somebody else" to take on the costs of keeping the system going all the while cashing in on all the things only possible thanks to that very same system they contribute into the minimum they can get away with.
It makes all sense for a single economic actor to act in a purelly extractive way when all others have a more balanced economic posture, but the problem is that over the last 4 decades ever more of the economic activity has passed into the hands of such people and now most of it is done like that (which is why "rent seeking" is so common) and the rest of the economic actors (the ones who produce rather than extract) can't keep up anymore, hence why we've reached a point were the broadening of both financial empoverishment and fall in quality of life - i.e. the things that can be purchased with the dwindling money most people earn are themselves getting worse) has become very visible and even painful for many.
Tell me you just woke up from a 50 year coma without telling me you just woke up from a 50 year coma
Indeed, but no one knows what that number is. Corporations are currently of the mindset of "that will happen in the distant future, so we can keep going." Of course, eventually, that distant future will become the present and things will collapse, but they'll keep saying it's in the future until then.
The corporate enshittification of once decent products and services continues unabated. Amazons decision to charge for UPS store returns even if the products they delivered were defective was almost enough for me to cancel Prime, but this seals the deal. When Amazon Prime commercials begin my Prime membership and most of my Amazon purchases end.
When did they make the UPS change? I made a return last week, no charge.
I had to return a DOA item last week and they imposed the charge for the first time. It depends on your specific situation though. In my case a Staples is physically closer than a UPS store, but I'm never near the Staples while I'm in the UPS store parking lot twice a week.
It wouldn't bother me if I were returning items because I changed my mind, but when I'm already inconvenienced because of crappy product quality I don't expect to be further inconvenienced so Amazon can save a buck.
I think it depends on the cost/reason of return, and where you’re returning it. Sometimes I have to pay a $1 fee to take to a UPS store but taking it to Kohl’s drop off is free.
Seems like a lot of companies are testing how much they can get away with lately.
Yes and people are paying unfortunately Netflix succeeded and now everyone is trying ads 😔
So I'm really confused about the whole Netflix thing. It hasn't asked me to set a household location and the whole no password sharing thing was supposed to have taken effect back in May, right? Since May, my family has continued to use Netflix as if nothing has changed and we said if they try to charge us extra, we will cancel. Our Netflix is regularly used at 4 different "households" and they have yet to charge a fee and have not automatically set a household like they claimed they would.
This happens when you have to grow endlessly and hit a ceiling (in this case, number of users). Then you have to squeeze those users further so the numbers go up again. Of course you are killing the product in the long run because more and more users cancel but that's not a big deal to the people making the decisions. (Well, the people doing actual work might object but nobody cares about them.) The shareholders that got obscenely rich will just leech onto the next big thing and the CEOs sail to their next product to ruin with a huge golden parachute. Rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, civilisation crumbles and decays, before it burns in the sadly inevitable climate catastrophe.
You are incorrect though. Netflix and Uber (or any ride sharing app) have shown once people are hooked they will pay the increased rate to consume the product.
But Amazon crumbling isn't civilisation crumbling... In fact, it opens doors for more small business owners.
Actual management strategy is "you don't know what your boundaries are until you push against them"
Actual management strategy is “you don’t know what your boundaries are until you push against them”
This is why it's so important not to get tired and quit, but instead to always push back.
Was already going to cancel when my renewal was up, now i'll cancel even harder.
Come sail the high seas.
Eh, I only use prime video because it doesn't cost extra, I don't really need it. Back to piracy it will be, I guess.
Give me a prime membership that's just for shipping. Cut the video out of the deal and stop including it in my charge kthx
They’re doing that, except it’s getting more expensive for video instead of cheaper for shipping.
This is bad for everyone. I'm still a Prime Member for shopping etc., but thats really got to be reconsidered now too.
I am not paying to watch commercials. Fuck that.
I think most of us pay for the shipping, the video is just a bonus. That said, their exclusives aren't that great and they just end up in medusa.
I think most of us pay for the shipping, the video is just a bonus.
You're not wrong, but the point though is to not reward them for bad behavior.
It's a death by "1,000 cuts" if you do.
So basically we're pretty much back to paying for a TV package.
More I see stuff like this the more I believe that these services really aren't making any money and its all smokescreen.
Though this could also just be investors trying to drive up profits instead.
The latter really wouldn't surprise me. A service could be making four times the investment in profit and many investors will still push to get a few more cents out of it at any cost.
It was awhile ago but I read that a lot of streaming services don't make a profit and I can understand the logic. With ads, there is a direct link between a show and it's profits. The more people watch a show, the more people see the ads, the more a company can charge for ads on that show. Without ads it becomes difficult. It doesn't matter if 100 people watch or a million, the profits are the same.
I feel it's inevitable that streaming services are going to go back to ads. It's the better business model.
Streaming has essentially become TV packages again. The golden age of streaming is dead, long live Davy Jones!
Don't worry, it will be presented like this:
"To continue offering you high quality original programming like X and Y, we have to raise our price for Amazon Prime. But don't worry, we're now adding a lower cost ad-based alternative called Amazon Subprime."
So, as usual, most people will be fine with it and put the plastic bag back over their head.
how are you just allowed to drastically lower the quality of a subscription like this. yeah i'm selling my new streaming service, it has 7 channels, $1 a month. no actually sorry it's $7, 3 channels, and 2 of those channels just run ads on a loop. thanks for keeping autorenew on.
I pay for Prime for the next day postage, prime video is just an extra i occasionally use. I'll just pirate their stuff in future and ignore their clunky TV app
Seriously what is with amazon hardware and apps? They are all garbage, lack support, janky in every sense.
Their Fire TV stick one was decent before but has become meh
And... we are back to cable again.
But with no DVRs to fast forward through ads. (Yes, I know that was a "recent" cable thing, but still.)
☠️?
We should have canceled when Prime got rid of UPS pick up for free. Only reason I used it. Now there is zero benefit to Prime with this new stupid ad tier. You don't even get free grocery delivery.
They're still happy to accept food-stamp revenue though, if you get Amazon Prime, of course...
Only ever had the 30 day trial. Pirate people. Pirate. Yaps.cc is a new one to try.
Is yaps better than 1377x?
Asking the important questions.
How do I pirate people?
Pirating people is generally considered immoral.
You can't go wrong with a VPN (PIA, Cyber ghost, Atlas), and just use QTorrent (open source torrent Software) and look up what you like on Pirate Bay.
Easiest basic option.
You can use a website like Showrss to get an RSS feed of all your favorite TV shows, and have them ready to download with Q Torrent.
For most people this would be sufficient.
If you want to an be clever and set up up your torrent Software so that it never staffs without your VPN.
Enshitification
Why, more money of course.
Oh no. Did Amazon treat you poorly? Damn. I bet you thought it was just their employees they treat like shit.
Well, at least you learnt something today.
Having ads in fucking movies makes a service feel cheap / lower value. But the price is staying the same, so where's that button to cancel?
I ended up googling cancel prime membership, and that led me to a page with a cancel button.
I'd say we crossed the Rubicon on this front decades ago, when in-person, at the theater, movies started showing actual ads and not just trailers before the movie you just paid for (and it was at the same price, of course).
I remember the first time I experienced this in a theater. My GF was like "....the hell?" and people were fucking booing the ads. But it didn't matter enough - the ads are still here.
And yeah, it still annoys me.
That's the great part, you can't cancel.
You can cancel. Source: cancelled recently.
I agree but ... why would they do that when the vast majority currently paying will keep paying and live with the ads. Those that won't will either cancel (based on the Netflix account sharing experience, this will be small) or pay the higher fee. There's no way they let people watch for free.
STUFF ALL THE ADS IN YOU WANT.
It all "ads" up. Right?
I'll see myself out....
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, matey.
So with the media industry strikes the content is already going to be crap next year. Why not also include ads with it? WTF Amazon.
"Can't get worse at this point, eh?" Amazon: hold my beer
Maybe it's time to cancel Amazon prime. I don't feel like they even met their commitments any longer for delivery... So what's it all for?
Good point. Amazon is definitely trying to make COVID issues the new normal.
I still always try and make above 25£ or whatever the minium delivery amount is, despite a decade and a half of Prime.
So I don't know what I'm getting for it either.
The one thing in life I cannot abide are adverts and I will not tolerate them.
What is ironic about this is that Bezos could probably make all of their video streaming free and have no ads and still be making gobs of money. Their AWS ecosystem is practically a license to print money. Oh and that little store he runs on the side, too...
But it's not enough to make a lot of money, you have to make ALL the money.
Yup, I will be cancelling too. Greedy bastards.
and that will be when i unsubscribe.
need to finish off my backlog of shows there, or sail the seas!
That s my cue for cancelling i guess
A worthy investment.
My stack + Jackett and unpackarr + telegram for notifications. It works perfectly
Check out prowlerr over jacket, I found it much better
Does anyone have a comprehensible guide for setting all this up?
I had been considering cancelling my Amazon subscription. I don't know what I'm really paying for, just for expedited shipping? I don't even use Amazon prime videos since it's mostly garbage. Thanks to Amazon for making my decision easy to cancel.
I actually realized I almost never take advantage of real prime perks anymore and the cost was ridiculous. Nearly $200 a year and all for maybe faster shipping?
I can get most the things on eBay or wherever anyways and it's the same Chinese crap. Or free shipping anyway from Amazon.
Local is even better and maybe I can actually try shit on and not buy literal garbage. It's hardly worth it.
In the UK it was where they showed Mr Robot and a few other things on streaming services and channels not usually available here. It introduced me to Halt and Catch Fire and other good stuff. YMMV depending on location of course.
Well, it seems Amazon doesn't want my money. Don't worry, you won't see it anymore.
That will be the end of my prime subscription. I should probably just get rid of it now, the streams are better quality on the high seas anyways.
Then do it. You even get pro rated back for what you've already paid for the month. Literally go do it right now in like 90 seconds.
Done. Thank you.
I was thinking the same but will hold on until I see my first add. I suspect the more of us who do that, the better the odds they reverse course.
I have a free vpn, but maybe I should go for the paid plans that I can actually use it for torrenting
Piracy it is then. Lol.
I already pay for it
Yeah but Amazon's decided you're not paying enough.
Time to raise the black flag again I guess
jokes on them, we shop there infrequently enough (2-3 times a year) that they give us prime for free every time we do. there was one short stretch (few months) about 10 years ago where we paid for it because we had a need for the shipping perk, but we haven't 'paid' for prime in a good 5-6 years and that was for a discounted 'trial'.
recently started another free month, so excuse me, while i go cue-up another movie. gotta use and abuse this one if the next one is gonna be polluted with ads--won't help that 'trial' experience and the conversion chance any next time, either.
then you're the type of fool keeping monopolies in service
I've been paying Amazon for more than 25 years just for the free deliveries. I don't watch anything on Prime, it's so hard to navigate between the free and rent videos. Been torrenting since the 90s, yeah I'm old, so my advice stands -get a good VPN, and sail the seven seas-
BitTorrents initial release was in July of 2001. You were not torrenting since the 90s. In the 90s we were still on Napster, soulseek, Usenet, and IRC. Limewire, DirectConnect, and The Pirate Bay wouldn't come around until into the 2000s. I used BitTorrent mostly to get actual Linux ISOs at first because it was better than downloading for several days only to discover at the end that your md5sum checked bad. The pirating came later once the trackers got a better selection than the competing protocols.
I already have the ad free tier. It's what I've been paying for!!!
No, you don’t get it. Jeff Bezos needs another solid platinum super yacht. Won’t you please think of the poor billionaires.
I'm fine with that. At the expense of other people besides me! Jeesh the audacity. :/ haha. (jk obviously)
When do you guys think they (companies/rich people/shareholders(?)) will realize that growth for the sake of growth is not viable and there will be a point of stagnation? Like... What are they gonna do, keep raising prices until nobody can b uy anything anymore?
When it stops being viable. They have no commitment to the company. They'll suck it dry and move on to the next project.
Disney hotstar and other OTTs are going to follow the suite, IG. Fuck them all.
Yohoho my dudes and dudettes and dudex. And a bottle of rum.
yarg harg fiddilidee, bitches, bros and enby hoes
Cancelled Prime a couple of years ago so that Amazon wasn't the default for ordering things anymore and wouldn't watch anything even via the free 30-day trial that they offer from time to time if commercials are shown. I'm still subscribed to Netflix as the family uses it extensively, but if something is not on there, Kodi has proven to be a good matey.
All hand hoy!
There's been a lot of discussion recently about how companies have been making shitty decisions, which prompt people to move to the open-source alternatives, like what happened with Reddit, Twitter and Unity etc. However, is there a viable alternative for film-related media, beyond simply piracy?
While Lemmy, Godot etc obviously have many costs, primarily servers and development, they don't have to deal with licensing in the same way to get content. Is there an existing alternative, or do you see a way for there to ever be an existing alternative without some rich company already backing it?
Yes, it's /c/piracy! Using torrents. Open source, community ran, providing free and equal access to information for all.
Or Usenet which is direct network access to enormous private digital media libraries to download to your own computer.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
I buy used DVDs off eBay, sometimes from pawn shops or thrift stores.
Laughs in boycotting Amazon since 2011.
This is fine with me, since clearly they'll pass their increased profit onto their underpaid employees.
Wait...
Why don't you just make a free version that plays ads? You know that reason why every sane person uses Tubi?
You know that one site which is the only that I don't use my ad blocker on, because I actually respect them enough to let the ads play
Because people are ready to spend money to see ads just for the convince of cheaper monthly subscription fee.
There is no cheaper subscription. The current prime sub gets adds added. Ad-free will cost more then the current ad-free subscription. "I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
There goes that.
This is why I refused to ever buy cable: I am not going to pay for a service that forces ads on me. One or the other fuckers.
Yarrr!
Got prime when Grand Tour came out. Now that we get two episodes a year if lucky not worth it anymore. Get better service with Instacart for delivery anyway.
Arrrrrr
Scamazon
They should also make people watch add bofore they are handed their Amazon Prime order. Unless they pay for the higher tier subscription.
Anyway, good to know that Amazon is finally doing something to fix its fledgling revenue from Prime.
i stopped using amazøn years ago. shop local & stop killing the economy. it's just gonna get worse the more money you give them
Should I shop at the Target, Wal-Mart or the CVS instead?
There are no “local” stores near me. Just massive corporations who treat their employees like shit. Costco is the exception to the treating-their-employees-like-shit rule, but sometimes I don’t need a lifetime supply of an item.
Yeah, those behemoths all share responsibility for killing the mom and pop stores. It's not impossible to shop around to local variants. But probably the best solution is to learn how to kick the habit that American culture has foisted upon us all of buying endless piles of useless crap.
I cancelled my prime subscription years ago. I occassionally restart it for a month at a time if I need some esoteric hobby thing and I would be forced into paying for shipping or for prime. Then I'll watch some stuff on their streaming service. Last time I used it, it was awful. Half of the shows were gatekept behind some ad system. And the "Amazon Originals" are all just extraordinarily expensive shows with terrible writing. Uhg. I am making it a point to not have an active prime subscription when Christmas rolls around. We (the collective we, as in, humanity) don't need more garbage.
yes actually, you answered your own question
I agree but I can’t really afford to. My local hardware store is great but their prices are higher than big box hardware stores or amazon on many items. For example I replaced an outdoor GFCI outlet that cost $25 local or $18 from big box hardware or amazon. The outlet cover was $10 local or $5 anazon.
It's the same where I live. Do I shop local and spend 2-5 times more for the item or buy it from lowes or Walmart? The kicker is that it is sometimes even the exact same brand and model item.
Cable is starting to look reasonable with all the subscription services and ads out there now
Cable internet? I agree. Nowhere near using all its last-mile capacity, yet.
I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner.
A year of prime costs about the same, or less, than every other ad free streaming service and prime video is only one of its benefits.
I'd like to cancel my Amazon subscription but unfortunately, my entire family is using it to buy stuff off Amazon.
"Commercials in movies and series will be introduced in the U.S., UK, Germany, and Canada in early 2024, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in the year."
So rest of the world is safe from this at least until 2025?
This is one of the reasons I say no to DRM
I wonder what their reason for cable-cutting will be now.
Just cancelled my prime membership. The movie offer was rather boring tbh, and I get more interesting series elsewhere.
I think a downloader will be neccessaire, it will cost too much money if we bought them all.
Time to telegram.
Where do I find this stuff on telegram?
There are some telegram bots and channels. But those can't be shared here because of piracy reasons. Try searching in search engines, you may get few.
No problem using a premium IPTV service now and everything fine AF ✌️👍
If you want a free version with ads they have Freevee. I mean, they don't have the same shows but it's free.
america is collapsing because a company raised prices?
Well, not just because a company, did...
hey now :(
I can't speak for anyone else, but yes, mine is.
I've never had Prime though. The reason my life is boring and empty, is (I think) because I avoid participating in things I don't wholeheartedly approve of.
Viewing media, is an insidiously passive form of participation, so I do intently watch plenty of TV\movies (recently figured out it's about 6-8 things a week).
The rest of my life is just household chores, bicycling, & traveling when I get the chance.
Doing Things makes me feel like Ged.
Looks like it's time to cancel prime
this was the last straw? it wasn't workers peeing in bottles, or businesses being displaced to build warehouses, or tax avoidance, or sweat shop wages for international workers?
to the trolls below, I'm a full time activist, you're just keyboard warriors
Get bent. You moralizing keyboard pseudo-activitist.
Why aren't you out right now on a picket line? Why are you wasting time on a forum, instead of helping the homeless? Why aren't you...
How far are you willing to take your arbitrary purity tests? Instead of supporting someone who is intending to support an action you clearly also support e.g. cancelling Prime, you're lecturing them why they should have done it sooner. Or why their choice is less moral then yours.
I bet that if Ted Cruz came out tomorrow to be the deciding vote on Medicare For All, and publicly stating his intent to do so, you'd scream about how Dems shouldn't support any bill that has the support of such a scumbag. Because to you, the purity test is more important than the actual result and impact.
And if you're not American, then insert whatever relevant politician and issue would be comparable to your county. The point still stands.
Have fun purchasing ethical power, food, textiles and electronics unless you're already rich working at a non fortune-500 company lol.
Those all impact others. Nobody gives a shit about others. This impacts them, which is the only thing that matters to pretty much everyone. Look out for #1.
It was those things for me, I cancelled Prime years ago and never buy from Amazon (I will browse however and reach out to the seller via their own website)
Yeah, not sure how it took this to get people to finally cancel.
If you were that worried about the effects of capitalism you wouldn't buy anything anywhere. They are all greedy, money grabbing bastards.
“All Of My Awesome Pirated Media To Keep Being Great Quality, Ad-Free, and Forever Accessible”
Just do it.