Amazon Prime to streaming customers: pay $2.99 per month or go back to watching commercials
Streaming services are in a heated tug-of-war over viewers and users are growing more adept at jumping in and out of those services, often depending on price. The platforms risk losing customers with price hikes, but they could lose them if they don’t generate new content that wins over users.
Disney will begin charging $13.99 a month in the U.S. for ad-free Disney+ in mid-October, 75% more than the ad-supported service. Netflix already charges $15.49 per month for its ad-free plan, more than twice the monthly subscription for Netflix with ads.
Amazon said limited advertisements will be aired during shows and movies starting early next year so that it can “continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.”
I haven’t seen much evidence that Amazon has created much in the way of “compelling content” (i.e. stuff that we actually want to see), so I’m not sure how I’m going to respond to this new little bit of Shylockian chiseling. We don’t buy that much from Amazon anyway, unless there’s absolutely no local shopping alternative or the products’ manufacturers don’t offer online sales, so our shipping costs aren’t that high to begin with, ergo there’s not much in the way of saving through Prime.
And am I the only one who spends almost as much time looking for something decent to watch as actually watching a show? (Ditto Netflix, by the way.)
I understand the business model — there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch TV show — but included in the business model is the fact that some consumers won’t go along with the latest pricing structure. And in fact I don’t really mind if ads play before a show, even though they’re irritating. But during a show? Forget that shit.
What I’ll most probably do is suspend our Prime subscription altogether after Christmas, and if we absolutely must shop through Amazon thereafter, wait and consolidate our purchases into one delivery.
I guess we’ll see how all this plays out.
Wait a minute, aren’t we already effectively paying $10+ per month for the privilege of having free shipping on the huge variety of products on offer (albeit many of them increasingly counterfeit or cheap Chinese junk)? The streaming was supposed to be just a bonus on that basic service. What kind of a customer relationship is based on “we’ll pollute our offering with obnoxious ads unless you pay us more?” Sounds like extortion to me. That’s exactly the YouTube premium model, among others. No, thanks. Prime seemed different in that you paid extra to get some valuable benefit, not to avoid some threatened inconvenience. It’s difficult to understand how they don’t grasp the difference. It’s not subtle. One is based on reciprocity and one is based on threats.
The free shipping seems a very real benefit. It’s astounding that I can order an item in the evening, as I did earlier this week, and have it arrive before dawn the next day. However, at some point, that just becomes silly I suppose. “Alexa, order me a … ding dong, it’s here.”
The streaming part has always been an add-on for me, especially considering most of the things I want to view cost a premium of at least $3.99, and sometimes quite a bit more. The number of streaming “Free to Prime” items seem to be fewer and fewer all the time. In other words, we already pay considerably more than $3.99 a month for Prime streaming, just on a piecemeal basis. (If they wanted to charge $3.99 and make all the streaming free, that would be swell, but that’s not what will happen.)
Perhaps it’s time for them to separate the shipping from the streaming, where the costs of server farms and the electricity to run them are spiraling out of control, thanks in no small part to woke policies supported by Bezos and his ilk.
In my *limited* experience, everything streaming is more of a PITA than it’s worth most of the time.
First, there is SO MUCH stuff out there now and 99% of it is the same thing with different names. Mostly stupid shit I would never have an interest in. Unfortunately, by the time I figure out a selection is utter BS I have lost 5 mins of my life. Do this 3 or 4 times in the course of an evening and I’m pretty much worn out.
TV, in all of the forms available today, has pretty much rendered itself obsolete as far as I’m concerned. The only time we watch TV is at suppertime and we have (4) DVD players hooked up and each has discs of old TV shows. Currently, Perry Mason (50’s), The Tall Man (50’s), Star Trek TOS (60’s), X Files (90’s).
Most of our time is involved with things other than TV.
Yeah, don’t know what to think here. We use Amazon for free shipping (the wife probably gets 3 or 4 packages a week) and I’ll get the occasional thing just because of the convenience. Then we use my account for streaming TV and yes, we each have an account. Because we also use the streaming music service and our tastes run different in that regard and I don’t know how to split the music so she has her list and I have mine. Just simpler that way.
BUT – they are fucking up the music side now. Big time. Enough so that I’m willing to learn a new system and go somewhere else for my tunes. Playing with Spotify now, we’ll see how it goes. So now thinking I’ll probably drop my account and just use hers for TV and the occasional order.
I’m so tired of the constant nickel and diming BS that goes on with just about everything these days. Last night ordered Door Dash, mainly cause I was into my 3rd or 4th whiskey and didn’t really want to drive over and pick it up. Well, my driver apparently selected 3 or 4 orders at the same time and mine got delivered last. It’s happened before. And now DD has an option, $2.99, to have mine delivered 1st in case that happens again. Jeez. I pay for a yearly account, I pay (reduced) service fees, I throw in a good tip, and now they want another 3 fucking bucks just so the food ain’t cold when it gets here.
I visit second hand music stores and pick up CDs for cheap. I load those onto the computer then my phone and create playlists (80s Mix Tape) that the missus and I enjoy. Plus I can get podcasts to listen to when I want something other than music.
JQ
My wife has “suggested” very strongly that we should give up our individual Prime accounts and share one. Apparently this is possible with Prime. This means we are paying $Prime x 2 as a household. That’s probably stupid, except I am reluctant to commingle wish lists … mine have 100’s of things I will never buy … and a login.
Aside to JQ, below … second hand music stores are a great idea. Do such things still exist? Time to go see.
Kim;
If you’re struggling for content (ie you’ve run out of good reading material [snickers to self]) you might try a streaming service called “MHZ Choice”. If you catch them when they’re having a sale it’s about $40 for the annual fee – no ads. Be aware that its all foreign programming mostly listed by country and the bulk of it seems to be mysteries and police procedurals in a foreign language (not a problem if you speak several) but all well captioned. If you want to try on some Scandinavian Noir, Italian or French (they actually do have some lovely country) even Austrian or Icelandic etc. give them a shot. They usually have a weeks free trial available. As an example you could watch Donna Leons’ (American author writing in English from Switzerland) Brunetti mysteries set in Venice filmed in German by a German production company. Interesting. Or Swedens take on 007 – “Hamilton” with Mikael Persbrandt. Or Frances “Murder in…” series set all over the French countryside – lovely to look at.
EdB
PS Thanks for the reminder about Mick Herron, got the ebooks in a binge but got sidetracked and never read them – rectifying now….
If the fees go up too high then I will start ending my streaming services. The problem I have is that Prime seems to be the base account for me and then I have streaming applications of other channels or networks. If I cut Prime, I think I will lose those other services.
JQ
Streaming Video On Demand has been a cash incinerator for years now, and unless it was called Netflix, it was generally an add-on, on top of cable for convenience (HBO-MAX, etc). With the new Writers’ Guild deal—and soon the actors—content is about to become considerably more expensive to produce, so they’re doing what is necessary to pay for things people want to watch.
Two of my all-time favourite streaming series were from Amazon (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Mozart In The Jungle), and if either one was still running I wouldn’t begrudge them an extra $3/mo for it. They also had a bunch of great Scandi-Noir series that I binged through last year. At the moment there’s nothing on the service that I’m interested in, however, so we’ll have to see but come Christmas I’m sure there will be a new crop of things that interest me. They also were one of the first to offer 4k/HDR and 4k/DolbyVision, and now Dolby Atmos sound as well, so much of their original content is presented in top quality for those of us with full-on home theater setups.
Streaming was seen as a way for people to get programming more cheaply than cable, which in turn would reduce piracy on the Torrents, etc. But now the combined cost of their services is as much or more than a cable subscription was, and traffic on Torrent sites is through the roof once again. Why spend $X per month on service Y for only one show? Multiply that by maybe 4 or 5 different streamers, like Apple TV, Hulu, Disney+, Starz, Paramount Plus, MAX, etc, on top of Netflix and Amazon.
GREED: What’s a big burr under my saddle are the 15sec ads being thrown in 1/2-screen between batters in baseball – you’ve got the audio of the ad sometimes competing with the blather of the “sports experts” (aka announcers, etc.) that are ‘splainin’ baseball to you.
STOP IT!
I’ve noticed that one as well Askeptic.
They show a ad on one side and simultaneously on the other side
of the screen a ‘clip’ from some ball game being played somewhere
and as you say, sometimes with the ‘sports audio’ mixed in with the ‘commercial.
It makes NO SENSE even without the ‘sports audio’.
Is the ‘sports clip’ supposed to persuade me to WATCH / listen to
the commercial or ………………………?
In addition to being stupid and meaningless, it’s annoying !