“Just” $2.99/month, or ads included if you don’t want to pay for it, but it feels like the opening of the door for a service that has always touted its streaming as an included benefit.
It’s not clear if I have to sign up for this to get access to BritBox and Acorn, but the second link above implies that I don’t have to since access is listed as a benefit of Prime itself.
I have Prime and I don’t have BritBox or Acorn because I thought they were extra. If I sign up now, I wonder if I’ll be grandfathered in?
Sorry I wasn’t clear. They are extra, I was just wondering if I would even have access to them without signing up for the base streaming. I think the answer is yes on that one.
We also have Prime for streaming. Not sure if I’d recommend continuing if it cost more than we are already paying for Prime.
I don’t even stream that much on Prime. We watch movies periodically but almost always have to rent them.
This is really annoying because they already jacked up the price of Prime this year, and in my opinion their shipping service has gotten worse, with many things advertised on “Prime” not shipping for several weeks.
Paying extra for a streaming service I never got to use for free, I just don’t see it.
I don’t really think that the way it has historically been marketed has much relevance to whether it offers value for money. Everyone in streaming has pushed for market share and dominance at the expense of profitability. There have been price increases across the board for ad-free streaming. Ad-free Hulu, Netflix and HBO are all almost exactly the same price as Amazon Prime, with Amazon giving you the other Prime services in addition to a comparable streaming service.
I think virtually nobody is going to be dropping Amazon because of this.
I’m not seeing anything in the link to imply that. They have always been paid add-ons. But you have no long-term commitment. I add one of them for the few months a year when I’m at home with enough time to spare to binge a few UK series.
That’s an easy “no” from us. They certainly provide some excellent content every now and then, but they have the absolute worst UI experience in the streaming world, so we very rarely ever browse for idle watching there. We won’t even notice it when it’s gone.
Prime just gets worse and worse. Higher annual prices and less service. “Two day shipping” now often means “Two days after we decide it’s shipped which will be two more days from now” where it used to actually mean “It’ll be at your home within two days of hitting this button”. Heck, even the “You’ll have by Wednesday if you buy within 10 hours” often becomes Thursday after you purchase and I live in a major metro area near multiple warehouses. It’s just gone progressively downhill year after year and now they’re trimming off the side benefits as well. I think this might be the year we just let it lapse.
We dropped Prime because 2-day shipping around here is non-existent. Arrivals are typically 5-7 days after ordering. We weren’t watching much on Prime so it was an easy decision. Now they want to charge extra for streaming? Fuggetaboutit!
Yeah, screw Prime. Amazon is getting greedy. We cancelled it when we heard they were going to jack up rates. Mrs, Solost said ‘I’m sick of paying for Bezos to take spaceship rides’.
I was a little leery about losing the streaming, since they occasionally had stuff like assorted older movies or shows I would like to watch, but by and large I have not missed it. If I want to watch older shows and movies, there are streaming services that show commercials but are free, like Tubi or Freevee. Pay for Prime on top of commercials, or pay even more for no commercials? No thanks, Jeff.
I’ve been a Prime member since 1998, so I had a good run - this will get me to quit. I don’t use it enough for another price hike.
Googling, Amazon Prime costs $14.99 per month, or $139 per year, or just $8.99 per month for just Prime Video. So will both Prime and Prime Video customers be expected to pay the additional fee to avoid commercials? Because this seems to be a substantial rise in price.
Up here in America’s Hat this was a problem at the height of the supply chain issues during the pandemic, but we are back to regular next day deliveries on a consistent basis.
According to this, yes, it applies to both Prime and Video subscribers…
Amazon’s Prime Video Service Will Begin Including Ads Early Next Year (yahoo.com)
I looked at our most recent, post pandemic Prime purchases and they were averaging 6 days from date of order. We aren’t that far from a major Amazon center (Spokane, WA). We still use Amazon and get that same delivery service. We just have to make sure we have $25 to get free delivery. Narrator: That isn’t hard.
Amazon has been testing a $35 minimum for free shipping in some ZIP Codes… not sure which those are, but I would guess locations not so close to their warehouses.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/28/business/amazon-raises-shipping-minimum/index.html
That may explain why some of my orders haven’t been offered free shipping.
I may drop it just because it annoys me. I rarely use the video service but I like the shipping which is actually pretty good.
Is it really only $25? I thought it had gone up.
An anecdote: Back in 2009 or so I broke up with a live in girlfriend. Early I had broken her Swiffer so I said I would buy her a new one and have it shipped to her new place. The Swiffer cost like $26.50 but it was on sale for $24.80. WTF? So now with the $5 or whatever shipping it was screwing me with the sale.
I found a website that someone made for just that situation. It was a list of things that cost from $0.01 to $2.00. I found a ball point pen for 25 cents and added it to the total so the shipping was free. They shipped the items separately! She got a package with just a pen the day before the Swiffer. She was like, “why the hell did you order me a pen?”
I have a bunch of things I bought mostly because I needed to spend a small amount to hit the minimum order amount.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Amazon starts squeezing folks from both sides. We only submit an order once a month or so, and it is always over $35, but if they get to the point where they make it difficult without the Prime membership, we’ll just go back to shopping the old fashioned way. shudder No, we probably won’t.