For what it’s worth, Netflix has at least twice picked up shows that I was watching on network TV, that got canceled, and Netflix let their story lines resolve (Lucifer and Manifest). Not that they haven’t canceled their own stuff, it just hasn’t caught my attention.
Commercial-supported stuff doesn’t bother me - I’m from a generation where that was how TV worked. And you had three channels and were grateful for it.
I agree that their ad revenue is not likely to add up to 3 bucks a month (or whatever the amount is), but I suspect they’re hoping that people will be annoyed enough to want to pony up. I think they’ll be surprised. I certainly don’t watch Prime enough to make an extra fee worthwhile.
As long as the ads are pausable. Please! A lot of ad supported services let you pause (but not skip) ads, so you can run to the bathroom or whatever. That’s fair. Some (I’m looking at you, Sling!!) do not. So your choices are let the ad play, then pause once the show starts, or let it play while you run to the bathroom, then have to back up to replay the parts of the video you missed.
As far as stuff like Britbox etc, even if you couldn’t get to them via Amazon, they are presumably available separately; my Roku has apps for those. The only reason to sign up for them via Amazon is to get a single bill, and a single user interface. That’s why we added Discovery Plus to our Sling account.
Two things are not clear: 1) if you don’t have Prime, can you still watch paid content (rented / purchased shows). 2) If you rent / purchase stuff under the new model, is THAT going to be infested or is it only their “free” content?
Yet another to make sure you’re linking your Amazon account with Movies Anywhere to get any eligible titles on all available platforms. Once migrated, any shenanigans Amazon pulls is restricted to Amazon.
Though we do not typically purchase electronic versions of movies, so it should not be an issue (we may rent one from time to time, but that wouldn’t cause issues later on).
In spite of the fact that I had cancelled my membership, they charged my card anyway. A card I never gave them permission to use, but had used recently on the site to pay for something else.
Yesterday was my last day on Amazon Prime (thanks to you) and they have already managed to piss me off. I canceled on the webpage and it definitely went through. I looked at my Prime page just a few days ago and it said something like “You have 6 more days to enjoy Prime” so I know that I did it correctly. I get notifications on my phone whenever I have a credit card charge and you can probably tell by now what is coming. A charge for $151.16 which is the cost of prime with tax.
It was easy enough to fix. I requested a phone call and I got one immediately and the whole thing took less than a minute to fix. Of course a refund takes three to five days so they can sit on the money that they scam this way which doesn’t include the myriad people who don’t notice the charge. I insisted on an email verification which came right away. I then went and looked at my Prime page and it’s now an ad for Amazon Prime for students for some weird reason. My first Amazon purchase was in 1998.
Got the formal notification today. We’re still planning to drop the whole service,even though our free shipping is at $35.
We are writing to you today about an upcoming change to your Prime Video experience. Starting January 29, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements. This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership. We will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional $2.99 per month* that you can sign up for here
If they’re not that intrusive, eh, whatever. I watch Hulu with ads already and it’s not that bad. Same with Paramount+.
I didn’t realize there was such a price difference with Netflix doing ad-free and not. They raised my price slowly over time like a boiled frog, but I’ve always had the ad-free version (in fact, for years ads weren’t even a thing). I’m swapping to the version with ads starting next month, I’ll see how bad that is.
I don’t pay for Peacock so when I watch a movie there, it starts with several minutes of commercials. Easy enough to ignore and then the movie runs without interruption.
I’m seeing more reports that people are getting messages from Amazon that ads will start in January, or a $2.99 charge for ad free. I haven’t got any message, seems a bit odd that they would not notify everyone at the same time?
Something I just figured out - I was having a frustrating time trying to find how to filter for just the free stuff on Prime so you can see the current library that you will be getting for the $2.99. It used to be a menu option, but they changed it - scroll down 3 rows to where it says “My Subscriptions” and hit the big blue button. They are obviously trying hard to show you extra-revenue-generating stuff by default, but they are playing a dangerous game tweaking things in non-obvious ways like this. If I had not figured this out, I would have stopped watching Prime altogether, it would have been a dealbreaker if I couldn’t filter for just what’s included in Prime Video.
