Amazon forced all Prime Video subscribers onto a new ad-based subscription tier in January 2024 unless users paid more for their subscription type. Now, the tech giant is reportedly showing twice as many ads to subscribers as it did when it started selling ad-based streaming subscriptions.
Currently, anyone who signs up for Amazon Prime (which is $15 per month or $139 per year) gets Prime Video with ads. If they don’t want to see commercials, they have to pay an extra $3 per month. One can also subscribe to Prime Video alone for $9 per month with ads or $12 per month without ads.
When Amazon originally announced the ad tier, it said it would deliver “meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers." Based on “six ad buyers and documents” ad trade publication AdWeek reported viewing, Amazon has determined the average is four to six minutes of advertisements per hour.
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Between adding the adds to Prime video, and their refusal to use real couriers to deliver packages to me, I cancelled prime and stopped using Amazon altogether.
I mean, yes ads are terrible in a streaming service you directly pay for but like, back in the day with only cable TV we would have 8 minutes or so of ads in a 30m show segment, no?
Edit. Damn down voted for stating a previous fact? I don’t agree with the onslaught of advertising here by any means. Sheesh.
Don’t give them an inch.
Back in the day, Cable TV was also sold with the promise that we wouldn’t have to watch ads because we were already paying a subscription.