An ad-free option will cost Amazon Prime members an extra $2.99 a month.

Oh boy, more enshittification

  •  Izzy   ( @IzzyData@lemmy.ml ) 
    56•10 months ago

    This is a disturbing trend. Apparently a lot of these major streaming services are discovering that they can make more from ads than people paying for the service. At least when calculated with the subscriber counts they currently have. It seems they don’t anticipate people leaving their services over this.

    Personally there is no way I would ever pay for a service that has ads. I’m not going to pay for a service even if its paid service doesn’t have ads if it has a free or cheaper service with ads as that would just be rewarding them for implementing ads.

    For example with Amazon’s plan here. If you pay this $3.00 to remove ads then you are paying Amazon $3.00 because they added ads. This only increases the amount of ads that will be added to things.

    •  queermunist she/her   ( @queermunist@lemmy.ml ) 
      15•10 months ago

      For example with Amazon’s plan here. If you pay this $3.00 to remove ads then you are paying Amazon $3.00 because they added ads.

      That’s just a stealth price increase that they can implement without admitting they’re raising prices.

        •  joenforcer   ( @joenforcer@midwest.social ) 
          3•10 months ago

          It’s exactly this. Netflix makes more money from the average basic+ads user than they do from someone on the standard plan. It’s incremental revenue from all users that even occasionally use the service, and invisible to those that pay for Prime but don’t care about Prime Video.

          If you pay directly for Prime Video only, it’s a little different.

    •  Spzi   ( @Spzi@lemm.ee ) 
      6•10 months ago

      Personally there is no way I would ever pay for a service that has ads.

      Somehow we got used to it when it comes to sports events, a long time ago.

      But yeah, I get you, and fully agree. Seeing no ads is like the major selling point.

  •  ohto   ( @ohto@lemmy.sdf.org ) English
    42•10 months ago

    I’ve been a Prime member from the very beginning, but I’m seriously reevaluating whether I should drop it. The value proposition is decreasing for me. At $99 I thought it was pretty good considering the perks like video and music. But then they crippled Prime Music a few months back so it’s a shadow of what it once was (pushing you to subscribe to Unlimited). Now Prime Video is getting ads. Those “extras” are becoming less compelling. So I’m paying $140 annually for just free shipping? Hmmm, these numbers don’t add up anymore.

  •  Blackmist   ( @Blackmist@feddit.uk ) English
    14•10 months ago

    Well that’s getting fucking cancelled then. The constant FreeVee ad supported shit was annoying enough, but they can properly fuck off now. Prime is just a vehicle to sell you more shit.

  •  jlarex   ( @jlarex@beehaw.org ) 
    13•10 months ago

    Nope, fuck this. Been thinking about canceling Prime for a while now, they just keep raising the price while at the same time all their services get worse year after year.

  •  CalcProgrammer1   ( @CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml ) 
    11•10 months ago

    I would pay for Amazon Prime if they offered purely a free 2-day shipping only version, but I refuse to pay for Prime if it supports the media companies, so I don’t pay for Prime. I have zero interest in DRM-filled “you will own nothing and be happy” streaming bullshit, and I have negative interest in the same thing with ads. Enshittification at its finest.

  •  circuitfarmer   ( @circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org ) 
    9•10 months ago

    I canceled mine a year or two ago. Tbh I have not missed it much.

    I also did not miss the shipping part as much as I thought I would. If I need to make an order, I wait until I have enough needs to hit the $35 level for free shipping. Even though amazon claims otherwise, I usually end up getting stuff in 2 days just like I used to with Prime.

    This has the added benefit of making it less likely for me to be lazy and order a bunch of smaller things. I thus end up getting those things locally.