I’d seen rumours online but got the email this morning.
that looks to be almost all steaming services adding an ad-supported option, you now pay to not have ads.
Back to the high sea’s to watch anything then
I have to pay extra to remove ads from Prime Video
Submitted 4 months ago by governorkeagan@lemdro.id to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
https://lemdro.id/pictrs/image/154f0582-3de7-4794-b9ba-994f609704f6.jpeg
Comments
mhzawadi@lemmy.horwood.cloud 4 months ago
Szymon@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Yo ho ho, shiver me timbers, what a crew the Jolly Roger is getting
Mr_Blott@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Aye, what a fuckin crew. Everybody knows the noobs don’t know how important seeding is, and bitch about download speeds 🤨
cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 4 months ago
But Amazon is not doing this. They show ads on the one subscription they have, that they already recently have raised the price for. This is higher price for lower quality and no option to upgrade or downgrade. They leave you the option to stay or leave
nogooduser@lemmy.world 4 months ago
It says in the email that you can pay extra for ad free.
PM_ME_YOUR_ZOD_RUNES@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
I cancelled Prime as soon as I got this email. It was set to renew in February so perfect timing. I also sent them an email to provide some feedback about the change:
I cancelled my membership as soon as I received notification that you would be including ads to a PAID streaming service. I cannot believe that you think asking for more money per month to have an ad free experience is ok. The world is going to shit because of greedy corporations like you. I hope you go bankrupt and Jeff Bezos goes looking for the Titanic in a poorly made submarine.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 4 months ago
Exactly what I did too! Sadly, most Americans would gladly continue paying for their lessened experience. When faced with potentially losing a tiny bit of content, most Americans will gladly pull down their pants.
PM_ME_YOUR_ZOD_RUNES@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
100% agree. The reason we are in this situation is because people are so fucking complacent. They downplay/justify these shitty practices repeatedly and corporations just get away with worse and worse shit.
reagansrottencorpse@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I hope they reply 😆
fab@discuss.tchncs.de 4 months ago
Do you really think anyone reads your useless commentary to them? I bet this is outsourced to some AI which then gives a summary of all the comments made when canceling for further planning enshittification. No matter what you type - you help them.
HeyJoe@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Honestly, I would love to believe everyone here, but I remember Netflix last year with eliminating password sharing and how everyone lost their collective minds about it. I thought dam Netflix will really get it this time, then it turns out Netflix was right and they actually gained subscriptions from doing it.
LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 4 months ago
that’s until people learn about movie-web.app
Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
I hate it already. It’s a search bar, I don’t know shows names. I want a list of pictures. Do they have a list of pictures?
DudeDudenson@lemmings.world 4 months ago
Frankly the no more password sharing thing was kinda justifiable. Fair is fair, actively making the service worse and telling you that it’s for the bettering of the service when it’s clearly not on the other hand…
snooggums@kbin.social 4 months ago
Netflix punished me, who does not share a password, by making it impossible to sign into a TV while on a trip because it wasn't at my 'home location' without switching the location. That isn't an option when the rest of the family is still at home and wants to watch too.
Plus Netflix had already said that sharing a password was cool with them, so it was a reversal of something that they were completely fine with when it was increasing their market share...
Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I wonder how many people downgraded though. I’m sorry, but even if I’m using their premium 4 screen plan in one household, I want the option to take it with me or let someone in another house watch something without hassle.
I personally canceled when they got rid of the cheapest option and replaced it with an ad option and a way more expensive base ad-free option. They also auto enrolled me into the premium package as the “closest” to their old cheapest plan.
Fuck em. I’ll enroll for a month when the next Sandman comes out and that’s probably it.
poppy@lemm.ee 4 months ago
The thing is I don’t think a majority of people pay for Prime for Prime Video. I obviously have no statistics for this, but I think Video is just a “bonus” on top of the shipping. I don’t know anyone who uses Prime Video as their main source of streaming.
thejml@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Can confirm, of the 6 people I know with prime, only one actually cares about the video. They all got it for shipping and easily buy enough that the free shipping paid for it, so I don’t fault them at all. Heck, I‘ve had to inform a few of them that they even get video and other services at all.
yessikg@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
Can confirm, I view Video and Music as nice bonuses
Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
I have never once accessed wherever they put their media. I don’t even know how to get to it or what shows they offer with the exception of the shows I have acquired via the high seas that says amzn or something in the files title.
Even the shipping sucks ass from them…they offer nothing to justify the cost.
Takumidesh@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Well, the total user base here is in the tens of thousands, even assuming there was even 100% agreement on that, that still amounts to less Netflix subscribers cancelling than they have in a single small town in the us.
I think people here (and reddit and other social media) forget that most people just kind of do their thing and don’t make posts online about this stuff.
reddig33@lemmy.world 4 months ago
They actually lost subscribers in major markets. The added subscribers were in developing markets and had nothing to do with the changes in plan costs — developing market prices are comparatively dirt cheap.
But Netflix PR was good at spinning this as a win.
camelbeard@lemmy.world 4 months ago
My parents and mil still use our Netflix, once they start charging extra I will cancel. To be fair I would’ve cancelled years ago, they are the only reason I keep the service.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 4 months ago
Yeah, but most people weren’t sharing their password anyway.
Ads make everyone’s experience worse.
TerraNova@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
My Prime subscription renewed in Dec. I didn’t know about the ads arriving. So yesterday I went through support and cancelled my subscription and they agreed to refund what I paid.
If they want to change the membership terms on renewals it’s their right to do so, but changing the terms of an annual subscription after I purchased it is unethical to me.
porcariasagrada@slrpnk.net 4 months ago
being unethical is profitable, my good sir.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Unethical to you, but profitable to them.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I’ve worked in Investment Banking for a decade or so some years ago and everything there is calculated and risk-priced with zero moral or ethical considerations (even “Regulatory Risk” or, in other words, “If the risk-adjusted profitabily exceeds other options we will break the Law”).
Funnilly enough I was in the Tech Startup World after than and nowadays (back in the 90s it wasn’t like this) it’s pretty much The Even Wilder Wild West Of Finance - or in other word, riddled with shit from the most speculative end of Finance, only with pretty much zero regulatory oversight so, naturally, riddled with near- and actual-Fraud.
All this to say that somebody in Amazon made the maths using their customer behaviour profiles to calculate the risk of the only negative response possible (people actually cancelling, the other two being the slight positive one of “people stay as they are and watch ads” and the more positive one of “people pay the extra for ad free”) times lost income versus the upsides and determined Amazon’s profit will increase.
Notice how in order to reduce the possibility of people taking the option that’s negative for them, they renew and after it do a one-sided change the terms of the contract, which Nudge Theory tells will yield the maximum number of people just accepting it (so they’ll be in the “stay and watch ads” rather than “cancelling” group), something which for them even has no negatives (people will either still cancel, which is neutral versus telling it to people upfront and they cancelling, or they’ll stick around and take it which is positive for Amazon) hence was a pretty obvious choice for an unethical company.
So, I applaud you for actually activelly even through the gauntlet they purposefull acting on this, though I suspect you’re a tiny minority.
I suggest spreading the renewal and then change of contract terms story is the best way to punish them for their actions, especially emphasising that they’re knowingly pressuring people to stay with highly sleazy screw-the-customer legally dubious techniques. (Though not with a wall of text like I did ;), so thank you kind reader for getting this far!)
I would say that the thing that can really screw Amazon over the mid and long-term is losing customer trust.
TerraNova@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Thanks for the Finance context. I figured they ran numbers and decided to go ahead anyway.
It’s sad that being public also encourages companies to act in ways that aren’t ethical as long as it maximizes shareholder value.
d00ery@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I just cancelled my subscription
KpntAutismus@lemmy.world 4 months ago
same, this was the last straw for me.
Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Their email reminded me that I didn’t cancel the free membership thing. I emailed them back with LOL and then instantly cancelled.
Bahnd@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Dito, hopefully Invincible S2 finishes before it lapses. If not
cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 4 months ago
We need to show you ads for your sake. It’s so that we can make more and better content for you, so that you and even more, stay subscribed, even though we also just raised subscription fees. It’s not because we want the money. It’s for your sake we’re doing this!
grumpy_graph@lemmy.world 4 months ago
[deleted]cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Mayne they should ad a donate button or patron so that we can show our gratitude
FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Want to watch Amazon Prime shows commercial free for free?
Set sail me mateys!
FireWire400@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I swear, every time someone says something like that Orinoco Flow by Enya starts playing in my head
Blackmist@feddit.uk 4 months ago
They’ve had very little worth watching, tbh. I’d rather steal better shows instead.
muh_entitlement@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Piracy is the way! Everything for free!
just_change_it@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Already cancelled my prime account when this was announced months and months and months ago.
You’re already getting recurring subscription fees from me, so you’re getting paid even if I don’t use your services for any period of time. Stop fucking around and playing games, adding ads is double dipping. I’ll just stop the recurring transactions and find services elsewhere.
DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com 4 months ago
Not a shill or anything, but isn’t Prime Video thrown in for free? Here in Australia, we pay for Prime to get free next day shipping, and Prime Video is a free inclusion.
Although I guess, now, it’s kinda all advertised as a group of services for the subscription fees, so I’m probably answering my own question here.
I’ll go have another coffee and wake up properly…
unreasonabro@lemmy.world 4 months ago
No, what you have to do is cancel prime, refund your remaining subscription, forget they ever existed, and buy stuff from places that might actually appreciate it.
techt@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Gonna add an unsolicited recommendation here. One of the main things I held onto Amazon for was wishlisting for holidays. I’ve since migrated to giftopedia and I like it, so if you are me, give that a try.
spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
This is a 26% price hike. Amazon’s BS shouldn’t fool anyone.
EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 4 months ago
But… If they don’t do that how will they invest in future programming?? Don’t you understand how little fucking money Amazon makes??
spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
True, we must all make sacrifices so Amazon’s profits can grow. Maybe their marketing department should call the increases a “Mandatory Donation for the Good of the World” to help us keep things in perspective.
unreasonabro@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Get greedy, never get paid again, that’s my policy.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 months ago
This is exactly what every streaming service that has added ads has claimed at the time. Then they load as many ads as feasibly possible.
Marketing is a fucking disease.
Kiosade@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
It was like that for TV too… back in the day there weren’t ads on cable, and then they just started adding them one day.
the_q@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Pirate everything.
muh_entitlement@lemmy.world 4 months ago
We must scream it from every rooftop!
ToxicWaste@lemm.ee 4 months ago
And every mast!
White_Flight@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Piracy solves this
GrundlButter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
It does, though this will also be their excuse just to raise the price of prime in general. Even with their rewards card and 5% back, the “benefit” of prime is getting slim for me. Might be time to cancel prime.
nick@midwest.social 4 months ago
Canceled my sub, dusted off my torrent tracker logins.
hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
Fuck amazon! 🏴☠️
muh_entitlement@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Oh, snarky! Hooray for piracy!
frustbox@lemmy.world 4 months ago
"We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than … " That’s an insanely low bar to clear. Also, I thought you already did, by having [quickly recounts using fingers] none!
They’re really trying to spin this as a positive. They always tried to pull this. From the very start. “Your prime now includes Video, you didn’t ask for it, but we gave it to you anyway, for free! Also Prime now costs more.” And then as soon as there’s finally anything interesting “Look, all the things you love are now on your free prime video - oh you want to watch that one? Sorry, that is for rent only, or you can buy it!” I don’t remember how long I’ve been a customer, must have been 2009. Got a gift card for Christmas, I can’t use it to pay because I need to verify my identity? What?!
Enshittification galore.
SaltyIceteaMaker@iusearchlinux.fyi 4 months ago
Yo ho yer scallwags we sail the high seas🌊🏴☠️🦜
zxk@lemmy.world 4 months ago
yo ho ho ho ho ho ho ho and a bottle of rum
moshtradamus666@lemmy.world 4 months ago
This shit sucks so much, first they make a descent service at a fair price then make it worse and more expensive.
ModernRisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
Argh, ahoi mate! Lets sail the high seas, come with us!
ChemicalPilgrim@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I canceled my prime membership. Been switching where I purchase most things anyway so this was the last straw.
krimson@feddit.nl 4 months ago
I only have Netflix left, for the kids. Everything else I obtain “elsewhere”.
Jeanschyso@lemmy.world 4 months ago
What a beautiful excuse to drop prime. Unfortunately my own changing of behavior won’t change anyone’s, but hey, at least I guess it’s less money spent monthly.
aturtlesdream@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Greedy pigs, they can’t help themselves anymore. I swear it went up 20 or 30% in the last year or two, and now this. Does anyone have recommendations on where to find stuff if you are tech stupid with no computer (only a Roku TV and android phone)?
Kyatto@leminal.space 4 months ago
It “allows” them
to invest in compelling contentto make more money from the same service.LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
I dropped Prime before any of this happened. I was paying mostly for the two-day shipping, which became increasingly longer than two days.
What made me quit it was when I ordered two of the same item from the same seller, but one shipped from the seller and one direct from Amazon. Both were listed in stock. The one shipped by the seller arrived in three days. The one shipped by Amazon had not yet shipped after the first week. I even contacted the seller, who suggested I cancel, but Amazon wouldn’t accept my cancelation, so I had to wait more than two weeks for it to ship.
Turns out I was a fool to be paying Amazon all that time for a sub-optimal service. And I’ve saved so much money ever since when I can’t just buy things with free shipping. In fact, I rarely buy anything from Amazon at all anymore.
So this? This tracks with the direction they’ve been heading for a long time, and it doesn’t surprise me one bit.
Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi 4 months ago
My prime sub is more for free delivery on packages, rather than their shitty prime video service.
That said my dad does get some use out of it.
Stovetop@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I unsubscribed. I find myself using Amazon less and less for shipping anyways, so now I definitely don’t feel the need to stay subscribed for streaming either.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 4 months ago
Options:
Pay no extra and suffer annoying adverts in all movies and shows.
Pay an extra £35.88 a year to get the same awful experience you had before.
Save £95 a year and cancel it. Spend your savings on a VPN, and look into Jellyfin, Radarr and Sonarr. <>
JimmyChanga@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Yeah, you’re spot on with every point there. I’ve cancelled my auto renew, as we do use the other benefits of the prime account, but we can and will be using other services from the end of our current subscription.
Corigan@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Is there a guide for dummies you’d recommend. PVR and etc are unknown terms for me. I used to torrent under vpn but that was in the Limewire days… hoping for some help in the safest ways to return to the seas.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 4 months ago
There’s plenty of guides for Linux, but with Windows you’re a bit more reliant on installers and reading some of the guides about setting all the bits up.
Off the top of my head, you need:
qBittorrent (for downloading, turn on the web interface, and you can configure it to do nothing if not connected to your VPN)
Prowlarr (this scrapes torrent data from websites and collates it all together for the other parts of this system, add some sources once you install that)
Radarr (browse movies and pick which ones you want, link it to Prowlarr and qBittorrent, give it a folder e.g. D:\Movies to download into)
Sonarr (same as Radarr but for TV, again link it to Prowlarr and qBittorrent, give it a different folder e.g. D:\TV to download into)
Jellyfin (an open source Netflix, allows you to play the stuff you downloaded in a pretty web UI, or through a client program you can get for a couple of platforms, add the folders you told Radarr and Sonarr to download to)
Then you tweak everything that annoys you. By default it’s quite happy to grab full 60GB+ Blu-ray releases, which is fine if you’re on a fast connection and have lots of storage, but if a movie is over 10GB or so, it all looks the same to me. Depending on how you watch, you might have to mess with Jellyfin clients to figure out why certain videos won’t play. It’s pretty good but it’s not perfect.
GiuseppeAndTheYeti@midwest.social 4 months ago
c/piracy!
Neato@ttrpg.network 4 months ago
How does a VPN give you access to shows on Amazon that require Prime? Or do you mean it’ll just give you access to more shows than you’d have otherwise?
Blackmist@feddit.uk 4 months ago
Image
the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
like the other poster said it doesnt give you access to amazon’s shows on amazon’s site. Helpful pirates all over the world tirelessly upload “amazon’s” content to the grand line. When I tell people about a show I’m loving it’s always an interesting conversation when they ask me ‘what service is it on?’ and i straight up have no idea.
perhaps you already know this, but if you don’t, MOST pirate streaming sites have everything from every service right there in a searchable webpage that looks like (usually a discount version but sometimes superior) a paid streaming site.
It’s not even cope to say they are generally easier to navigate and search than the services you have to PAY for. All you need is ublock origin and you have access to a superior service IMMEDIATELY.
Nougat@kbin.social 4 months ago
The VPN is to shield yourself from DMCA while you sail the high seas.
vodka@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Probably meant in the context of hiding your piracy activities.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 4 months ago
For maximum impact:
I’ve been doing it for years and don’t regret it on bit in light of the regular sleazy behaviours of Amazon coming to light (their removing of ebooks that people bought from their Fire Tables alone is the reason why I never to bought any digital media from them).