Amazon announced recently that its Prime Video streaming service will begin to play ads unless users stump up an extra $2.99 fee per month.
Subscribers will begin to see ads from 29 Jan in America and 5 Feb in Britain. Germany and Canada will also begin to see ads at this time. France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia will be getting ads later in the year.
This comes on the heels of a year of price hikes for streaming services across the board, with Netflix’s priciest plan hitting the $20 mark, Disney+, Apple TV, Hulu, and others rising prices and introducing ad-supported tiers.
Amazon Prime’s base price increased last year from $119 annually to $139, or from $12.99 monthly to $14.99, a 17% increase. The added $35.88 per year for ad-free viewing takes the total price to $177.88, a 27% increase.
In their announcement, Amazon stated that they aim to have “meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers.” However, it is unclear at this time what this means in practice.
The response across the web has been mixed at best, with many people stating that it’s one price increase too far and they intend to cancel their Prime subscriptions.
On Reddit, thousands reacted to the news, and nearly all negatively. The top comment below an article on the announcement on r/news was: “lol the pursuit for higher and higher quarterly profit goals has really f****d s**t up. no more innovating. just charge more and more. squeeze for every dollar.”
Will content purchased through Amazon Prime Video include ads?
A concern for many people has been whether movies and shows they have purchased or rented through the Prime Video platform would be affected. It seems that the only content receiving ads will be Prime Video streaming titles, not products customers have bought or rented. This could always change in the future though.
In addition, sports content such as Thursday Night Football and other live sporting events will still include adverts, even if you have paid for the ad-free tier of Prime. Amazon is reportedly looking to expand its sporting content.
Despite an extremely successful year, Amazon’s hunt for profits and need to appease shareholders and the market continues. After Max, Netflix, and Disney+ paved the way, it was only a matter of time before Amazon joined them.
Featured Image: Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
