Hyderabad: The American multinational technology company, Amazon has announced its plan to insert ads into movies and TV shows streamed from its Prime Video service, from January 29 onwards in the upcoming year 2024.
The company has sent an official mail to its customers where it has given details of the transition date for commencing the ads. Prime Video customers have been provided the option of paying an additional $2.99 per month to avoid 'limited' ads. The company said that this move will allow it “to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.”
In the email sent to the users, Amazon said the company aims 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,” the company wrote in the email.
“We will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional $2.99 per month. 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," the company said.
Amazon Prime currently costs $14.99 each month or $139 annually whereas Prime Video can be subscribed to individually for $8.99 per month. Notably, Amazon also operates Freevee, a free, ad-sponsored streaming service. "Live event content such as sports, and content offered through Amazon Freevee will continue to include advertising", the company wrote.
The move comes as rival streaming services continue to raise subscription rates and push ads. Disney Plus, Hulu, Max, Netflix, and Paramount Plus all include ads on their most affordable tiers.
This step, termed as investment in compelling content by Amazon Prime, is met with brickbats from its users. Several users took to the micro-blogging platform, X(formerly Twitter) to express their thoughts on the new advertising scheme.
A user wrote, "S**** Amazon. They’re starting to put ads in prime video for complete BS reasons and want us to pay $2.99 a month to have ad free content. This company makes $220+ billion in PROFIT each year. These corps keeps trying to find ways to enslave you with recurring revenue. DISGUSTING."
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Screw Amazon. They’re starting to put ads in prime video for complete BS reasons and want us to pay $2.99 a month to have ad free content. This company makes $220+ billion in PROFIT each year. These corps keeps trying to find ways to enslave you with recurring revenue. DISGUSTING
— Super 🐗 (@Heyyy_Super) December 27, 2023 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="
">Screw Amazon. They’re starting to put ads in prime video for complete BS reasons and want us to pay $2.99 a month to have ad free content. This company makes $220+ billion in PROFIT each year. These corps keeps trying to find ways to enslave you with recurring revenue. DISGUSTING
— Super 🐗 (@Heyyy_Super) December 27, 2023Screw Amazon. They’re starting to put ads in prime video for complete BS reasons and want us to pay $2.99 a month to have ad free content. This company makes $220+ billion in PROFIT each year. These corps keeps trying to find ways to enslave you with recurring revenue. DISGUSTING
— Super 🐗 (@Heyyy_Super) December 27, 2023
"@amazon @PrimeVideo is bringing back to life cable tv and piracy with their #ads in their streaming service. Who was the genius behind that awful idea? I see people stopping paying for #amazonprime #Amazon", another user wrote while expressing his view on the latest move by Amazon Prime.
One user termed it as 'a scam' while others said it is nothing but for greed. "Just received an email claiming to be prime video saying that you are including ads in Amazon video or to pay 2.99 per month for no ads. (Obviously a scam) since you mentioned when you launched that you were not doing Ads, remember?", a user's post read.
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@JeffBezos @PrimeVideo @amazon FYI. Just received an email claiming to be prime video saying that you are including ads in Amazon video or to pay 2.99 per month for no ads. (Obviously a scam) since you mentioned when you launched that you were not doing Ads, remember?
— TJ (@ThomTreinen) December 27, 2023 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="
">@JeffBezos @PrimeVideo @amazon FYI. Just received an email claiming to be prime video saying that you are including ads in Amazon video or to pay 2.99 per month for no ads. (Obviously a scam) since you mentioned when you launched that you were not doing Ads, remember?
— TJ (@ThomTreinen) December 27, 2023@JeffBezos @PrimeVideo @amazon FYI. Just received an email claiming to be prime video saying that you are including ads in Amazon video or to pay 2.99 per month for no ads. (Obviously a scam) since you mentioned when you launched that you were not doing Ads, remember?
— TJ (@ThomTreinen) December 27, 2023
Another user wrote, "Amazon trying to charge extra on Prime Video to avoid ads ain’t nothing but greed. Especially considering how a large portion of websites rely on Amazon’s cloud web hosting service.."
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I’ve been saying since 2018: Streaming economics are broken—and all the streamers (Spotify, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney, etc.) will, sooner or later, start squeezing creators and customers in a heavy-handed way. pic.twitter.com/5FmIWkTiHZ
— Ted Gioia (@tedgioia) December 27, 2023 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="
">I’ve been saying since 2018: Streaming economics are broken—and all the streamers (Spotify, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney, etc.) will, sooner or later, start squeezing creators and customers in a heavy-handed way. pic.twitter.com/5FmIWkTiHZ
— Ted Gioia (@tedgioia) December 27, 2023I’ve been saying since 2018: Streaming economics are broken—and all the streamers (Spotify, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney, etc.) will, sooner or later, start squeezing creators and customers in a heavy-handed way. pic.twitter.com/5FmIWkTiHZ
— Ted Gioia (@tedgioia) December 27, 2023
"I’ve been saying since 2018: Streaming economics are broken—and all the streamers (Spotify, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney, etc.) will, sooner or later, start squeezing creators and customers in a heavy-handed way", a post on X read.
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Amazon trying to charge extra on Prime Video to avoid ads ain’t nothing but greed. Especially considering how a large portion of websites rely on Amazon’s cloud web hosting service.. 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/2YZ2jcCQTb
— Bella Goth 🇵🇸 (@WickedNFine) December 26, 2023 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="
">Amazon trying to charge extra on Prime Video to avoid ads ain’t nothing but greed. Especially considering how a large portion of websites rely on Amazon’s cloud web hosting service.. 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/2YZ2jcCQTb
— Bella Goth 🇵🇸 (@WickedNFine) December 26, 2023Amazon trying to charge extra on Prime Video to avoid ads ain’t nothing but greed. Especially considering how a large portion of websites rely on Amazon’s cloud web hosting service.. 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/2YZ2jcCQTb
— Bella Goth 🇵🇸 (@WickedNFine) December 26, 2023
Also, there is no update from the company on whether they would implement the same for the Indian market where Prime Video subscription costs ₹1499 per annum and ₹299 per month.
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