Poll: Amazon Prime adding adverts in 2024

Will you pay to remove adverts?

  • Yes

    Votes: 10 5.0%
  • No

    Votes: 161 79.7%
  • Comedy Option

    Votes: 31 15.3%

  • Total voters
    202
Soldato
Joined
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West Yorkshire, England
That's how it started with now tv, its now infested with ads unless you purchase the optional subscription.
Admittedly I do pay for Boost, although never at full price. I think I'm paying £2 a month for Boost at the moment.

My biggest gripe is they include a 30 second unskippable in house ad at the beginning, just to advertise upcoming shows and movies. Pretty annoying considering I pay for Boost.
 
Associate
Joined
12 Jul 2008
Posts
1,256
I only subscribe to Prime for the (free) next day deliveries.
I tried Prime Video when I first got it and it was crap... everything I wanted to watch was "rent or buy now" on top of the prime sub.
Gave up on it.
Think I've only used it 2 or 3 times since, to watch Rugby that Amazon had an exclusive on.

Wish they've break up the parts of the Prime sub.
Amazon Music is awful now - never use it.
I don't watch Amazon Video.
Just want my deliveries!
 
Soldato
Joined
10 Jul 2008
Posts
7,803
Yeah I watched something the other day and saw ads for the first time. Yuck. Strangely, I did not get any, even at the start, when I watched the Grand Tour latest episode. Not sure if this was a fluke or whether they selectively are placing them only on some things.
 
Soldato
Joined
10 Jul 2008
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7,803
I did not realize they were getting rid of the Dolby Vision and HDR content! Just saw above. Hmm. Again, I watched stuff over the weekend and it definitely popped up with a HDR logo on the Grand Tour on my OLED. Is it possible it won't kick in until I log out on that device or something like that?
 
Caporegime
OP
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11 Nov 2002
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Barcelona
I did not realize they were getting rid of the Dolby Vision and HDR content! Just saw above. Hmm. Again, I watched stuff over the weekend and it definitely popped up with a HDR logo on the Grand Tour on my OLED. Is it possible it won't kick in until I log out on that device or something like that?
Dolby vision is beind the paywall, but hdr10± is not. So if you have a Samsung TV HDR10+ should work on the advert service as well, without paying.


rp2000
 
Soldato
Joined
5 Apr 2009
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24,912
I did not realize they were getting rid of the Dolby Vision and HDR content! Just saw above. Hmm. Again, I watched stuff over the weekend and it definitely popped up with a HDR logo on the Grand Tour on my OLED. Is it possible it won't kick in until I log out on that device or something like that?
When I watched GT over the weekend it had a short ad from Mini saying the following programme would be 'ad free' (lol). I guess it also included HDR presentation
 
Soldato
Joined
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7,803
Time to reanimate the parrot and dust off the eye patch me harties.

We've sort of gone full circle now haven't we...
The early 00s was the boom of file sharing online as a result of - among other things - greed. People got fed up with paying £15 per album / DVD...
Then online streaming services change the landscape by offering affordable, seemingly infinite, convenient and easy to consume content...
File sharing largely disappeared...
Now with monopolistic subscription models tied so much into our lives with ever increasing prices, greed again is going to potentially push people to the seven seas once more.
 
Associate
Joined
5 Oct 2022
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Location
Brum town
We've sort of gone full circle now haven't we...
The early 00s was the boom of file sharing online as a result of - among other things - greed. People got fed up with paying £15 per album / DVD...
Then online streaming services change the landscape by offering affordable, seemingly infinite, convenient and easy to consume content...
File sharing largely disappeared...
Now with monopolistic subscription models tied so much into our lives with ever increasing prices, greed again is going to potentially push people to the seven seas once more.

Agreed. Amazon have made the argument that part of the revenue generated will go to directly into funding future shows and films but I don't believe that for one second.

To be quite honest the only subscription I'll have running by the end of the year will be YT Premium, partly because most of what I watch is on YT now and also because the revenue share to creators you watch is something like 8x that of ad generated cash (though that may change the bigger the channel is). If you can prove it directly benefits the creator then I'm all for it, but it's one thing to say the moneys going to a cool independent content creator who gives me hours of entertainment and quite another for it to go directly into the pockets of some unfathomably wealthy studio pumping out drivel till something sticks.

The Now TV subscription model does my absolute nut in. They try and justify nearly £40 a month for sport but are happy to send you 6 month offers that cut the cost in half 4 or 5 times a year.

They almost had it right. Even 10 years ago it felt like the inflated TV package deals where being phased out by cheaper subscription models that worked better for the customer. Now if you factor in all the available plans you're knocking on the door of £100 a month easy.
 
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Soldato
Joined
10 Jul 2008
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7,803
At least with music subs you generally get access to most music you would want? With the video ones, you often find certain films/series are only on one of say Disney, Prime, Netflix etc. Suddenly you're paying for Disney, Prime, Netflix, Spotify, Sky/Virgin, onlyfans, other stuff.

Subscription models are becoming rampant. I just saw in another thread that there are rumours about Unraid moving to a sub model where it's previously been a life time licence. I wonder if plex will do the same with their "lifetime" pass in time. Gaming is the same. Heavily pushes monthly sub plans for content on xbox/playstation.
 
Man of Honour
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91,452
How long until you are paying £10-12/m for music with ads and need to pay another £5/m for ad free music? LOL...
 
Soldato
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Now with monopolistic subscription models tied so much into our lives with ever increasing prices, greed again is going to potentially push people to the seven seas once more.


Which streaming services are so successful that their pricing strategies could be considered 'greedy'? Most of them seem to be at risk of collapse.. Plus Prime Video is essentially a 'free' perk for most people via Prime..

In the old days the likes of Netflix just served up existing films and repeats of network TV shows - where's the incentive to spend billions creating new content if no one will pay for it..
 
Man of Honour
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if no one will pay for it..

People will pay for it, albeit not always willingly, if it is gone about the right way. Most of these approaches lately have been purely about the company bottom line without a moment given to how they can make a better product for the consumer, even removing features people have become accustom to having for a given price... albeit it is tied to more complicated licensing/rights issues but for instance most of these streaming services don't even support 4K on desktop platforms but still want more money :s
 
Soldato
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People will pay for it, albeit not always willingly, if it is gone about the right way. Most of these approaches lately have been purely about the company bottom line without a moment given to how they can make a better product for the consumer, even removing features people have become accustom to having for a given price... albeit it is tied to more complicated licensing/rights issues but for instance most of these streaming services don't even support 4K on desktop platforms but still want more money :s


The right way? So what would the right way be for Amazon to charge extra for its existing 'free' service? Just bump up the cost of Prime to everyone?

4k on desktops is a niche feature at best and complicated by DRM / licensing etc hardly worth investing in.

Still not seeing any evidence of greed..
 
Man of Honour
Joined
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91,452
4k on desktops is a niche feature at best

Over 54% of people access Prime Video via desktop computer, though <5% have 3840x2160 as their primary resolution a higher number have a 4K display as a secondary device (though that might include some people who've temporarily connected their TV to their computer). It is a growing market and probably somewhat stifled by the limited content in the first place.
 
Soldato
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Over 54% of people access Prime Video via desktop computer, though <5% have 3840x2160 as their primary resolution a higher number have a 4K display as a secondary device (though that might include some people who've temporarily connected their TV to their computer). It is a growing market and probably somewhat stifled by the limited content in the first place.


As I said 4k streaming on desktop is niche - but regardless how many of the 54% actually really care what the res is? If there was money to made there Im sure Amazon would be on it..
 
Soldato
Joined
5 Mar 2010
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12,367
Which streaming services are so successful that their pricing strategies could be considered 'greedy'? Most of them seem to be at risk of collapse.. Plus Prime Video is essentially a 'free' perk for most people via Prime..

In the old days the likes of Netflix just served up existing films and repeats of network TV shows - where's the incentive to spend billions creating new content if no one will pay for it..

Is that not part of the problem though. Netflix releases a lot of it's own guff and frankly would have been better spending the 8 figures on licensing something that a big studio has created. I get that's trickier now that a lot of studios are now running their own streaming platforms, so that boat has mostly sailed for Netflix, but it means they're left with trying to produce their own content.
 
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