When it comes to streaming services, Prime Video has historically been the bottom of the barrel for me. It’s something that I get access to as part of having a Prime membership (which in turn I mostly have so that I can order from Amazon Fresh… because going to the grocery store is so 2019.) It’s pretty rare that I opt to watch things on Prime Video since, on the whole, I find the original content to be more lacking when compared to other platforms.
That’s not to say that Prime Video has nothing worth watching. I really enjoyed watching Invincible (though I still need to watch the second season), The Wheel of Time (though I still need to watch the second season), The Boys, and The Rings of Power. Other series, like Reacher, Outer Range, Citadel, Bosch, and The Peripheral were… not great.
Any relevance is soon to end for me, though, after I got the following email from Amazon last week. I had heard rumors that this was in the works, so it was hardly a surprise… but it’s still disappointing:
We are writing to you today about an upcoming change to your Prime Video experience. Starting January 29, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements. This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time. 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. We will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional $2.99 per month* that you can sign up for here.
Amazon Prime email
Amazon’s already lackluster streaming content is now going to be supplemented with advertising beginning January 29th, 2024. This tells me I have a month to binge through anything I care enough to watch on the service before I never open the app again on my TV.
This particular trend is one I dislike even more than most when it comes to tech companies trying to make money. From Hulu to Netflix to Max and now Prime, everyone has decided that simply making the same amount of money each year when they’ve (more or less) hit saturation isn’t enough; now everyone appears to be looking at ads in order to bump profits for another year. I’m scared to think of what will be used to increase profits further the year after this after further stagnation.
I’ve seen several people online commenting that it’s really the beginning of the end for streaming, and I honestly find it hard to disagree. I feel far less compelled to pay for a service when I know that advertising is included… I’d honestly rather just read a book or doomscroll across my iPad than stop for an ad break every 10 minutes. I understand the need for ads when watching over the air TV. And while I understand why they’re being included in streaming, I can’t get behind it. Streaming originally offered a safe haven from this that cable TV didn’t, and now that it’s making inroads into every streaming service, I see myself no longer subscribing to them in the same way that I no longer subscribe to cable. Services that I get included as part of something else (e.g. Prime Video via Prime and Hulu via my cellular carrier) I’ll still have access to, but I don’t see myself using them very much.