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Famously cash-strapped company, Amazon, now tell me that if I want to avoid adverts (which is largely why I have a subscription in the first place), I now have to stump up an additional charge.
Reckon I'll just cancel - not because of the cost; just don't want to reward that level of greed and cynicism.
Just like everything else you just need to weigh up the costs and benefits. I'll likely carry on with Prime just for the free/fast delivery.
Just like everything else you just need to weigh up the costs and benefits.
Exactly that. If they'd have said "We're putting our charges up by £2.99 to continue to get the benefits of Prime including advert free streaming." would you have taken it?
The reverse perspective is that they've given you a choice to avoid a cost uplift by accepting adverts.
They've been slowly making the service worse for a while. I was a customer of LoveFilm when Amazon bought the company so I've given them a fair chance. 🤨
To be honest I've been thinking of shit-canning my Prime membership for a while anyway as the free delivery seems to enable my bad habit of purchasing unneeded shite.
I'll cancel once this season of Reacher has finished!
I'll carry on and see how intrusive the ads are then decide if I want to opt out.
Most of the prime gui seems to be trying to point me to pay for stuff anyway rather than the free content. Which is why I rarely use it, it is the worst of the bunch as a streaming service. Although I have prime for the delivery so prime video is just a barely used bonus.
I cancelled mine a while ago.
You can still get free delivery if you chose Amazon locker near you instead of you home address.
Works for me anyway.
I very very rarely watch PRime... as above, Reacher is one, Good Omens was another but as the boy is getting older that's now moved on. So i don't know what Mrs Weeksy will do, but i expect she'll can it. Netflix tops Prime for me... i'd much rather have Netflix. (and Disocvery+ of course for racing.)
crazy-legs
Full Member
I’ll cancel once this season of Reacher has finished!
But there's going to be season 3!
We got it for the benefits other than video, and tbh I can live with some ads anyway, just like I live with ads for 'linear TV' that I pay a licence for.
£95 now for free quick shipping and hit and miss selection on Prime video. Without ads it was just about worth it. With ads, no, and not worth paying extra.
So I may just dump Prime entirely and pay up for quick shipping of I need it.
Depends where the ads are. They claim unobtrusive. If just at start and end of a show, I can cope. Hate it in the middle and worse if it's like YouTube and every minute.
Hate ads in films and Prime is mainly good/okay for films.
Missus loves Prime just for the free delivery, I like a chunk of the streaming content so will stick with it and pay towards ad free if it bugs me too much.
I don’t like the updated prime video iOS app that mixes up the free to view vs paid video as I’ve never paid for a video on prime, and no adverts is why I like streaming services so I’ll probably pay the extra, not happy bout it though.
The worst bit is when you get Prime in order to watch something only to discover it is only available through Prime Prime. Whereby you have to pay for a second subscription to another streaming service just to watch one series. **** you Bezos and your penis rocket.
I'd be less ornery if they'd switched people over at the end of their subs, instead this is "Hey you know that service you've already bought? You have to pay us again to keep getting it". Like, I just bought some shoes from Amazon, I'll be a little miffed if in 4 months they demand £3 off me or they'll start leaking.
On the other hand I just got an ac.uk address so rather than cancelling I'm going to be abusing that and switching over to Amazon Student, so the difference is I won't feel at all bad about it, turnabout's fair play.
No more Amazon Prime day deliveries here. Just one extra delivery a year would probably cost them more than the £2.99 they want.
Poor Jeff will be on the streets by summer.
I cancelled, but then had them re-enroll me via the Swedish site when I bought something. A friend had the same thing happen when he bought something from the US site. Sneaky bastards. He got his money back, but oddly they say they will only give him Amazon vouchers. He's annoyed.
I set my account to use a payment option that does not involve a card, they are currently getting very confused about why they cannot take a payment...
It'll be the same as the freevee service they've been running for a year. In a 45 minute programme there is usually about 20-30s advert at the start and one or occasionally two 60-90s adverts in the middle.
Not the end of the earth really given the content they make.
As part of tightening the purse strings we were going to cancel prime anyway. So prime and Amazon music now cancelled.
Prime was always about the delivery aspect for me - the TV has always been shite compared to Netflix.
Anything else is a bonus - I use the photo storage alongside iCloud as backup to my backup.
Just remembered my business account gets (now free) prime because I linked it with my personal account. I'd lose that cancelling, and it's sometimes useful for a next or same day delivery. But then again just pay for that delivery (vat free on business expense after all).
I’d imaging there’s also going to some of the platforms tying deals together.
There are too many now - diluting the content for all of them.
Sky did the same thing, and some of the streaming services deal with it terribly - you can’t fast forward through adds, if you want to fast forward you can’t go past an add break without watching it* and some program force you to rewatch from the beginning. <br /><br />
Sky F1 qualifying / long programs is a real pain because you need to fast forward through about 2 hrs of talking therefore watch many repetitive add breaks until the qualy actually starts. <br /><br /><br />
Prime was always about the delivery aspect for me
It was/is for me too, but they've started to dialute that side of it as well. No more free same day deliveries as of end of last year. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the end of it either, a charge for next day delivery for example might be next.
Feels like they're slowly chipping away at the overall package.
Free same day was never an option in our back-water!
I was just thinking that I might cancel anyway, just to try a bit of "nudge psychology" to not waste so much money shopping on amazon, most of the stuff I buy on there are want items rather than needed, and it has become a bit addictive.
You can still get free delivery if you chose Amazon locker near you instead of you home address.
Didn't know this, cheers. Never watch prime so will look at this and cancel
I wonder what's worth more to them - does a months worth of plonking me in front of Ads make them or less than £2.99. I'm imagining a lot less. Hose that watch the most telly will be most disadvantaged by the ads and are most likely to pay...therefor missing the most ads. Lite users like myself will probably only miss (I hope) 15 or 20 ad breaks a month.
Prime is our only paid for telly service now that GCN+ has gone as we got rid of Now and Netflix a while back. I guess I pay for BBC/CH4 too through the licence fee.
Prime was always about the delivery aspect for me
+1
Very rarely find anything on Prime Video that interests us, or if we do, you have to pay extra to see it.
We already occasionally see a couple of short ads at the start of a film?
Have they started early?
At least they're skipable.
You won't have the ability to skip once this is in place. It's also not clear whether there will be ads during the program/film.
You can still get free delivery if you chose Amazon locker near you instead of you home address.
Didn’t know this, cheers. Never watch prime so will look at this and cancel
Thanks for this, got an Amazon locker 2 minutes walk away so will definitely cancel Prime and switch to this method.
You won’t have the ability to skip once this is in place. It’s also not clear whether there will be ads during the program/film.
It’ll probably be like Discovery+ - the ads on there can be 90secs or 30secs and not too intrusive.
If they were skipable no one would pay the extra.
the TV has always been shite compared to Netflix.
I think Netflix is now by far the worst of the bunch. Endless ten episode documentaries that should have been three episodes. Really crap series continually renewed and half decent ones cancelled with no notice. Prime and Disney between them have a much wider selection of films and series.
At least I know with Netflix that it’s all included in the price. Biggest bug-bear with Prime is finding something then seeing it’s only available to rent/buy.
I also think they are still decent value for money - far better value than going to your corner shop in the 80s and renting a VHS and having to have it back then next morning - rewound too - or you’d be fined!! The film you really wanted was always out as well, so you’d put your name down and with luck you’d get it in two weeks time! 🤣🤣
I won’t tolerate anything that funds Amazon.
As a few have mentioned, only paid for prime for the delivery aspect. But wanting to spraff less cash on needless crap to clutter the house combined with;
You can still get free delivery if you chose Amazon locker near you instead of you home address.
works nicely for me. An extra £8.99 a month in my pocket rather than Jeff’s can only be a good thing.
They’ve been slowly making the service worse for a while. I was a customer of LoveFilm when Amazon bought the company so I’ve given them a fair chance. 🤨
Same here, an ex-LoveFilm customer. Don't watch much on Prime Video and if I do it's usually a movie that I have to pay for so the whole Ads thing won't really affect me, won't stop it annoying me if I do watch something though (which reminds me, still got a season of Picard to watch).
What has peeved me off though is the way they're running the delivery side down to make it gradually worse after making it the sole reason for the subscription. 18 months ago they made my area (central Cardiff) one where you could order by midday on a lot of items and get them delivered that evening, really handy for avoiding nipping into the supermarket on the way home for something but leaving with something plus sweets, a drink etc. It recently changed to only for orders over £20, then it was pushing Prime Delivery Day 'to save on packaging' only it wouldn't and just meant that your delivery arrived on a Friday rather than next day but still in loads of individual boxes. The local lockers are also useless as they're either got no slots available or what I've ordered can't be delivered to them for some random reason (usually they're the wrong size).
Once my current few orders have arrived I'm going to cancel it, when I got a great service out of it I could ignore Bezos' cockrocket etc but now I can get stuff elsewhere for a similar price and delivered almost as quickly but without a subscription.
I haven't bought anything from Amazon for nearly 3 years now. I have no subscription streaming services at all, and if I want to listen to music I buy the CD, preferably from the merch table at the gig. I don't really feel like I'm missing out on much.
I'll be ditching it. £8.99 for ad free streaming and free deliveries of random small items was worth it.
I don't watch much on Prime though. Not £12 a month worth.
Hate adverts but happy to pop into my local Amazon locker rather than pay for deliveries.
Or as far as I remember it's also free over a certain amount anyway.
To be honest I’ve been thinking of shit-canning my Prime membership for a while anyway as the free delivery seems to enable my bad habit of purchasing unneeded shite.
This was us - I’ve noticed that there is less free content than ever & as mentioned it’s now mixed in amongst the pay stuff.
I can’t be arsed with the regular “virtual” trawling of the bottom shelf at blockbusters, which is what Prime has become.
Cancelled.!
The reverse perspective is that they’ve given you a choice to avoid a cost uplift by accepting adverts.
This. Netflix simply put their prices up without giving you the option to avoid the increase.
I think Netflix is now by far the worst of the bunch. Endless ten episode documentaries that should have been three episodes.
There's mountains of stuff, the docushite is a tiny part of it and is easily ignored. Their biggest issue is not connecting people with what they would actually like - now there's so much stuff, it's way harder to find the good ones. A good tip is to look at non-English language stuff.
We have three or four streaming services on the go at any point - remember you can rotate subs to allow content to build up on the ones that are off-rotation - which feels like a lot until we compare it to a Sky sub.
The 'worst of the bunch' is definitely Paramount.
To be honest I’ve been thinking of shit-canning my Prime membership for a while anyway as the free delivery seems to enable my bad habit of purchasing unneeded shite.
This was us - I’ve noticed that there is less free content than ever & as mentioned it’s now mixed in amongst the pay stuff.
I can’t be arsed with the regular “virtual” trawling of the bottom shelf at blockbusters, which is what Prime has become.
Cancelled.!
I only renewed before Christmas - would have avoided on principle had I taken notice of the upcoming increase. I might now shop around when something I like is on such as Apple TV's Slow Horses. Then cancel when something awful appears such as Wheel of Time.
I will hang on for season 3of clarksons farm then consider binning it.
I've cancelled too. The gradual reduction in the quality of the streaming services, along with their proliferation, has pushed me back to piracy. It's easier to just download a show/movie rather than work out if it's included in one of the streaming services.
If it's paid yearly rather than monthly how can they change what you paid for half way through? I guess it's in the small print
I won’t tolerate anything that funds Amazon.
And yet you're here on the Internet.
You do know what AWS does, right?
Does anyone know how this affects bought content?
We've probably got about 30 films we've bought as it was better value for money than renting.
I'll be proper peeved if having bought the content (which I presumably cannot download onto other media?) I then have to sit through adverts.
Off to do some googling but if anyone knows.
Gah, just signed up again for free delivery for Christmas and the Amazon kids subscription that needed renewal that's cheaper if you have prime. Might have to buy another kids kindle for the subscription and ditch the prime if it's annoying.
Boom time for firesticks down the pub.
Quick poke around the internet suggests we can download content we've bought to a device with Prime Video app installed but nothing to suggest we can just whack it on a solid state drive or similar.
Not clear on whether they'll be trying to stick ads in them yet if still streaming.
I went down the kodi rabbit hole some time back so the streaming is a moot point.
Got to decide if I need it just for the free delivery which is not as prompt/reliable as it once was anyway.
If it’s paid yearly rather than monthly how can they change what you paid for half way through? I guess it’s in the small print
From Martin Lewis - Amazon told us that annual Prime members will be able to get a pro rata refund of their subscription fee if they decide to cancel as a result of the change.
I’ll likely carry on with Prime just for the free/fast delivery.<br /><br />
I only use Prime for that, then bin it once I’ve got the item. I’ve only used Prime for a series once, and that was for The Periferal, and they’ve canned the second series, so that’s it.
@squirrelking No I don’t, so I guess I should update the previous statement to “I won’t tolerate anything that funds Amazon knowingly”.
I’d be interested to know?
Goddam it.
my annual prime subscription literally renewed today.
I’d be interested to know?
Most if not all of Amazon's profit comes from selling computing infrastructure and services to huge numbers of other businesses across the whole economy. This is what's referred to as 'cloud computing'. They basically invented the system where you can rent servers, storage or other infrastructure and services cheaply and easily with just a credit card and access them yourself which is a vast improvement over the way things were done in the past, in many cases. So credit to them for that.
Ok, so mine renews on 30 April.
I'm guessing I can just renew for a month and cancel right away if I need some big items delivered free?
Cheers!
Is it realistically possible to knowingly avoid it’s use?
Yes. Cancel your broadband subscription.
[Amazon] AWS is huge, it's fully a third of the Internet's cloud compute. By comparison, Microsoft is about a quarter, Google last I looked was around 10%.
The only way you can avoid funding Bozos' next yacht is to get off the Internet and go live in a cave I'm afraid.
If we can't avoid funding his yacht, can we at least fund a few killer whales to sink it?
I'm not sure it's possible to take such a hardline position on corporate ethics. You can avoid the most egregious stuff (like Nestle for example) but AWS? I mean, yes Amazon the online retailer is shitty towards its employees, but so are innumerable other companies you never hear about, and you can't realistically avoid everyone one of them. And is AWS culpable to the same extent that the online retailer is? Is Bezos himself personally responsible? It's a minefield.
You'd be better off campaigning for worker's rights in the UK, raising awareness, writing to your representatives etc.
We have Prime at the moment, to watch the current season of Reacher - but will then end the contract.
Previously I've watched the free-with-ads films. The ads are far, far less obtrusive than typical ITV-like ads.
The only way you can avoid funding Bozos’ next yacht is to get off the Internet and go live in a cave I’m afraid.
+1
We (first world) could be well and truely shafted if "someone" hacked AWS and brought the system down though I hope they have sufficient redundancy and disaster planning to cope with such an event...
AWS isn't really one system.
AWS isn’t really one system.
I realize that but there is a lot of inter-connectivity between systems and, hopefully, there isn't a super-administrator account with access to "everything" (or at least a single mission critical component that taps into every sub-system or region)
hopefully, there isn’t a super-administrator account with access to “everything”
If you've thought of it, they have too 🙂
Well ultimately this is a the future of TV/Cinema and the carved up market place of choice.
As a potential benefactor of these platforms - I'm currently trying to get a feature film we shot last year launched - and trust me you think you're getting ripped off - we got massive distributor fees, poor deals, iffy legal practices.
It's Spotify all over again.
As a viewer I love the choice and quality (4K HDR) this is the golden age of TV for me - so much good content across many platforms (which can be an issue) - but throwing your teddies out of the pram just because you need to pay a bit more to keep these services going?
The British and the internet have always had an expect much for free attitude - I've got middle class friends who still have these dodgy platforms from eBay streaming for free FFS.
It's ultimately an industry and I'm not a fan of these big companies and the way the competition rolls out but you do have to pay your way if you want the content.
Ads or a bit more money is entirely reasonable model - it's what happens on this very platform. (I know I'm not a premium subscriber and was for years - but that's simply down to not sorting it out .)
Netflix has to be applauded for taking the TV out of the dark ages and they're all still figuring out where it's all going.
But we do have to get used to paying for things if we want the content.
And yes I still go to the cinema and give that my support too but streaming platforms are great value without the cumbersome nature of acquiring media. It is also an example of a market place at work (not many of those) - in that there is a good spread of choice and price.
(Eventually things will change and studios will do hybrid deals. Can't see apple or paramount being separate forever. )
Politically the solution to low wages and ethics is probably not boycotts - mostly, but collective bargaining of wages and standards but we know how weak that has become.