Amazon will increase ad-free Prime Video prices by $2 per month on April 10
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
When will they announce the pricing for Amazon Prime without included music or video streaming? I'm not going to be holding my breath, waiting for that one.
I used to occasionally watch things on Prime Video, until they included advertisements. Now, I never watch it.
I used to occasionally watch things on Prime Video, until they included advertisements. Now, I never watch it.
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Huh, weird, my streams don't ever have any ads.
I stopped watching direct from Prime the instant I saw the first ad. I certainly won't be paying even more for the pleasure of not watching ads.
(if it's unclear, I don't get ads because I don't watch direct from Prime Video)
I stopped watching direct from Prime the instant I saw the first ad. I certainly won't be paying even more for the pleasure of not watching ads.
(if it's unclear, I don't get ads because I don't watch direct from Prime Video)
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Well, locks me in on canceling my prime sub. Been buying less and less from them anyways with all the spammed knock off brands and no longer reliable "prime" delivery. Maybe do some quality control on your next billion dollar boondoggle of a show before you spend all the money.
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Cap'nAwesome
Ars Centurion
I haven't watched anything on Prime since they forced ads into my already-paid-for ad-free subscription and I never will. I'd love to just cancel it outright but the free shipping just saves us too much at the moment.
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Keith Tanner
Ars Tribunus Militum
I rarely used Prime Video before the adpocalypse because it kept trying to hide the "included with Prime" content. Now, I never use it at all because ads are, just, no.
Unless there's a new season of Clarkson' Farm. I'll put up with some ads for that. My mute button still works.
Unless there's a new season of Clarkson' Farm. I'll put up with some ads for that. My mute button still works.
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I think most of these should be called "Faux K". It's technically correct, but the bitrate is so hindered I don't think it's worth the premium.
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Currently, Prime Video with ads is part of Amazon’s Prime membership, which starts at $15 a month. Today, ad-free Prime Video users can watch supported titles in 4K, but starting on April 10, a new Prime Video Ultra subscription will be required for ad-free 4K viewing.
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Is the above bolded/italic missing, or are you implying that 4K with ads is going away. Which is what the title says also.
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Is the above bolded/italic missing, or are you implying that 4K with ads is going away. Which is what the title says also.
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I cancelled a while back, due to the shit Bezos has been doing with WaPo and his general coziness with the trump admin, but it only finally lapsed the other days as it was an annual subscription.
It already annoyed me that I had to pay extra for no ads. This just reaffirms my decision.
Whole Foods is just a few block walk from my house, next closest grocery store isn’t too far, but just far enough that I can’t safely walk perishables home, and generally wouldn’t want to carry a full shopping trip worth of stuff that far without my car or some kind of cart.
Never did my regular shopping there, but did go for convenience shopping more regularly (such as for produce and their salad bar).
In the last year we’ve also cut back on WF shopping to a tiny trickle. Basically only when we want a few things that aren’t sold at our preferred store. I think others in the neighborhood have done similar, as on the rare times I do still go in, there’s a small fraction of the amount of shoppers in there than I was used to in years past. Lots of the regular employees seem gone too, and they’ve pushed the self checkout system harder.
Fuck Bezos.
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<sigh> This death-by-a-thousand-cuts is exhausting. Amazon has the money...can they do us the favour of buying a few Senators or House members to pass the legislation for us to simply send these companies a portion of our income every month for nothing in return other than a shiny "Paid Up!" badge now rather than drag it out over the next few years? It seems to be the way we're headed with every change these companies make that strips away a little more here, a little more there...
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Maybe I'm getting old but I can't follow any of that. Why can't there just be two tiers: ads or no ads, and both get the highest bitrate your ISP can handle? Is it more expensive for them to push out 4K/Atmos/Vision/whatever? Or are they artificially paywalling features (e.g., BMW putting heated seats behind a subscription)?
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Amazon - I got a new business model, I'm going to punch you in the face until you pay me to stop.
They didn't invent this model, but they are perfecting it
They didn't invent this model, but they are perfecting it
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Prime loses value year over year. Not quite at the cancellation stage yet, but one more announcement and I'm done.
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Amazon should focus on making good shows. They don't have nearly enough content to justify the price. When it was included with Prime, it was fine to only have a handful of decent shows, but I'm not going to pay extra to watch a season of Fallout every two years.
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Artificial paywall. I am quite certain they had this planned out from the outset. As a public company they have no choice if they want to drive stock value. I mean they could have skipped Melania and probably not have to raise rates.
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So fucking glad I quit Prime even if it means I never get to rewatch The Expanse. Of course every other streamer is getting just as bad.
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"We make more money selling your eyeballs to advertisers. You're worth more to us as a product to sell than a customer to sell to."
Don't expect much now that you've become the product.
Don't expect much now that you've become the product.
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You can do both. You can pony up for the ad-free tier for a month, then let it drop when you've binged through whatever you find worthwhile. Just wait until near the end of the season (Clarkson's Farm typically releases weekly, for instance) so you don't have to spill over into another month. I'll probably catch that and the final season of The Boys that way, and that's pretty much all Prime offers anymore that interests me enough to part with three bucks.
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It's probably more expensive for them to stream in 4K since they're paying something for the bandwidth, but I doubt it's anywhere near the amount they are charging customers to upgrade. It's mostly a product segmentation thing.
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It's almost entirely artificial, the file sizes that would need to be streamed are larger and technically require servers with more storage. But these files already exist for the higher subscription tiers so that is a moot point. Similar with bandwidth considerations (or ISP data caps, for that matter), most limits are arbitrarily applied rather than technical.
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They aren't doing as well as they were a few years back, and massive flops like the vastly expensive Rings of Power - and not-quite-so-massive-but-still-huge flops like Melania aren't helping their bottom line. Plus they've pretty much saturated their market - most anyone who's ever gonna be a Prime member already has a subscription, and that portion of their business just isn't gonna grow anymore at this point. They have to be a lot more cost-conscious now than in the past. We'll see more shenanigans like this, and far less risk-taking, going forward.
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I think normal ad blockers might work against it? at least, I think I only remember seeing them on my tablet, where I've been using the app.
edit: just loaded up an ep of the Expanse in desktop firefox with UBO and privacy badger. no ad breaks marked on the timeline, skipped through about half the episode then watched a few minutes straight without hitting one.
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Why do these companies always lump picture and sound quality in with extra devices and downloads. I just want good picture and sound on my main TV.
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Because the Melania movie flopped and was expensive, Amazon is increasing the ad-free price of Amazon Prime from $2.99/mo to $4.99/mo in the US on April 10th, 2026.
And you still won’t get HD video on iPads.
And you still won’t get HD video on iPads.
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IIRC it is a ton more expensive for the routing and bandwidth...but whether it is actually worth it or not is another matter. Not all codecs are equal and it depends on the source. Remember, Amazon needs to not only have regional mirrors, but also routing paths to get content to people everywhere and none of that is cheap.
On WAN, Floatplane has talked about the difficulty and expense of 4K video. As much as people want this stuff to be cheap--it isn't. YouTube's VC-fueled free-video phase made people forget that all that infra/service costs money, and most people have no idea how hard it is to do. Granted that was on top of the DotCom bubble that did the same.
I don't use Amazon video or music either...and honestly wish I could cancel my Prime account--but the only "alternative" to Bezos now is: WalMart, Dollar Stores, and BestBuy--they drove basically everyone else out of business locally.
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AppleTV has no ads and actually-decent-4k for $13/month. And much better shows, generally. Invincible is pretty great, though.
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They embed them from the same streaming servers, now.
I just don't watch directly from Prime.
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Is there an enshitification song? Someone should write one. AI-generated, of course.
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My wife gets Amazon deliveries almost daily so unfortunately cancelling Prime is not an economical option
The whole "pay for no ads" thing when "ad free" used to be the norm pisses me off to no end. Rather than suck up the price increase I just stopped looking for things to watch on Prime. There are still a few good things to watch (like Fallout), however, but I skip Prime video for the most part.
The whole "pay for no ads" thing when "ad free" used to be the norm pisses me off to no end. Rather than suck up the price increase I just stopped looking for things to watch on Prime. There are still a few good things to watch (like Fallout), however, but I skip Prime video for the most part.
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Come one, pull the other one. It requires significantly more technology and investment to sell and insert ads.
It is less expensive to Amazon to run streams ads-free. Pretending otherwise is bs.
They’re just blackmailing users into an up charge, just like the original pay or else ads to Prime subscribers.
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