Prime Video Is TRASH

[km1125]

I just saw "news" clip this morning that said that Amazon was migrating all (I think they said all) of their content to ad-supported unless you pay the extra fee.

Here's Amazon's announcement:

To continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time, starting in early 2024, Prime Video shows and movies will include limited advertisements. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. Ads in Prime Video content will be introduced in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada in early 2024, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in the year. No action is required for Prime members. We’re not making changes in 2024 to the current price of Prime membership. We will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional $2.99 per month* for U.S. Prime members and will share pricing for other countries at a later date. We will email Prime members several weeks before ads are introduced into Prime Video with information on how to sign up for the ad-free option if they would like.

So it's an equivalent bump of $36/yr in the PRIME subscription. That might push me over the edge in it's value, as I've been wondering the last couple years if it's worth it at the current price.

[radioandtventhusiast]

What I dislike about Pluto TV is that the ads almost never come at the natural breaks in the program, but just appear at random. I've found Freevee to be quite user friendly, although the only stuff I watch there is Judy Justice and its spinoff Tribunal Justice (with the former Hot Bench judges). At least they place the ads where one would expect them to be and the breaks are relatively short.

Do you still watch Hot Bench with the new judges, and did you also see just one of Judge Mathis's or Judge Millian's new Byron Alen's new shows?

[Taco]

When it comes to streaming services, I could actually care less about new and original content. I like my retro programming, Andy Griffith, Cheers, Star Trek, Beavis and Butt-Head, South Park, and so many more.

[FredLeonard]

I dropped Prime. Shows that used to run ad-free as part of Prime are now on Freevee with ads. So why pay for Prime when they take away ad free content to put in Freevee. What's the problem? The ad breaks are too long (they were shorter but have gotten longer). Too much repetition: I keep seeing the same ads repeated two, three, even four times in the same show. You can't skip; you can't fast forward. As already mentioned, they interrupt at random - sometimes as mid-sentence. Apparently, Bezos thinks he makes more money selling ads than charging extra for no ads.

[kager]

It's not just Prime free streams. Many of the local TV stations' platforms do the same jerky breaks, and sometimes the same ad runs multiple times PER BREAK, not just per show.

Lament all you wish, but remember it could be (and likely WILL be) worse in the future. Pretty sure requests for better quality are met with a shrug at most.

[km1125]

I dropped Prime. Shows that used to run ad-free as part of Prime are now on Freevee with ads. So why pay for Prime when they take away ad free content to put in Freevee. What's the problem? The ad breaks are too long (they were shorter but have gotten longer). Too much repetition: I keep seeing the same ads repeated two, three, even four times in the same show. You can't skip; you can't fast forward. As already mentioned, they interrupt at random - sometimes as mid-sentence. Apparently, Bezos thinks he makes more money selling ads than charging extra for no ads.

When you're watching something like Freevee with ads, try this. Start a few minutes early and just hit fast-forward and walk away and do something else for a few minutes. The movie will fast-forward to the next ad placement, and play the ad. Come back to the tv and hit FF again and walk away (get a drink, set up your snacks, etc). Do this until you've gone through the commercials, then move the play marker back to the beginning and watch your program and it will skip the ads. You'll still probably see a glitch where each ad would have been, but you won't see the ads at all.

[TC Talks]

I dropped Prime. Shows that used to run ad-free as part of Prime are now on Freevee with ads. So why pay for Prime when they take away ad free content to put in Freevee. What's the problem? The ad breaks are too long (they were shorter but have gotten longer). Too much repetition: I keep seeing the same ads repeated two, three, even four times in the same show. You can't skip; you can't fast forward. As already mentioned, they interrupt at random - sometimes as mid-sentence. Apparently, Bezos thinks he makes more money selling ads than charging extra for no ads.

When you're watching something like Freevee with ads, try this. Start a few minutes early and just hit fast-forward and walk away and do something else for a few minutes. The movie will fast-forward to the next ad placement, and play the ad. Come back to the tv and hit FF again and walk away (get a drink, set up your snacks, etc). Do this until you've gone through the commercials, then move the play marker back to the beginning and watch your program and it will skip the ads. You'll still probably see a glitch where each ad would have been, but you won't see the ads at all.

That's pretty genius. Wonder if it works with all those platforms.

[km1125]

I dropped Prime. Shows that used to run ad-free as part of Prime are now on Freevee with ads. So why pay for Prime when they take away ad free content to put in Freevee. What's the problem? The ad breaks are too long (they were shorter but have gotten longer). Too much repetition: I keep seeing the same ads repeated two, three, even four times in the same show. You can't skip; you can't fast forward. As already mentioned, they interrupt at random - sometimes as mid-sentence. Apparently, Bezos thinks he makes more money selling ads than charging extra for no ads.

When you're watching something like Freevee with ads, try this. Start a few minutes early and just hit fast-forward and walk away and do something else for a few minutes. The movie will fast-forward to the next ad placement, and play the ad. Come back to the tv and hit FF again and walk away (get a drink, set up your snacks, etc). Do this until you've gone through the commercials, then move the play marker back to the beginning and watch your program and it will skip the ads. You'll still probably see a glitch where each ad would have been, but you won't see the ads at all.

That's pretty genius. Wonder if it works with all those platforms.

Works on everything I've tried it on so far. Sometimes I'll just move the play marker up to the commercial, let the commercial play, then move it up to the next marker and keep doing that. While the commercials are playing I'll get other stuff done. Using the FF method probably eats up a lot of bandwidth unnecessarily, so the manual method avoids that.

[Plate Cap]

I think I have been an Amazon member since 2007. It was about 6 or 7 years before I actually watched any Prime content. Back then it was $79 a year and I thought the 2 day "free" delivery was a great thing.
Now at $139 a year I wonder if I am actually saving much by shopping from home and getting that "free" delivery. It would be rather complicated and time consuming to figure out.

I agree.

I've been a member for about the same time.

The Prime Video thing was always pretty useless to me; limited selections, and now with the spots, I'm no longer interested.

The free shipping helps; I order a lot from Amazon, ranging from 4000 to 6000 a year. I also signed up for a Prime Visa account, which gives me a 5% cash rebate on Amazon purchases. That alone more than pays the freight on the membership; the shipping and other assorted benefits are gravy.

[Turkeytop]

I'm not sure, but I think I might be against it.

[MotorCityRadioFreak]

I watched "Strays" with no ad breaks, so it appears to be selective.