Credit: AmazonAmazon is one of the biggest, richest, and most powerful companies in the world, with millions of subscribers paying a premium for its Prime Video streaming service. Unfortunately for those customers, Amazon is pulling a double whammy and both raising its prices and airing commercials on the formerly ad-free home of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Wheel of Time, and Good Omens.
Amazon Prime Video is a major competitor in the streaming wars, second only in popularity to Netflix; as of 2022, the streamer had over 200 million subscribers worldwide.
The battle for streaming dominance is fierce, with everyone from Disney+ to Hulu to Max to Apple TV+ trying to take the lead spot from Netflix.
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In the midst of all that competition, numerous streaming services have been raising their prices while also removing content, essentially charging more and offering less. Disney+ recently raised its subscription price for the first time since it launched, while Max (formerly HBO Max) infamously canceled near-complete projects like the Batgirl movie.
Now, Amazon Prime Video has announced (via Deadline) that it will be rolling out mid-content commercial advertisements for all users in early 2024. Previously, only customers watching Monday Night Football on the streaming service were interrupted by ads, but apparently, that has been successful enough to begin implementing it on all shows and movies.
Reportedly, Amazon Prime Video will offer a new subscription tier, offering an ad-free experience for an additional $2.99 a month. Currently, the subscription price is $14.99 monthly.
In the last few years, companies like Amazon, Warner Bros Discovery, and Disney have all been desperately trying to find a way to increase profits on streaming services. Notably, Netflix has begun cracking down on the widespread practice of password-sharing, which it hopes does not simultaneously alienate its customer base.
Amazon Prime Video is making a risky move by introducing ads, considering one of the historical appeals of streaming services has been to avoid the tedious commercials of linear TV. At this point, the difference between traditional TV and streaming services is getting difficult to distinguish.
Adding commercial interruptions to Amazon Prime Video is also likely to cause the same kind of backlash as Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav experienced recently after suggesting the idea of mid-content news headlines and other interruptions. It is not known whether Warner Bros will actually implement the idea of breaking news on Max, but the sheer level of anger it inspired makes it a bit unlikely.
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More and more streaming services are counting on subscribers to be willing to watch commercials or pay an upcharge to avoid them while also putting out less and less content (and removing existing shows and movies). It will just have to remain to be seen whether those subscribers will put up with it.
Are you going to pay more money to not get ads on Amazon Prime Video? Are streaming services jumping the shark? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!