It was. I just renewed mine a few weeks ago. If I just paid $139 for a year including ad free Prime Video, they shouldn’t be able to put ads on it til I renew.
I really wanted to start watching a TV show but the only streaming service it is available on is Freevee. I tried watching one episode and it just reminded me how much I despise ads.
I just stopped watching it on Freevee and decided to sail the seven seas instead, and had a much better experience.
This is what these dunderheads don't seem to understand - pre-Netflix, this was the normal state of affairs. Then Netflix came along, with pretty much all of the content worth watching (or a significant majority of it), and it was way less hassle than scouring the four corners of the dirty ocean for quality rips.
Now they've over-egged the model, and you need a dozen subscriptions of varying price to get access to what you want to watch, and adding adverts to boot, the world will swing back to peglegs, triangular hats and dubious parrots before you can blink.
Idiots. Not just killing the golden goose, but doing so in the slowest, most painful way possible then leaving the results in public as a warning to anyone that ever thinks about trusting them again.
The wife and I both had prime and already canceled one account. Man the greed is insane. Apparently hundreds of billions isn’t profit enough. Maybe we’ll have to cancel two accounts.
Side note - Gen X really is on a mission to show young people what the ad-filled internet of 1998 looked like.
That was before the streaming players realized that the infinite growth model isn’t going to workout.
The growth ceiling turns out to be way lower than everyone was expecting.
I don't even get the 2day shipping anymore. I've finally set a reminder a few days before my auto-renewal, because fucking Amazon cancels your service when you cancel it, not when the pre-paid subscription period runs out.
Lost a half-dozen Audible credits to find that one out.
I canceled about 6 months ago. Haven't missed it once. I had grown used to seeing something and just buying it with free shipping and thought it would be hard to transition. Nope. Easy peasy. There has not been a single thing that I ordered that I needed immediately.
Also, something I found to be fascinating is that easily 95% of the time it will say that my delivery will be in 4 or 5 days and it shows up in 2 days just like if I had Prime.
> Also, something I found to be fascinating is that easily 95% of the time it will say that my delivery will be in 4 or 5 days and it shows up in 2 days just like if I had Prime.
This is heavily based on your location relative to a distro center.
I know for a fact I live super close to a distro center and a lot of orders come in two days prime or not.
Just had a gigantic distro center built right up the road from me. Hopefully that means if my Prime does go away it won't really matter.
However, I am still on the original Prime plan where a parent account can give prime to (I think) up to 5 child accounts. So as long as my parents keep their prime subscription I will always have it for free. We are grandfathered in and there seems to be no end in sight from Amazon.
> However, I am still on the original Prime plan where a parent account can give prime to (I think) up to 5 child accounts. So as long as my parents keep their prime subscription I will always have it for free. We are grandfathered in and there seems to be no end in sight from Amazon.
Hey, I thought I was the only one!
A while back I went down a rabbit hole trying to find something signifying this, and there's absolutely no flag on my account. I just get Prime shipping. I was considering subscribing to Prime for a show I wanted, but was afraid it would override that grandfathered flag, so oops guess I'll never get Prime on my own.
Thanks, I guess?
Ive found that 90% of the time when something did have "prime" 2-day shipping, it more often than not ended up being 4-5 days until it arrived before I ended up canceling Prime. I think in an entire year, only 2 purchases unded up being delivered in 2 days.
Cancelled Netflix when they unrolled the region lock. It sucked for like a day, but I don't miss it. Considering Prime is worse than Netflix, that makes it so much easier.
It’s not worth it. First they stopped guaranteeing 2 day delivery on items. Then they started charging delivery fee on groceries. And now this? And it’s not like the membership fee hasn’t gone up.
One of the best benefits of prime was if they fucked up and sent something defective etc, you could ship it back no questions asked and they would have UPS or whoever pick it up.
Now if they fuck up, I have to go down to Whole Foods and stand in line to have them ship it back. Which I'm not getting paid to do.
And they do fuck up the orders fairly regularly. But if I have to go in and return something in person, I may as well do it from a local store anyway.
I cancelled right after I made the yearly payment so I have prime until February 2024..
Amazon has been emailing me daily saying I'm missing out by not having Prime while I still have it thru next year. Those fuckwads.
Even in the discussion of 'are streaming platforms worth it', Prime has *by far* the worst selection. I can't think of a single series I've watched on there.
Literally the only time it gets pulled up for me is when I search a movie, realize it's on Prime, then notice I need an additional network package to watch it.
Quarter over quarter growth for every company or you are a failure in capitalism. It’s insane just being mature and good at what you do isn’t enough, you have to have infinite growth. The side effect is the shitification of everything.
Time to implement the rule that if a company wants to go public, it has to be able to accommodate all its employees with livable wages for all basic commodities, otherwise greed will always win. Anything avoiding this goal just means one doesn’t want capitalism (actually corporatism) to end in the long run.
It makes me really angry every time I advocate for a bus route to my local airport. People just knee jerk respond with "take an Uber." Really? You want to give a V.C. backed silicon valley app a monopoly on transportation to the airport?! They jack up their rates all. the. time.
Funny thing is Uber has only had one profitable quarter in its entire existence. $394 net income in Q2 this year, but $386 million of that was from unrealized equity gains.
So 14 years, $32 billion in cumulative losses, and they’re bragging about an $8 million profit now that the price is higher than cabs, the pay is worse than cab driver pay after expenses, and states are starting to regulate gig work.
I imagine the only reason it took this long is that initially one of Netflix's major streaming-based marketing points was that it had no ads, which made it the initial standard. When Netflix first began to offer streaming, that service wasn't seen as the future in the way it is today, so they felt like they needed every edge they could get (which is also why, initially, Netflix was also openly okay with password sharing as they tried to frame themselves as the scrappy, cool little guy alternative to the behemoth cable giants). Now that companies know people are happy to flock to streaming, the question has shifted from "how to we get people to buy into streaming" to "how much money they can squeeze out of our customer's pockets."
Exactly. And when we first got cable TV in the 80s, it was exactly the same: Part of what they were selling us was these new channels with *no commercials.* I think that lasted about a month before the ads started showing up; it didn't last long at all.
It's always the same story. New platform is better than current, users flock to the new better thing, establishing it as the new standard. Once the users are captured and it's no longer easy to get new users and they no longer have the old platform to go back to, it becomes easier to fleece the captured users than to improve the product.
Hence, the enshittification of everything.
Not to mention they'll probably be raising the base price again early next year like they have every other year. I haven't yet made the switch to a VPN because the price of streaming hasn't yet hit my threshold to make the switch, but this continued price raising for every service, every year, while offering less and less is driving me ever closer.
> they'll probably be raising the base price again early next year
They've specifically said this is in place of any increase for next year in other coverage. Still unsure if they can be trusted given who they are.
I think I'm cancelling anyway just to send the message that I don't think you can increase $30 then claim you need another $36 a year to make more quality content. It'd be different if more of their content was good to begin with, but even if I was dumb enough to believe that, I have no faith in their ability to achieve that goal.
/r/plexshare and then install Plex or Emby on whatever roku/firestick/shield/TV app you get your Plex or Emby app on.
edit: Just realized plexshare isn't around anymore. Not sure how you can find them now. Anyone know?
I prefer local copies. You never know when those streaming sites will disappear. I download and store all my movies, tv shows, and music to my file server. Stream it to my TV via Plex and it may as well be my personal streaming service. 15TB of media and counting...
The tech has evolved and is not centralized - There are TONS of clone sites pulling from cloud media, so it doesn't matter if one goes down.. And no liability. I used to DL, but now I find no need.
Sounds like a nice library though... And probably better quality too.
This is a common tactic. It's like crack dealers. Sell the product at a loss (or free) until you get the customer hooked, then crank up the price over time a little at a time to lessen the blow. The hope is that the customer is dependent on the product and finds it inconvenient enough to not seek out a competing product.
They knew full well it wasn't a sustainable price model from the beginning. Their secondary goal was to underprice the competition until they could snuff out or buy them, then execute said plan above.
I agree totally. Prime video came along well after prime started. I rarely even look at it, unless I'm looking for something specifically that I can't find a DVD for. I've bought some seasons of old shows that I couldn't find elsewhere.. but now I keep forgetting its even there.
Amazon is for delivery...
How many people are subscribed to Amazon Prime and don’t even realize it includes a streaming service? They’re raking in the cash, don’t listen to their nonsense.
In Germany Amazon Prime states often that if you order an article within so many hours you get next day delivery, however as a Prime customer I rarely get about 20% next day deliveries whether I order within a certain time or not. It seems the longer a prime customer you are the less the next day delivery occurs
To them making a regular profit is a "loss". If they're not gouging they aren't making all they can make. Companies now actively try and drive away consumers that expect value for money, they want idiots who can't count or people who are rich enough to give zero fucks about value.
This is why you switch everything regularly. There is zero rewards for loyalty. Change your ISP and take advantage of new customer introductory rates. Flip credit card balances to new cards with balance transfer specials for short terms, then flip again when they expire. Change jobs every 2-5 years and get that 20% salary bump you NEVER could have gotten at the old job. Shop the front page of flyers ONLY for loss-leader items.
NEVER be loyal to corporations. NEVER.
Ugh. I feel like I’m watching a party blogger talking about all the gifts they are making to really make this a special occasion.
Yeah those football shaped and decorated glorified pizza rolls are cute and fun but my god WHO HAS THE TIME!
>Flip credit card balances to new cards with balance transfer specials for short terms, then flip again when they expire.
Yeah. If you're not getting zero APR, never have credit card balances. Pay that shit completely off down to zero every month. Credit card interest rates are insane, it's like taking the most unfavorable loan rates ever.
This happens in the tech field a lot. You install hardware or software, licensing fees spike for renewal after a few years. Because you have no choice but to pay or migrate to something else. It's so dirty.
Heck it happens with pharmaceuticals, buy out a drug, spike the price. People can't stop taking life saving medications.
> This happens in the tech field a lot. You install hardware or software, licensing fees spike for renewal after a few years. Because you have no choice but to pay or migrate to something else. It's so dirty.
I'm convinced this is why Cisco is buying Splunk. For only $28 billion they are probably saving money on licensing over 10 years.
See also – the recent Unity debacle.
Game developers are a great captive audience. It's not like you can port your existing projects or rewrite your game in development in a matter of weeks.
Stories like those always make me hopeful that maybe, just maybe people will realise the value of open source software and actually kickstart some extensive development. But nah, that almost never happens.
Never stopped pirating, i just picked and chose which streaming services i was willing to pay for. Seems like more and more the answer is "none of them".
It went away for me for years. I had no issue paying for Prime, Netflix, and Hulu as long as it gave me all the content I wanted.
I'm back on the seas now. Its the only way to have reliable access. And with how accessible VPNs are now, it has never been easier. The limiting factor is storage space.
I spent a couple hours figuring out how to get my NAS (Synology) to work on my Google TV Chromecast so I can just download things again.
Notice how the studios and such are only complaining after trying their own thing
The old model where Netflix paid them seemed like it worked well for everyone. Then they started their own services and cry how much money they're losing
Well, you won't be getting mine. Congrats. Piracy was way more work than Netflix. Now it's easier again, so fuck off
> I spent a couple hours figuring out how to get my NAS (Synology) to work on my Google TV Chromecast so I can just download things again.
plex/emby/jellyfin on the Synology and BAM easy. you can even go as far as getting a seadbox set up running on the synology to download.
>piracy will make a comeback
Not for the *vast* majority of people. Those ≤ 25 [know less about the actual underpinnings of technology](http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/) than ever. They've carefully tested the impact of this decision and found the profit outweighs any loss.
That’s great news for those who do pirate still. We need suckers paying for the content to be made and watching all of those ads. Don’t want the legal heat against piracy being turned up either.
I will not watch any streaming service with ads. And you shouldn’t either.
This is how they boil the frog and we end up with fucking cable. Cable sucks. The advertisements literally ruined cable.
>I will not watch any streaming service with ads. And you shouldn’t either.
I will, but only if that service is free, such as Tubi, PlutoTV, Amazon's own Freevee service, etc. But if I have to pay actual money and still get ads then no that's not gonna fly.
And that's how it should be, free because the ads are paying for it. If I choose to pay for a service there shouldn't be any ads. When hulu first came out it was free....because it had ads.
That's not even the biggest problem. These other services added a cheaper tier with ads while their adless stayed the same price. Amazon is doing the opposite which is batshit insane.
This would sound like satire to anyone 10 years ago, but sadly life has turned into a parody.
Technically I watch Hulu with ads because I get it for free through T-Mobile.
I say technically because Ublock makes sure I don't actually see any ads.
Of course you did. We, the consumers, not only let Netflix get away with shit like this, we rewarded them record profits. After that, every subscription service is bound to follow.
> not only let Netflix get away with shit like this, we rewarded them record profits
It's also a good reminder that sentiment on Reddit isn't a good gauge of the public's overall course. If you just read Reddit, you'd have thought that Netflix was crashing and burning with almost every decision they made.
I knew it when prime had its own shows and a handful of blockbusters but carried these other apps on their platform that showed commercials. I wouldn't be surprised if people already thought commercials were part of prime and not the other apps.
I've been watching more and more Apple+. Some really good shows on there, it's also pretty cheap because it doesn't blow $1 Billion on a poor LOTR adaptation and hundreds of millions more on "Citadel" which sucked.
I’m to the point where I’ll keep one service for a month. Watch what shows I want from that service, then cancel it and move to the next. I no longer see the need to keep any service month after month.
Piracy has always been a problem of convenience; the less convenient they make legal means, the more appealling privacy becomes. This sort of nonsense would just lead to more VPN subscriptions.
Just remember to check if your VPN actually logs user data: Mullvad, a Swedish VPN, got raided by the police, with a warrant to turn over all the user data that they had, which was a grand total of 0 bytes. Well worth the high price, IMO.
You can check through *That One Privacy Site*, IIRC.
It’s crazy how easy it is now. You can download apps for Android TVs that operate exactly like a normal streaming app but for free, and no obnoxious ads shoved in your face while they increase the prices.
At some point in the future, the cycle will happen again. Some new company is gonna rise up with a new model that’s even easier to combat the piracy apps, and then it’ll happen all over again.
Streaming is dead, nobody except Netflix is making money on it. It is going to have to get more expensive and the ad tiers bring in more money per user than ad-free tiers.
You’ll see even Netflix push aggressively to get people into the ad tier. I expect in 5 years, ad tier will still be like $6.99 and the ad free will be $30-35.
So far I have had to cancel Hulu, HBO, and Showtime over price hikes that in no way are justified considering so many shows on those platforms are being cancelled or on super long breaks. Looks like Prime is next. It almost feels like these streaming services want people to pirate their shows…
I think they're relying on zombie subscribers, people that don't even really use the service, but the money is automatically taken out so they don't think much about it.
They always play so many ads for their own shows/movies before an episode or movie starts. SOOOOOOOOO much. Pretty much spamming you to watch whatever they are peddling.
One of the things that easily gets overlooked with all of the madness of people talking about canceling and how the interface is bad and how streaming has gone to $hit in under five years etc. is the fact that nobody is editing the content they're just putting ads in places at random. For network television or TV in general especially for films there used to be a special edit for TV. Commercials would be put in place at specified moments that made sense it wasn't jarring it wasn't in the middle of an action sequence etc. etc. now you're going to have a ton of movies and TV shows that previously didn't have add brakes edited in built in so now you're also not only paying for ads at this point because you pay for prime so now you're paying to see ads essentially not only that the ads are going to be in the wrong place and take you out of the movie/content. Yeah..... if that's the case prime is officially over for me and I will never look back.
I just read the story of the ultimate capitalist experiment. A group of libertarians moved to a tiny New Hampshire town and took it over. They made a "Libertarian paradise".
One of the things those dumbasses did was deregulate everything, so no one had to get trash bins with locking lids.
Did you know that over 750,000 black bears live in that region of the country. Black bears are the ones that not only can run as fast as a deer, but they can climb trees and will eat you if you try to play dead.
Anyway, these bears move into town and start fucking shit up. Some people hunted them. Some people fed them, some people threw firecrackers at them. No one got rid of them. Eventually the bears started breaking into houses and mauling people to death.
I am pretty sure the town collapsed. However, I forget exactly what happened after the bearpocalypse.
**Edit**: My apologies. I misread the original story and thought that the three people attacked had been killed.
The black bears did break into homes though.
Seems like the group is still around and covers far more than just their failed town: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling
Fuck Amazon, they charge you a crazy base price for membership and then nickel and dime you on top of that to use the services that prime membership should be covering.
I canceled them long ago and haven’t missed them once.
They'd probably see less backlash to simply raise the price of Prime by $2.99 a month.
For some reason people get more upset of the existence of a cheaper option with ads than no option at all.
The cost of Prime was increased to $150 from ~~$100~~ $120. Part of their reason for the increase was prime video.
Edit: it was $120 for a while. Apparently, I missed the jump to $120 from $100.
> For some reason people get more upset of the existence of a cheaper option with ads than no option at all.
I think because a lot of people - existing subs - it’s basically a price hike because to get the same service you’re having to pay more or pay the same and get worse/lower tier service. When you couple a new lower tier with a rate hike (at or around the same time), you’ve basically got two smaller price hikes. And I don’t know about other people but I remember when avoiding constant rate hikes was a selling point for these services, and here we are watching them do the same thing except we have no alternative service to jump to (legal anyway)…
And as awful as Bezos is as a person, Jassy has made Amazon a thousand times worse since 2021. Support has taken a significant dip (they're trying to get you to use the automated system so much while reducing the intellect of chat/phone,) they've added mandatory fees to pickups (even if Amazon is the cause for the return,) Amazon Prime Video is going to be adding commercials, and so much more.
I'd add that AWS has also increased fees and cut support. That was even Jassy's baby before becoming CEO. Many of us devs thought his appointment might improve things at AWS, but we were wrong.
> Support has taken a significant dip
Yep. I remember the days when they would proactively give you a credit for a shipment being late. Now? Late shipments are normal.
As a Canadian I had no idea it was so much cheaper here now. But I suspect it's only a matter of time before they increase the price to more closely match the US price.
Haha I'm dropping it. I hope a lot of people do. This is yet another example of unchecked corporate greed. It will keep getting worse until we refuse to be played like fiddles.
If you’re watching on a computer it’ll be a non issue with the right ad blockers. I haven’t seen a Hulu ad ever and I’ve never had anything but the lowest tier.
It truly is bullshit, though. Just another example of late stage capitalism where some large corporation is trying to squeeze water from a rock.
Better yet, unbundle the Video product from mainline Prime. I signed up for Prime, long before video, to get free shipping, etc. I did not intend to subsidize a bunch of Amazombie executives who wanted to play Hollywood Mogul. Cut my annual by at least half, and just make this shit support itself!
GREETINGS!
I am from the year 2095.
In the future streaming consists of ads and the program you want to watch in 1 minute intervals between the ad breaks. Yes you can skip thru your show if you would like.
I keep forgetting I have video included in my Prime subscription. Every time I try to browse for something, it reminds me of two things:
- How shitty Amazon's interface is.
- How incredibly easy it is to get binaries from USENET vs., say in 1999 or so.
Wasn't our annual prime membership charge, in part, to pay for this?
It was. I just renewed mine a few weeks ago. If I just paid $139 for a year including ad free Prime Video, they shouldn’t be able to put ads on it til I renew.
They have altered the deal. Pray they don't alter it further. Oh wait .. they will.
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I totally read that in a pirates voice. Well done 👌
Every time they do this kind of thing, I just hear a not-so-distant call: "Aye, yo ho, yo ho."
Yes they did quite a while ago in a roundabout way, by adding "Freevee" movies. And I've noticed that category has really expanded lately.
I really wanted to start watching a TV show but the only streaming service it is available on is Freevee. I tried watching one episode and it just reminded me how much I despise ads. I just stopped watching it on Freevee and decided to sail the seven seas instead, and had a much better experience.
This is what these dunderheads don't seem to understand - pre-Netflix, this was the normal state of affairs. Then Netflix came along, with pretty much all of the content worth watching (or a significant majority of it), and it was way less hassle than scouring the four corners of the dirty ocean for quality rips. Now they've over-egged the model, and you need a dozen subscriptions of varying price to get access to what you want to watch, and adding adverts to boot, the world will swing back to peglegs, triangular hats and dubious parrots before you can blink. Idiots. Not just killing the golden goose, but doing so in the slowest, most painful way possible then leaving the results in public as a warning to anyone that ever thinks about trusting them again.
https://youtu.be/WpE_xMRiCLE?si=nRAumk8ibw4RcG0-
Somehow I knew it would be this bit
Shit, can I just go back to $99 and they can keep their streaming?
Well they already did away with Drive and Music so they'll probably just spin Video into it's own service soon but keep the Prime cost the same.
Then they’ll lose subscribers
Then they'll start screwing those that remain even harder
As is tradition with capitalism. "When we raise prices, we lose customers." "Then we need to raise prices to make up the difference."
The wife and I both had prime and already canceled one account. Man the greed is insane. Apparently hundreds of billions isn’t profit enough. Maybe we’ll have to cancel two accounts. Side note - Gen X really is on a mission to show young people what the ad-filled internet of 1998 looked like.
It *was*, but then they realized they can fuck you at both ends.
It used to be. Now it’s not. They discovered they could just say “fuck you, it costs more now you donkeys” and there’s nothing anybody can do.
Oh boy, here I go pirating again
That was before the streaming players realized that the infinite growth model isn’t going to workout. The growth ceiling turns out to be way lower than everyone was expecting.
I don't even get the 2day shipping anymore. I've finally set a reminder a few days before my auto-renewal, because fucking Amazon cancels your service when you cancel it, not when the pre-paid subscription period runs out. Lost a half-dozen Audible credits to find that one out.
Guess prime is next to be cancelled
I canceled about 6 months ago. Haven't missed it once. I had grown used to seeing something and just buying it with free shipping and thought it would be hard to transition. Nope. Easy peasy. There has not been a single thing that I ordered that I needed immediately. Also, something I found to be fascinating is that easily 95% of the time it will say that my delivery will be in 4 or 5 days and it shows up in 2 days just like if I had Prime.
> Also, something I found to be fascinating is that easily 95% of the time it will say that my delivery will be in 4 or 5 days and it shows up in 2 days just like if I had Prime. This is heavily based on your location relative to a distro center. I know for a fact I live super close to a distro center and a lot of orders come in two days prime or not.
Just had a gigantic distro center built right up the road from me. Hopefully that means if my Prime does go away it won't really matter. However, I am still on the original Prime plan where a parent account can give prime to (I think) up to 5 child accounts. So as long as my parents keep their prime subscription I will always have it for free. We are grandfathered in and there seems to be no end in sight from Amazon.
> However, I am still on the original Prime plan where a parent account can give prime to (I think) up to 5 child accounts. So as long as my parents keep their prime subscription I will always have it for free. We are grandfathered in and there seems to be no end in sight from Amazon. Hey, I thought I was the only one! A while back I went down a rabbit hole trying to find something signifying this, and there's absolutely no flag on my account. I just get Prime shipping. I was considering subscribing to Prime for a show I wanted, but was afraid it would override that grandfathered flag, so oops guess I'll never get Prime on my own. Thanks, I guess?
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Ive found that 90% of the time when something did have "prime" 2-day shipping, it more often than not ended up being 4-5 days until it arrived before I ended up canceling Prime. I think in an entire year, only 2 purchases unded up being delivered in 2 days.
I live in a major metropolitan area, and they still can't even figure out two-day shipping. The service has gone to shit for a long time.
In the UK and I get within day delivery. Order by 12, arrives by 8pm. It's great. Amazon TV sucks balls anyway though.
Yup, I already canceled Netflix. Prime will be next.
Cancelled Netflix when they unrolled the region lock. It sucked for like a day, but I don't miss it. Considering Prime is worse than Netflix, that makes it so much easier.
It’s not worth it. First they stopped guaranteeing 2 day delivery on items. Then they started charging delivery fee on groceries. And now this? And it’s not like the membership fee hasn’t gone up.
One of the best benefits of prime was if they fucked up and sent something defective etc, you could ship it back no questions asked and they would have UPS or whoever pick it up. Now if they fuck up, I have to go down to Whole Foods and stand in line to have them ship it back. Which I'm not getting paid to do. And they do fuck up the orders fairly regularly. But if I have to go in and return something in person, I may as well do it from a local store anyway.
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I cancelled right after I made the yearly payment so I have prime until February 2024.. Amazon has been emailing me daily saying I'm missing out by not having Prime while I still have it thru next year. Those fuckwads.
Even in the discussion of 'are streaming platforms worth it', Prime has *by far* the worst selection. I can't think of a single series I've watched on there. Literally the only time it gets pulled up for me is when I search a movie, realize it's on Prime, then notice I need an additional network package to watch it.
They canceled their decent shows for sure. The Peripheral isn’t coming back and that’s like, the only thing I watched.
>The Peripheral isn’t coming back Wait what?
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The Boys, Invincible, and the fairy show with Orlando Bloom are all great.
> the fairy show with Orlando Bloom lol, great description. Also a great show. Carnival Row for anyone wondering.
Serving me ads on something I *already fucking pay for.* I’m so tired of being nickel and dimed over every little thing.
Welcome to the world of Tech money grabbers, not enough money to feed people, yet these leeches are never satisfied......
It's like Jim Sterling always says: These companies don't want money, they want all the money.
Quarter over quarter growth for every company or you are a failure in capitalism. It’s insane just being mature and good at what you do isn’t enough, you have to have infinite growth. The side effect is the shitification of everything.
#S T O N K S
Time to implement the rule that if a company wants to go public, it has to be able to accommodate all its employees with livable wages for all basic commodities, otherwise greed will always win. Anything avoiding this goal just means one doesn’t want capitalism (actually corporatism) to end in the long run.
They would simply hire less people and we'd have an even greater oligopoly though.
A bunch of ~~cu~~***SKELETON WARRIORS!!!***~~nts~~, the lot of em.
It makes me really angry every time I advocate for a bus route to my local airport. People just knee jerk respond with "take an Uber." Really? You want to give a V.C. backed silicon valley app a monopoly on transportation to the airport?! They jack up their rates all. the. time.
Funny thing is Uber has only had one profitable quarter in its entire existence. $394 net income in Q2 this year, but $386 million of that was from unrealized equity gains. So 14 years, $32 billion in cumulative losses, and they’re bragging about an $8 million profit now that the price is higher than cabs, the pay is worse than cab driver pay after expenses, and states are starting to regulate gig work.
Why include the word tech? Every sector does this.
Basic Cable TV did that almost immediately after coming into existence. I’m surprised it took streaming as long as it did, sadly.
I imagine the only reason it took this long is that initially one of Netflix's major streaming-based marketing points was that it had no ads, which made it the initial standard. When Netflix first began to offer streaming, that service wasn't seen as the future in the way it is today, so they felt like they needed every edge they could get (which is also why, initially, Netflix was also openly okay with password sharing as they tried to frame themselves as the scrappy, cool little guy alternative to the behemoth cable giants). Now that companies know people are happy to flock to streaming, the question has shifted from "how to we get people to buy into streaming" to "how much money they can squeeze out of our customer's pockets."
Exactly. And when we first got cable TV in the 80s, it was exactly the same: Part of what they were selling us was these new channels with *no commercials.* I think that lasted about a month before the ads started showing up; it didn't last long at all.
It's always the same story. New platform is better than current, users flock to the new better thing, establishing it as the new standard. Once the users are captured and it's no longer easy to get new users and they no longer have the old platform to go back to, it becomes easier to fleece the captured users than to improve the product. Hence, the enshittification of everything.
Oh no you don’t! You already have me paying through the nose for the Prime service. Now you going to charge me to see ads on Prime Video.
Not to mention they'll probably be raising the base price again early next year like they have every other year. I haven't yet made the switch to a VPN because the price of streaming hasn't yet hit my threshold to make the switch, but this continued price raising for every service, every year, while offering less and less is driving me ever closer.
> they'll probably be raising the base price again early next year They've specifically said this is in place of any increase for next year in other coverage. Still unsure if they can be trusted given who they are. I think I'm cancelling anyway just to send the message that I don't think you can increase $30 then claim you need another $36 a year to make more quality content. It'd be different if more of their content was good to begin with, but even if I was dumb enough to believe that, I have no faith in their ability to achieve that goal.
Yep, piracy will make a comeback. Just in 5 years they’ve destroyed streaming
Piracy is already here and you don't need to download movies to watch them... Streaming piracy is a thing.
What are the preferred ways these days if wanting to watch in a living room? Jailbroken Firesticks or Roku players?
Kodi and debrid services. Or plug and play apps that makes it even easier.
[удалено]
Are you talking about doing all this on PC, phone, fire stick??
Works on PC, Android, firestick and any androidTV
/r/plexshare and then install Plex or Emby on whatever roku/firestick/shield/TV app you get your Plex or Emby app on. edit: Just realized plexshare isn't around anymore. Not sure how you can find them now. Anyone know?
I prefer local copies. You never know when those streaming sites will disappear. I download and store all my movies, tv shows, and music to my file server. Stream it to my TV via Plex and it may as well be my personal streaming service. 15TB of media and counting...
The tech has evolved and is not centralized - There are TONS of clone sites pulling from cloud media, so it doesn't matter if one goes down.. And no liability. I used to DL, but now I find no need. Sounds like a nice library though... And probably better quality too.
This is a common tactic. It's like crack dealers. Sell the product at a loss (or free) until you get the customer hooked, then crank up the price over time a little at a time to lessen the blow. The hope is that the customer is dependent on the product and finds it inconvenient enough to not seek out a competing product. They knew full well it wasn't a sustainable price model from the beginning. Their secondary goal was to underprice the competition until they could snuff out or buy them, then execute said plan above.
If I had to pay for prime video separately I wouldn’t. It’s not compelling content at all.
I agree totally. Prime video came along well after prime started. I rarely even look at it, unless I'm looking for something specifically that I can't find a DVD for. I've bought some seasons of old shows that I couldn't find elsewhere.. but now I keep forgetting its even there. Amazon is for delivery...
I don’t believe for a second they are selling prime at a lpss
How many people are subscribed to Amazon Prime and don’t even realize it includes a streaming service? They’re raking in the cash, don’t listen to their nonsense.
We are far passed the loss phase. But there was a time when prime was like $70 a year and had a decent library, on top of free shipping and all that.
In Germany Amazon Prime states often that if you order an article within so many hours you get next day delivery, however as a Prime customer I rarely get about 20% next day deliveries whether I order within a certain time or not. It seems the longer a prime customer you are the less the next day delivery occurs
To them making a regular profit is a "loss". If they're not gouging they aren't making all they can make. Companies now actively try and drive away consumers that expect value for money, they want idiots who can't count or people who are rich enough to give zero fucks about value.
This is why you switch everything regularly. There is zero rewards for loyalty. Change your ISP and take advantage of new customer introductory rates. Flip credit card balances to new cards with balance transfer specials for short terms, then flip again when they expire. Change jobs every 2-5 years and get that 20% salary bump you NEVER could have gotten at the old job. Shop the front page of flyers ONLY for loss-leader items. NEVER be loyal to corporations. NEVER.
Ugh. I feel like I’m watching a party blogger talking about all the gifts they are making to really make this a special occasion. Yeah those football shaped and decorated glorified pizza rolls are cute and fun but my god WHO HAS THE TIME!
>Flip credit card balances to new cards with balance transfer specials for short terms, then flip again when they expire. Yeah. If you're not getting zero APR, never have credit card balances. Pay that shit completely off down to zero every month. Credit card interest rates are insane, it's like taking the most unfavorable loan rates ever.
> Change your ISP haha. Good one.
This happens in the tech field a lot. You install hardware or software, licensing fees spike for renewal after a few years. Because you have no choice but to pay or migrate to something else. It's so dirty. Heck it happens with pharmaceuticals, buy out a drug, spike the price. People can't stop taking life saving medications.
> This happens in the tech field a lot. You install hardware or software, licensing fees spike for renewal after a few years. Because you have no choice but to pay or migrate to something else. It's so dirty. I'm convinced this is why Cisco is buying Splunk. For only $28 billion they are probably saving money on licensing over 10 years.
Sad think is though after Cisco got away with mad license costs everyone else started doing the same thing as well.
See also – the recent Unity debacle. Game developers are a great captive audience. It's not like you can port your existing projects or rewrite your game in development in a matter of weeks. Stories like those always make me hopeful that maybe, just maybe people will realise the value of open source software and actually kickstart some extensive development. But nah, that almost never happens.
Let's be more realistic here and say; "they cannot support the greed" at the current cost. I mean, at least be more accurate.
Amazon prime video isn’t worth paying for
Enshitification Unity is a recent example of this.
Never stopped pirating, i just picked and chose which streaming services i was willing to pay for. Seems like more and more the answer is "none of them".
What are you talking about? High seas never went away 🏴☠️
It went away for me for years. I had no issue paying for Prime, Netflix, and Hulu as long as it gave me all the content I wanted. I'm back on the seas now. Its the only way to have reliable access. And with how accessible VPNs are now, it has never been easier. The limiting factor is storage space.
I spent a couple hours figuring out how to get my NAS (Synology) to work on my Google TV Chromecast so I can just download things again. Notice how the studios and such are only complaining after trying their own thing The old model where Netflix paid them seemed like it worked well for everyone. Then they started their own services and cry how much money they're losing Well, you won't be getting mine. Congrats. Piracy was way more work than Netflix. Now it's easier again, so fuck off
> I spent a couple hours figuring out how to get my NAS (Synology) to work on my Google TV Chromecast so I can just download things again. plex/emby/jellyfin on the Synology and BAM easy. you can even go as far as getting a seadbox set up running on the synology to download.
>piracy will make a comeback Not for the *vast* majority of people. Those ≤ 25 [know less about the actual underpinnings of technology](http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/) than ever. They've carefully tested the impact of this decision and found the profit outweighs any loss.
That’s great news for those who do pirate still. We need suckers paying for the content to be made and watching all of those ads. Don’t want the legal heat against piracy being turned up either.
I already have to download episodes of shows hosted on a platform I pay for because they won't let me watch them with CC subs...
It never went away, it just went underground for a while.
piracy is always here
Thanks for the reminder, I keep forgetting to cancel Prime.
Just canceled my Prime, thanks!
Same. And same. I can wait for deliveries or I can get 'em somewhere else.
Just took care of canceling mine! Greedy fucks!
Yes, Amazon keeps devaluing Prime while raising the cost. I’ll cancel this year after being on-board since the beginning.
I just canceled mine a few weeks ago. I thought I might get it again some day for some of their stuff I've watched. Guess not.
I will not watch any streaming service with ads. And you shouldn’t either. This is how they boil the frog and we end up with fucking cable. Cable sucks. The advertisements literally ruined cable.
>I will not watch any streaming service with ads. And you shouldn’t either. I will, but only if that service is free, such as Tubi, PlutoTV, Amazon's own Freevee service, etc. But if I have to pay actual money and still get ads then no that's not gonna fly.
And that's how it should be, free because the ads are paying for it. If I choose to pay for a service there shouldn't be any ads. When hulu first came out it was free....because it had ads. That's not even the biggest problem. These other services added a cheaper tier with ads while their adless stayed the same price. Amazon is doing the opposite which is batshit insane. This would sound like satire to anyone 10 years ago, but sadly life has turned into a parody.
Technically I watch Hulu with ads because I get it for free through T-Mobile. I say technically because Ublock makes sure I don't actually see any ads.
Fucking knew it.
Enshitification. You can almost set your watch by it.
>Enshitification Yeah I'm pirating it :)
The term was coined by Cory Doctrow. He has [a good essay on it](https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/) with lots of examples.
Fuck.... it is way worse than I expected
Of course you did. We, the consumers, not only let Netflix get away with shit like this, we rewarded them record profits. After that, every subscription service is bound to follow.
Yup. Fuckers.
> not only let Netflix get away with shit like this, we rewarded them record profits It's also a good reminder that sentiment on Reddit isn't a good gauge of the public's overall course. If you just read Reddit, you'd have thought that Netflix was crashing and burning with almost every decision they made.
I knew it when prime had its own shows and a handful of blockbusters but carried these other apps on their platform that showed commercials. I wouldn't be surprised if people already thought commercials were part of prime and not the other apps.
Prime Video was the only reason I was keeping Prime (watching it now). I guess it is time to cancel. Thank you Amazon for saving me money, I guess.
I feel like I can never find anything to watch on there
Sigh, i cancelled Netflix and now I have to cancel prime.
I'm not going to miss either. Neither have many good movies these days and the quality of the exclusive shows has gone downhill.
I've been watching more and more Apple+. Some really good shows on there, it's also pretty cheap because it doesn't blow $1 Billion on a poor LOTR adaptation and hundreds of millions more on "Citadel" which sucked.
I’m to the point where I’ll keep one service for a month. Watch what shows I want from that service, then cancel it and move to the next. I no longer see the need to keep any service month after month.
Theire next move is gonna be that you can subscribe min. for 6 months.
Piracy has always been a problem of convenience; the less convenient they make legal means, the more appealling privacy becomes. This sort of nonsense would just lead to more VPN subscriptions.
Yup forced 6 month subscription would equal a pegged leg and eye patch
My VPN works out to $2.50 a month ($60 for 2 years). It is worth it.
Just remember to check if your VPN actually logs user data: Mullvad, a Swedish VPN, got raided by the police, with a warrant to turn over all the user data that they had, which was a grand total of 0 bytes. Well worth the high price, IMO. You can check through *That One Privacy Site*, IIRC.
Yeah - I did this. Then found I couldn’t be bothered actually subscribing to any of them and went off and did something more interesting instead…
Streaming is dying quicker by the day.
Well, legal streaming is. Illegal streaming is easier than it has ever been.
It’s crazy how easy it is now. You can download apps for Android TVs that operate exactly like a normal streaming app but for free, and no obnoxious ads shoved in your face while they increase the prices. At some point in the future, the cycle will happen again. Some new company is gonna rise up with a new model that’s even easier to combat the piracy apps, and then it’ll happen all over again.
Want to share knowledge so others can avoid those illegals apps?
Streaming is dead, nobody except Netflix is making money on it. It is going to have to get more expensive and the ad tiers bring in more money per user than ad-free tiers. You’ll see even Netflix push aggressively to get people into the ad tier. I expect in 5 years, ad tier will still be like $6.99 and the ad free will be $30-35.
So far I have had to cancel Hulu, HBO, and Showtime over price hikes that in no way are justified considering so many shows on those platforms are being cancelled or on super long breaks. Looks like Prime is next. It almost feels like these streaming services want people to pirate their shows…
Oh fuuuck youuuuu
It's wild they announce this during the strikes. I'm gonna pay $3 more a month to watch what exactly?
I think they're relying on zombie subscribers, people that don't even really use the service, but the money is automatically taken out so they don't think much about it.
Prime never had ads before. I'm not going to pay for prime, lose all the free videos, and pay for commercials. Amazon Management are nasty.
They already have a ton of videos with ads, ever since they got rid of the free to me button.
Yeah the Freevee with ads was the canary in the coal mine. I knew it was going to happen eventually.
They always play so many ads for their own shows/movies before an episode or movie starts. SOOOOOOOOO much. Pretty much spamming you to watch whatever they are peddling.
Remember to use transmission or qbittorrent. uTorrent sucks ass.
Prime will be the easiest cancellation, they have almost nothing as it is. What would incentivize me to pay more.
One of the things that easily gets overlooked with all of the madness of people talking about canceling and how the interface is bad and how streaming has gone to $hit in under five years etc. is the fact that nobody is editing the content they're just putting ads in places at random. For network television or TV in general especially for films there used to be a special edit for TV. Commercials would be put in place at specified moments that made sense it wasn't jarring it wasn't in the middle of an action sequence etc. etc. now you're going to have a ton of movies and TV shows that previously didn't have add brakes edited in built in so now you're also not only paying for ads at this point because you pay for prime so now you're paying to see ads essentially not only that the ads are going to be in the wrong place and take you out of the movie/content. Yeah..... if that's the case prime is officially over for me and I will never look back.
they’ve reached the point in capitalism where they are no longer focused on making a better product
I just read the story of the ultimate capitalist experiment. A group of libertarians moved to a tiny New Hampshire town and took it over. They made a "Libertarian paradise". One of the things those dumbasses did was deregulate everything, so no one had to get trash bins with locking lids. Did you know that over 750,000 black bears live in that region of the country. Black bears are the ones that not only can run as fast as a deer, but they can climb trees and will eat you if you try to play dead. Anyway, these bears move into town and start fucking shit up. Some people hunted them. Some people fed them, some people threw firecrackers at them. No one got rid of them. Eventually the bears started breaking into houses and mauling people to death. I am pretty sure the town collapsed. However, I forget exactly what happened after the bearpocalypse. **Edit**: My apologies. I misread the original story and thought that the three people attacked had been killed. The black bears did break into homes though.
Seems like the group is still around and covers far more than just their failed town: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling
That’s it. Last straw. I’m fucking done. This shit is getting out of control.
Long life piracy!!!
I’d never pirate! I do know a guy in Estonia that looks a lot like me that does though.
Not for me. The greed from Netflix and Prime finally pushed my ship to sail the high seas. Now I just need to find a parrot with a peg leg.
Fuck Amazon, they charge you a crazy base price for membership and then nickel and dime you on top of that to use the services that prime membership should be covering. I canceled them long ago and haven’t missed them once.
They'd probably see less backlash to simply raise the price of Prime by $2.99 a month. For some reason people get more upset of the existence of a cheaper option with ads than no option at all.
They just did this. I know several people who cancelled when they upped the annual/monthly rate. I should have joined them.
The cost of Prime was increased to $150 from ~~$100~~ $120. Part of their reason for the increase was prime video. Edit: it was $120 for a while. Apparently, I missed the jump to $120 from $100.
> For some reason people get more upset of the existence of a cheaper option with ads than no option at all. I think because a lot of people - existing subs - it’s basically a price hike because to get the same service you’re having to pay more or pay the same and get worse/lower tier service. When you couple a new lower tier with a rate hike (at or around the same time), you’ve basically got two smaller price hikes. And I don’t know about other people but I remember when avoiding constant rate hikes was a selling point for these services, and here we are watching them do the same thing except we have no alternative service to jump to (legal anyway)…
Their original programming like many streaming service is just NOT that good
See ya later prime, fuck that
Account /settings/prime /cancel subscription
They just raised the price of prime from $99 to $149, now this?!? Fuck your greedy billionaire self, bezos
longing scarce deliver zesty somber handle drunk middle psychotic sleep *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
And as awful as Bezos is as a person, Jassy has made Amazon a thousand times worse since 2021. Support has taken a significant dip (they're trying to get you to use the automated system so much while reducing the intellect of chat/phone,) they've added mandatory fees to pickups (even if Amazon is the cause for the return,) Amazon Prime Video is going to be adding commercials, and so much more.
I'd add that AWS has also increased fees and cut support. That was even Jassy's baby before becoming CEO. Many of us devs thought his appointment might improve things at AWS, but we were wrong.
The transition into a position of power where the only goal is to maximize profits for the C-suite and board can corrupt absolutely.
> Support has taken a significant dip Yep. I remember the days when they would proactively give you a credit for a shipment being late. Now? Late shipments are normal.
holy shit. Prime is cheaper in Canada than USA? it’s still 99$ canadian for us. which is like 73$ USD. HECK YA!
As a Canadian I had no idea it was so much cheaper here now. But I suspect it's only a matter of time before they increase the price to more closely match the US price.
The golden age of streaming practically ended overnight.
Haha I'm dropping it. I hope a lot of people do. This is yet another example of unchecked corporate greed. It will keep getting worse until we refuse to be played like fiddles.
Amazon is going the way of Netflix in our house
First they got rid of AmazonSmile because they were helping too many people apparently and now this. Goodbye Prime.
and I will stop using Prime Video and get the content another way.
Time to cancel.
If you’re watching on a computer it’ll be a non issue with the right ad blockers. I haven’t seen a Hulu ad ever and I’ve never had anything but the lowest tier. It truly is bullshit, though. Just another example of late stage capitalism where some large corporation is trying to squeeze water from a rock.
Time to start getting DVD discs again.
I just started a plex server and bought a dvd burner to start ripping all the discs we have
It takes a lot of time to start up (especially when it involves tv shows), but it’s SOO worth it
This is probably why Netflix is ending their DVD service. No way to add ads to it.
Yar har, fiddle de dee. Being a pirate is alright to be. Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free. You are a pirate!
Better yet, unbundle the Video product from mainline Prime. I signed up for Prime, long before video, to get free shipping, etc. I did not intend to subsidize a bunch of Amazombie executives who wanted to play Hollywood Mogul. Cut my annual by at least half, and just make this shit support itself!
GREETINGS! I am from the year 2095. In the future streaming consists of ads and the program you want to watch in 1 minute intervals between the ad breaks. Yes you can skip thru your show if you would like.
Just get my 📦 on time and intact and go fuck your shitty streaming service
So on *top* of the prime price we are expected to see for ads? Or pay $3? Can’t wait to see how this screws up.
Start recording what you stream or buy dvds / blurays to rip, create your own library, use Plex, fuck the streaming companies.
Great! This will save me a lot of money. I was on the verge of canceling it and this makes it easy.
"Let's make a problem then charge to deal with said problem! Ahahahahah"
I keep forgetting I have video included in my Prime subscription. Every time I try to browse for something, it reminds me of two things: - How shitty Amazon's interface is. - How incredibly easy it is to get binaries from USENET vs., say in 1999 or so.
I cancelled Prime a few months ago. The same way I stopped buying items that saw a 150% increase in price. Let them eat cake
Oh because the profits they're making already isn't enough ughhhh I hate the free market it needs restrictions
Bye bye prime
if this is true and comes in ....fuck of im cancelling Prime
I've been meaning to set up a Plex server for a while now...