[jonhohle]

Good! In the US ads were added after telling Prime members they’d get ad free content as part of their membership. I complained about this during a meeting (I worked on Prime during the Prime Video launch), but was shot down because the ads were pre-roll trailers for Amazon produced content. Of course that turned into just ads, everywhere. I’m glad the court saw it for what it was: bait and switch.

[tombert]

Yeah, ever since that change happened, I haven't logged into Prime Video. I'm paying money for a product, I shouldn't have to put up with ads too.

I understand that it's not free to produce TV shows, no free lunches and whatnot, so I understand why stuff I watch for free has ads, but if I'm paying for something I draw a line that I don't want my shit interrupted by advertisement.

It really annoyed me that Prime decided that they would just impose ads on me unless I pay them an additional $4 a month. I already pay for Prime, I already buy many products on Amazon, I don't want to pay an extra $50 a year just to watch your mediocre shows without you trying to indoctrinate me to buy more shit.

[philistine]

On a fundamental level you're absolutely right. Unfortunately, you're complaining about a model that has existed for decades at this point: the cable model. You pay an arm and a leg for cable, and yet you get ads.

Companies seem incapable of imagining a world where they don't double dip, since they've built the whole house of cards on the cable model and they want nothing else than to recreate it.

[bcrl]

Cable still has one thing going for it: it tends to be cheaper for sports. Watching hockey games online requires subscriptions to 3 different streaming services just to follow a single local team, which is ridiculous.

[reaperducer]

Watching hockey games online requires subscriptions to 3 different streaming services just to follow a single local team, which is ridiculous.

A newspaper recently published an article stating that if you wanted to watch every NFL game, you'd need eleven streaming subscriptions.

[ch0wn]

Same for me. I actually don't order much but kept the subscription going for some of the shows I enjoyed. I promptly cancelled because of this. Obviously I'm in the minority, otherwise they wouldn't do it.

[simula67]

I am glad to hear that there was someone who argued for the right course of action in the Amazon Prime organization. I don't know why this is not being fought by other regulators. I also paid for Amazon Prime, expecting to get ad-free content, and then they started to add advertisements. This may not be fraud, but it is definitely lowering my opinion of Amazon.

[_DeadFred_]

Amazon seems cool with selling fake fuses that will kill people. That is what got me to stop shopping with them. The fact they seem to be cool with literally just letting people die. Fuses aren't an 'optional if they work' thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU

[philistine]

What's infuriating is that Amazon has finally announced they're getting rid of co-mingling and have never had to massively pay for their misguided policy that has killed people.

[pfisch]

I'm confused. Do you think you were owed no ads indefinitely? They can't change what the membership offers ever?

So if they stopped letting you watch their new content because you had an old no ads membership would that be ok?

[tra3]

Yup. They can’t change the contract unilaterally.

Remember when Netflix inttroduced ads they added a lower tier to go along with it.

[pfisch]

But you are paying to restart the subscription every month/year. They can't change it then?

[johneth]

When you start a subscription, you're agreeing to pay X amount every Y period of time; you're not starting a new agreement every single Y period of time.

[iamnothere]

They can cancel the prior tier or bump up the price on renewal though. This is the problem with subscriptions, you become complacent and accept incremental changes until you finally notice that you’re being rinsed.

And actually some subscriptions can include unilateral price increases in the contract (a subscription is a contract) with early termination fees. It just isn’t commonly done because word gets around and you will lose business. You typically only see this in predatory industries where there are few alternatives and the service is necessary, like local waste management.

If the contract is unfair enough you can usually escape it in court or arbitration, but nobody wants to go through that.

[kelnos]

No, that doesn't make sense at all. You've paid for consistent terms for that Y period of time. Not cancelling the subscription when it's up for renewal is an implicit agreement to any new terms. And I'm sure if you'd read those terms in the first place, you'd come to the same understanding.

(And it's not even that: the X you're charged is subject to change upon renewal!)

I'm not arguing that this is a good or bad thing, just pointing out the reality of every single subscription agreement I've signed up for online.

[pfisch]

Of course you are. Either party can adjust a contract on renewal, just like a lease.

Also you aren't agreeing to pay to renew the contract. It isn't a rent payment in a structured contract. You can cancel at any time.

[hermanzegerman]

They can cancel the subscription if you don't agree to the new proposition after they fulfilled their contract. But they can't just change the terms of the agreement after it was made.

But doing so would mean risking to loose customers who were just too lazy to cancel. So most Businesses don't like it. (Spotify did cancel their old contracts though, for people who had not agreed with the recent price hike)

[grepex]

At the very least they could not increase prices while simultaneously putting ads.

[kxrm]

Yep, the cable industry used to do this. Add more ads but increase fees to viewers. Streaming is the new cable.

[pfisch]

I agree it sucks, but I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to do it.

[rendall]

I think your question is reasonable, but no, I do not think a company gets to promote a service as having no ads as part of the sell, and then put ads in by default.

[beej71]

They can do it legally if it's within the terms. Otherwise it's bait-and-switch.

I can't sign a contract with you for $10/month for no ads and then start showing you ads.

[mfru]

Because I have a better life to live than always monitoring which shitty company wants to scam me out of my attention and money next.

[tombert]

Not the person you're replying to, but it just feels like rent-seeking. Amazon is already a gigantic corporation, pretty much everyone spends lots and lots of money on Amazon, it just felt like a way to try and squeeze more money out of their existing customers.

ETA:

I mean, I'm sure there is some exception to this, but generally speaking everyone hates ads. Part of the reason that the whole "cable cutting" thing happened was because everyone hated paying a lot of money to some cable company just to be bombarded with advertisements. At least that's a big reason as to why I did it.

Now all these media companies realized that they can start shoving ads at us again and people will keep paying.

Obviously I'm not entitled to having media at a specific price indefinitely, but I'm perfectly allowed to not like it when companies engage in rent-seeking bullshit.

[peddling-brink]

But have you considered the shareholders? The line must go up.

Cynicism aside, I wish there was a happy medium where companies could just _make money_ and not always have to make _even more money_.

[tombert]

It wouldn't bother me as much if you could still buy media, but as far as I can tell most TV shows don't get Blu-ray releases anymore. The media companies realized that it's more profitable for them to make you pay for the same media forever instead of a lump cost, I guess preferably with you watching corporate brainwashing to buy products.

I suspect once the heat on this settles down, every streaming service is going to start forcing ads on us at all times, and then the only way to fight back on this will be bittorrent.

[mfru]

I recommend looking into private usenets. The initial setup is quite a hassle, but after that everything is smooth sailing.

We have to educate them again that taking our convenience means them loosing money.

[jemmyw]

Or just stop watching. I seem to be out of tune with what people want in a TV show nowadays, I don't find much enjoyable. I accept there was never that much, but given how much content is produced now I would have expected more in my sweet spot.

[PacificSpecific]

That was the point that made me remove Amazon from my life. Obviously it was building up but kudos to Amazon for being the one to push me over the line to quit up Amazon.

[BloondAndDoom]

The irony of Amazon “empty chair in meetings” myth. When you don’t even listen actual people advocating for customers why’d you care about an imaginary person.

[Rohansi]

They still show the pre-roll trailers even if you pay extra for no ads. You can skip them but it's still ridiculous.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

Pre-roll trailers are ads.

[jonhohle]

A rose by any other name…

[acaloiar]

I cancelled a 12 year old Prime account solely out of principle because of this.

[m463]

Next thing you know, they'll cover the outside of the prime 2-day shipping packages in ads.

[greatgib]

I don't like it but could almost understand ad before content.

But what I don't understand and find the most stupid is when you are forced to watch ad for the internal content. It gives me an aweful experience instead of pushing me to watch more. So makes me want to stop using the service.

The worst offender is Disney+, not only the app is the shitiest one with great pain to seek in content, but you have systematic 30 or 40s long as for content of the platform you don't care like the last woke show. The worst of the worst in that case is that they will not care to show you 100 times the exact same ad as for the same movie or show sometimes. It has no good effect except totally wasting your time and frustrating you!

[distances]

They indeed have the worst apps of the streaming services, at least the Android and Chromecast. They look nice but perform very poorly.

And now they simultaneously added ads and raised prices. I haven't dropped the subscription yet but am sure thinking about it.