One of the additional perks of having an Amazon Prime subscription is free access to some of the company’s video content. But as of next year, Amazon Prime Video users will start seeing ads, unless they pay an additional premium for ad-free viewing …
Reuters reports on the company’s announcement.
Amazon Prime Video users will see ads on shows and movies from early next year unless they subscribe for an ad-free tier that would be at a higher cost, the tech giant said on Friday […]
The U.S. tech giant said the advertisements will be introduced in the United States, the UK, Germany and Canada in early 2024, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Australia later in the year.
Amazon will roll out an ad-free subscription tier for an additional $2.99 per month for U.S. Prime members. Prime subscription in the U.S. currently costs $14.99 per month or $139 per year.
Sad as this is, even for the rather limited free content available, it’s unfortunately all part of a growing trend as companies try to turn streaming video into a profitable business.
In December of last year, Disney increased the price of the standard Disney+ tier from $7.99 to $11.99, while simultaneously introducing a replacement $7.99 tier branded as Disney+ Basic, which displays ads.
In terms of ad load, the ads on Disney+ will be 15 seconds, 30 seconds, or 45 seconds long. You can expect up to four minutes of commercials per hour. Disney+ Basic, however, doesn’t support offline viewing because the ads are loaded at the time the content is played.
In June, Netflix started quietly killing its basic plan without ads, after earlier hiding it from new subscribers.
Previously, the now discontinued basic plan without ads was offered at $9.99. This means that customers willing to have an ad-free experience will now have to pay an extra $10.50 at least instead of $4.
Photo: Glenn Carstens-Peters/Unsplash
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