There’s nothing like watching your favorite TV show or movie uninterrupted, where the only break in viewing is by your own choice when and if you decide to hit pause. It seems that where Prime Video is concerned that this choice is being taken out of your hands with Amazon emailing subscribers that “limited advertisements” are coming to the service at the end of January, unless you cough up an extra $3 a month.
What Does Limited Advertisements Mean?
Quite how many ads are going to be shown on Prime Video isn’t known at this time. For what it’s worth, in the email to its Prime Video subscribers Amazon promises to “show fewer ads than traditional TV and other streaming services”, which again is somewhat vague but I guess we’ll find out exactly how many on January 29th.
Ads Are Coming To Amazon Prime Everywhere
That’s right, it’s not just Prime Video subscribers in the US that will get to experience ads, Amazon is bringing them to the UK, Germany, and Canada starting January 29th before spreading to other regions later next year. Basically, if you can or are gaining access to Prime Video, Amazon will start serving you ads.
Amazon Will Let You Pay To Avoid The Ads*
Amazon will let you avoid the ads ruining your viewing experience by ponying up a few extra bucks, $3 per month to be exact. You’ll need to switch to a new tier in order to pay the extra amount on top of your normal Amazon Prime membership.
This is where the asterisk comes in to effect. While paying the additional $3 a month will save you from watching ads on content directly available on Prime Video. However, you’ll still see ads on channels which need a separate subscription, on FreeVee, live sports streams, and more. Content purchased or rented through the Prime Video store will not be affected by ads though, which is something.
It All Adds Up
If you choose to take the option of paying to avoid ads you’ll be paying an extra $36 a year on top of your $139 Amazon Prime subscription, bringing the total to $175 annually. What you’ll need to consider are the range of services that Amazon includes in the Prime subscription such as free delivery, Amazon Music, and the ever increasing number of Prime Day sales.
What Do You Plan To Do?
All told, Amazon Prime and all that it brings to the table is still far cheaper than Netflix’s Premium tier which is now over $275 annually. With everything costing more nowadays it’s getting to breaking point when it comes to deciding which streaming services to keep. With most other streaming services having increased their prices in the past year, it would appear that the cord-cutting dream is over.
Do you plan on paying the additional $3 monthly, cancelling the Amazon Prime subscription entirely, or simply carrying on as is when the adverts start appearing on January 29th? Let us know your decision in the comments below.
