If we remove the banger year for gaming releases from the equation, 2023 has been an incredibly shitty year. From tech and gaming layoffs to studios forcing writers and actors to strike. A genocide in Palestine which further opened eyes to imperial forces exploiting other countries. It’s not been a great year. But we’re not going to worry about those today because corporations think they aren’t getting enough money trough streaming. And the latest to back that trend is, you guessed it, Amazon.
Some time ago, Amazon had announced that they were going to be placing ads in the movies and shows they stream through Prime Video. You know, that thing you pay for with your Amazon Prime subscription to avoid advertisements when watching content. I swear, if I didn’t know any better, they got us out here literally paying for cable TV.
Well, the world’s largest online retailer has now given us the date of their new enshitification platform. It will roll this out on January 29th.
This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.
We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership.”
Amazon statement to customers
If you want to avoid the ads, all Amazon asks is that you pay them $2.99/month to keep them away. This will be on top of the $14.99/month ($139 annually) for Amazon Prime. You can subscribe to Prime Video separately for just $8.99/month.
I still don’t get why all of these streaming services are making these moves except for lining their pockets and appeasing shareholders. Technically, the writing was on the wall when every media company under the sun started their own streaming networks. At a certain point, it was all going downhill.
You still hate to see it, though.
Source: The Verge
