I’m sorry to let you know but Amazon Prime will now be serving you ads, so your Fallout binge will include some disruptions.
In an email sent to Prime members earlier this week, starting from July 2 Prime Video movies and TV shows will now include ‘limited advertisements’.
Amazon said this change will allow them to “continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time”.
In the email sent to subscribers, Amazon said it “aims” to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming providers *cough, Netflix, cough*
Amazon Prime announced the changes last year, but only sent the news out to customers this week. I got the email in my personal inbox last night, FWIW.
There will be no change to your subscription or price, however, if you don’t want to see a single ad, you can buy an ad-free version for an additional $2.99 per month. So, instead of paying $9.99 a month, you’ll pay $12.98 to enjoy an ad-free experience.
Prime Video isn’t the first streaming service to introduce ads, it follows in the footsteps of Netflix which introduced the ad tier in late 2022. Commentators thought it would be a flop but it has ended up being quite successful.
The streaming renaissance is well and truly over, Netflix has seen a stagnation in its revenue growth and now these companies have to find a way to make money. Unfortunately, the way they can see their dollars go up is by going down the OG TV route of showing ads and making subscribers incrementally pay more for their subscriptions.
It’s a frustrating move, but it isn’t a surprise, I wouldn’t be shocked if, in the next 12 to 18 months, other steamers go the same route. But then if subscribers are being forced to watch ads, will they end up going down the linear TV route?
Image: Prime Video/iStock