Amazon has been sued due to introducing Ads

[Guest 85555]

I have to say, I am pretty tired of companies doing this. Amazon is a service where you expect not to have to watch commercials if you are paying. I have noticed them lately and they really do impact the viewing experience in a significant way.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I have to say, I am pretty tired of companies doing this. Amazon is a service where you expect not to have to watch commercials if you are paying. I have noticed them lately and they really do impact the viewing experience in a significant way.

Unfortunately, it's the wave of the future.

Ads are incredibly lucrative. So it makes sense for streaming services to have an ad-supported version that's really cheap (to entice people) and then jack up the price on the ad-free version.

As it is, Netflix has higher revenue per subscriber for the ad-supported tier ($7/month) than they do with standard ($15.50) or premium ($23) ad-free service.

That's why you see so many amazing deals offered on the ad-supported versions (esp. with annual plans) but not so much on the ad-free ones.

 

[Guest 85555]

The ad decision was the last straw for me. In addition to lack of quality programming, the few things I do like on Prime have been progressively disappointing.

The only reason I am there is access to movies. So I find the ads particularly infuriating. Also when I am already paying for a service, I simply don't want to be sold anything in a way that interrupts my experience of the product. All the ads did was make me resentful towards whatever was being advertised

 

[Guest 85555]

Unfortunately, it's the wave of the future.

Ads are incredibly lucrative. So it makes sense for streaming services to have an ad-supported version that's really cheap (to entice people) and then jack up the price on the ad-free version.

As it is, Netflix has higher revenue per subscriber for the ad-supported tier ($7/month) than they do with standard ($15.50) or premium ($23) ad-free service.

That's why you see so many amazing deals offered on the ad-supported versions (esp. with annual plans) but not so much on the ad-free ones.

Like @payn this is kind of a last straw for me. I just find streaming services in general have been giving me less and less of what I want, while asking for more. I have been shifting back to physical media this year in a big way and frankly I will be happy when I am not looking at classic movies on a platform like Amazon anymore

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I would not be surprised one bit if they did decide to ignore customers who cancel their Prime subscriptions, make money off the ads and pay off those who sue if they know they are in the wrong.

As far as cancelling your Prime subscription, as far as I know your Amazon account will still be active and you can choose to re-subscribe to Prime whenever you want to.

I know that cancelling the subscription doesn't remove my account.

But I was thinking about what if amazon decided to do it, say, because I participated in a lawsuit against them?
Surely, that's just absurd paranoid thinking...

 

[Undrave]

If I had to guess, there's probably fine print in the Amazon Prime agreement that customers have to agree to before subscribing protecting Amazon by saying they reserve the right to change the terms of the subscription without notice. I'm sure this will go nowhere.

This action seems aimed at advertisement so it's possible they didn't place any such fine print on the ads themselves.

 

[trappedslider]

Um, you know that I can read these documents, right?

Yes, I'm aware that you can read, but you said Some quick thoughts so i wasn't aware of what you did read, was it one of the news articles, both? Or both and the actual court documents? Hence my response.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yes, I'm aware that you can read, but you said Some quick thoughts so i wasn't aware of what you did read, was it one of the news articles, both? Or both and the actual court documents? Hence my response.

Court documents. Always the court documents.

IME, most journalists attempt to do a valiant job, but usually a very poor job, of understanding the finer points of legal issues.

 

[Ryujin]

Court documents. Always the court documents.

IME, most journalists attempt to do a valiant job, but usually a very poor job, of understanding the finer points of legal issues.

I find the issue is frequently that they think common definitions of words/phrases equate to their legal meanings. And then there's the tendency to sensationalize.

 

[R_J_K75]

But I was thinking about what if amazon decided to do it, say, because I participated in a lawsuit against them?
Surely, that's just absurd paranoid thinking...

Oh, I misunderstood. I suppose anything is possible, but I doubt they go to such drastic lengths, and even if they did what's stopping you from just creating a new account, unless they can block your IP address, which again I doubt. I'm not a lawyer but if I understand a class action suit, it's basically, in this case, a law firm suing Amazon on behalf of every Amazon Prime member, and you really don't have a say in the matter at this point. I could be wrong though.

This action seems aimed at advertisement so it's possible they didn't place any such fine print on the ads themselves.

What I was getting at was, for instance, if someone subscribed to Amazon Prime in June of 2023 when the ads weren't present, but at that time the fine print read that Amazon reserves the right to alter the subscription agreement without prior notice to the subscriber. In January of 2024 they decided to add advertisements as part of their streaming services, does the consumer have any recourse or do they just have to live with the ads, pay the $2.99 to go ad free or cancel their subscription and hope for a pro-rated refund, IDK? I've not read the actual filing or the subscription agreement so I'm just guessing and could be entirely off base, but the key is what's in the subscription agreement and whether its legal or not and where.