• foggy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    193
    ·
    10 months ago

    I refuse to pay for ads to be delivered to me. Seeing them unpaid is bad enough and I avoid it at all costs. But I will not pay for ads.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      34
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Even as a child, when we had cable, I would ask my dad why we still had to watch commercials even though we pay for the service. I understood why stations like CBS, NBC, or ABC may have needed ads as they were free over-the-air, but surely paying for cable should mean no ads, right?

      Never had a good answer. It’s pretty fucked up that we collectively allowed them to pull that shit on us and put up with it for like 3 decades.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        10 months ago

        There was a brief and glorious time when Pay Cable was billed as being ad-free. You would still see promos for other shows and channels between shows, but there were no commercial breaks!

        • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          10 months ago

          Same as BBC in the UK.

          Maybe a 5-10 sec “And next on BBC 1 is blah blah and on BBC 2 we have blah blah starting at 7 o’clock”

          Of course you “have” to pay for it, though (if you don’t pay nobody would know).

        • bassomitron@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          9 months ago

          Oh shit, I forgot about that being a thing. Wow, how the fuck did society get so accustomed to dealing with that BS? Granted, we almost broke out of it when streaming became mainstream, but it looks like we’re about to get a screwed right back into it.

  • Carter@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    105
    ·
    10 months ago

    How do people think paying for a service and still being served ads is acceptable?

    • AdamEatsAss@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      35
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      10 months ago

      Hulu has a lower price tear that includes ads. It makes it more affordable for some people. If they had started out with ads I would be less upset, but for a big company like Amazon it just seems like they’re trying to make even more money off of the consumer.

      • Kernal64@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        25
        ·
        10 months ago

        Hulu DID start out with ads. When they launched it was an entirely ad supported service. Hulu+ didn’t come until years later. After several years of running two tiers of service, free ad supported and paid ad free, they dropped the free tier. Now, years later, we’re back to ads with Hulu, but this time you pay for the privilege.

      • Carobu@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        31
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        Cable started out without ads too. That was why you paid for it.

      • dangblingus@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        Right, but the business model is totally different. You’re paying your cable provider for access, you’re not paying to watch the TV shows. The TV shows were financed by broadcaster advertising revenues among other streams of income. With Amazon, you’re paying for access and to fund their programs. Ads are just greedy and anti-consumer for a vertically integrated platform like Amazon Video.

      • Obinice@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        10 months ago

        Cable wasn’t really a thing here in the UK, we’re not primed for their bullshit.

    • PlatinumSf@pawb.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      10 months ago

      To be fair, Prime Video has always just been a free perk attached to prime (and with all the other ‘perks’ combined you could basically consider it free). For example I get an extra 3% back on all my Amazon orders by being a prime member. At the current cost of prime and just with the home supplies I order w/ subscribe and save, it pays for itself. That’s not to say I’m happy with this, but in actuality they’re fairly well positioned with the product to make this move and have most of the user base be merely disgruntled.

  • cooopsspace@infosec.pub
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    90
    ·
    10 months ago

    It’s literally a race to the bottom on streaming services before we eventually end up with cable in an app. Or rather multiple apps.

    Fuck I hate this timeline.

    • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      22
      ·
      10 months ago

      My ISP already offers a streaming package, you pay monthly for a package of streaming apps. It’s literally cable with extra steps

  • Obinice@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    56
    ·
    10 months ago

    Better not be advert breaks in the service I PAY FOR, or else I’m out.

    I’m not paying anybody to serve me adverts. Ever.

    Their application is already god awful, and their database is built incredibly poorly (what idiot decided that different seasons of one TV show should have entirely separate listings in the database, often making it hard to find?!).

    AND, they’re constantly trying to shove extra paid stuff down my throat, like something called Paramount+, in the thing I’m already bloody paying for.

    I’m already at the edge of my tether with these people for their crappy service. If they introduce advertisment breaks into a service I’m paying for? That would be a direct insult, and I don’t stand for that sort of thing.

    • 2ncs@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      10 months ago

      their database is built incredibly poorly (what idiot decided that different seasons of one TV show should have entirely separate listings in the database, often making it hard to find?!).

      Likely this is legacy from when you would buy each season as a DVD set

  • GuerillaGorillas@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    39
    ·
    10 months ago

    Wow, first they destroy Prime Music to push you to pay extra for Music Unlimited and now this? I have no idea what the value of Prime even is now unless you order online frequently, which is harder and harder to justify with all the shady and low quality sellers polluting the site.

  • Polar@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    38
    ·
    10 months ago

    People use prime video? I find that half the shit I click on, it tells me it’s not included with prime and I have to buy it…

  • Got_Bent@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    35
    ·
    10 months ago

    I’ve been planning on cancelling prime at the end of the year. This closes the decision making process for me.

    I’ve been sticking to Pluto and Tubi lately. Yes, they have ads, but they are entirely free and have enough content to keep me entertained for the duration of my ever decreasing television watching habits.

    (End of year because due to terms and conditions, there is no benefit to cancel early)

      • Got_Bent@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        10 months ago

        My experience with prime delivery in 2023 is that it has gone from two days to four days to two weeks to completely lost fuck you trying to get a refund.

        Further, I stopped using eBay in the late 2000s because everything there became “fell off a truck in China” quality. This is what a vast percentage of Amazon product has become.

        This is the crux desire to cancel.

        • Vyvanse@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          10 months ago

          eBay has its uses, especially when you’re trying to find used genuine parts for whatever you’re working on, but other than that both eBay and Amazon seem to be flooded with Chinese crap

        • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          10 months ago

          I bought a new fire stick from Amazon, it didn’t work so I sent it back as defective. They sent me a refurbished one, and I had to fight them for weeks to accept that I paid for a new one, not a refurb.

      • Pirate_lemmy_arrrrR@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        10 months ago

        I canceled last time they raised the price and started including football. The only thing prime is really good for is if you like making a bunch of little purchases frequently. I honestly don’t miss it at all. When I do buy something, you get free shipping on anything else you buy for the next 24 hours. That ends up covering the little stuff I might have forgotten on the original order and prime shipping was rarely 2 days anymore anyway, so what’s an extra day or two wait.

      • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        Same, I often forget that prime video exists, I pay for prime so my wife’s packages arrive quicker and I get a free twitch sub monthly

        • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          10 months ago

          I’m in Canada, honestly the only reason prime video gets used in my house, is cause it has Pingu and my kid loves that. Usually there’s really nothing there aside from The Boys that I watch regularly or can’t watch elsewhere. It’s mostly paywalled too, with different channels you have to pay extra for, which is annoying.

  • XTL@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    34
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    Prime already has ads and they are obnoxious. They are their own ads. Is outside ads the new development or what? New tiers?

  • Beryl@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    36
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    10 months ago

    The enshitification will continue until there isn’t any cent left to transfer to the shareholders.

  • just_change_it@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    33
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    Remember folks who are currently subscribed: They do not give prorated refunds for full year subs. When you cancel the service ends immediately. Setup calendar reminders or eat the sunk cost now because Amazon Prime is just a typical subscription entrapment scheme that will only get harder and harder to cancel, like a gym membership.

    Edit: Thanks /u/@firadin - Cancel now, you don’t lose anything and the membership simply won’t renew on your renewal date.

    • Texas_Hangover@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Is that new? When I cancelled last year a couple months into my year long subscription I got the money back for the unused months. No problem, easy too.

      • just_change_it@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        9 months ago

        It’s not new, it’s just asshole web design and misleading pages when you go to cancel. I went and cancelled a couple minutes ago.

    • firadin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      10 months ago

      That’s not accurate, they don’t stop your benefits when you hit the cancel button. I just cancelled today and have my benefits until the end of my yearly subscription in November.

      • just_change_it@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        9 months ago

        Wow, you’re right. I just ended mine.

        Their website has an asshole design. They make you click through two pages before telling you the truth.

  • Tischkante@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    31
    ·
    10 months ago

    This isn’t even really normal entshitification, they added videos and some music cheap Spotify knockoff to their fast delivery flat rate. Nobody asked them to.

    Then they slowly raised the price, essentially locking everyone that just wanted free fast delivery into a video streaming service and kept increasing the price.

    They did this to force existing subscribers into their “new” business idea of a video streaming service, when they couldn’t yet compete with the competition back then. Good news for them, their competitors are shit now.

    Now they can include advertisements in it too and add more expensive advertisement free tiers. Essentially increasing the price again, but hiding it so people can’t ask for subscription fees back in Europe.

    Do they really think most people have forgotten they just wanted a fast delivery flat rate? They will never offer their delivery flat rate without video and all that stuff again, only if a legislature would force them.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      9 months ago

      And increasingly I’m finding that they’re making me place a minimum order size to get the free shipping. You know - like shipping was without prime.

    • YⓄ乙 @aussie.zone
      cake
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Trillion dollar company doesn’t care. You’ll get ads and they will take your money. Like it or not.

  • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    Just in time for me to finish Invincible and fuck off

    They aren’t doing it because they have to, they’re doing it to make money.