‘Time to cancel’
Amazon Prime customers have been cancelling their subscriptions after a major change was introduced to the platform.
From today, subscribers in the UK will see adverts on the streaming platform, and will need to pay an extra amount every month to go ad-free.
The change came into effect today (February 5) in the UK, after having been introducer in the USA and Canada at the end of last month.
In an email sent to Prime Video users earlier this year, the company wrote: “Starting February 5, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements. 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 ad-supported TV channels and other streaming TV providers.”
Amazon told customers that no action is required on their end and there will not be a change to the current price of their membership.
However, the email explained that the new “ad-free” option would cost customers an additional £2.99 per month.
Following the introduction of adverts to the platform, a number of people have said they are cancelling their Prime Video subscriptions.
One person wrote: “So, Prime Video has ads and I think it’s time to drop Amazon Prime because why am I paying an annual subscription for ads?”
Someone else wrote: “Dear @PrimeVideo, I’m already paying you $150 a year for Prime Video. Now I’m supposed to pay another $3 per month to avoid seeing ads? Amazon has a net worth of $2 trillion! This is ridiculous. What an insult to those of us who have been Prime customers from day one!”
A third said: “Prime video now has ads??? @amazon @PrimeVideo why are you so greedy? #cancelprime”
“It’s happening! Amazon Prime Video nickel and diming. Time to cancel,” a fourth shared.
Australia, Mexico, Italy, France and Spain are also set to have ads launched on Prime Video by the end of 2024.
The update follows a slew of streamers introducing new subscription methods. Netflix introduced an ads plan in 2022 in some countries, which provided a cheaper subscription cost in return for watching 4-5 minutes of ads for every hour of content.
Late last year, Netflix also announced that it was raising prices for its subscribers in the UK, US and France.
Disney+ was another streamer to announce plans to introduce an “ad-supported” subscription plan in Ireland and the UK, which will cost £4.91 for the basic plan with adverts when it is launched in November.
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