Ad-free streaming services are officially a thing of the past. Amazon injects Prime Video Movies and TV shows with ads on Monday.The company requires users to pay extra $3 per month To keep Prime Video ad-free, members also need to pay the annual Amazon Prime fee of $139.
“Starting January 29, Prime Video movies and TV shows will contain limited advertising,” Amazon said in a statement. e-mail It became available to Prime members last month.
With Prime Video’s demise, it means the five largest streaming services in the U.S. now have ads.Amazon is following in its footsteps Netflix, Disney+, maximumand Paramount+ These were introduced in advertising over the past few years. Streaming services once offered a strong alternative to cable television, but as competition has become more intense, they have become like their highly commercialized ancestors.
A key part of Amazon’s advertising model is that they put you into a default ad-filled tier when you could otherwise be watching Prime Video uninterrupted.Most competitors are not that arrogant and introduce advertising more subtly by offering cheaper options, e.g. Netflix sells it for $6.99. However, Amazon hopes you won’t care and just pay the same price and keep riding while they make a ton of money advertising to you.
The subscription model for streaming services didn’t last long. We may be past the golden age of streaming, when companies offered ad-free subscriptions to premium content at low prices.
“There is a strong anti-advertising stance within the company,” Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said in a statement. interview Meeting with Stratechery on Thursday to mention previous leadership. When Peters took over, the company was facing a significant slowdown in growth, and he saw an opportunity to change that.
Now every streamer has ads because they are too big to grow. They need to make more revenue in other ways, which means introducing ads and raising prices, like Prime Video has done.
Apple TV+ is one of the major streaming services There are currently no ads, but it is also one of the smallest video sites, with only 25 million subscribers, compared with Prime Video’s 200 million. A big reason why Apple TV+ remains ad-free is that streaming is just a perk you get with Apple TV, so it doesn’t have to be profitable. However, the same goes for Prime Video, but they decided to introduce ads anyway.
As streaming becomes more expensive and laced with advertising, studios are producing less content.According to data, Netflix will produce 130 fewer shows in 2023 than in 2022 Bloomberg, and hopes to continue to reduce the number of performances in the future.Streaming services are reportedly slowing investment in new content across the board Industry Analyst.
The introduction of Prime Video ads signals the end of the streaming era, and likely the end of Amazon Prime subscriptions for many.