Quote:
Originally Posted by NoMo50
Well, we should have seen this coming. Effective January 29th, Amazon Prime will no longer broadcast ad-free content on their Prime TV shows and movies. Over the past several months there has been somewhat of a soft rollout of this change, with more and more shows being aired via their "Freevee" platform. Prime members will, however, be able to subscribe to ad-free programming for an additional fee of $2.99/month.
I realize Jeff Bezos has bills to pay, along with a very costly divorce, but...c'mon, man!
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Definitely a pattern there. But this is not new. I recall back in the early 70s when Cable TV was in its infancy, at least in our neck of the woods. Gone were the annoying rabbit ears and the spotty reception. We now got TWELVE channels instead of two, sparkling clear on our little 19" black-and-white TV. And all for only $9.99 per month. Big selling point was that since we were now paying for what was formerly free, there would be no ads to contend with. I think that lasted two years before the ads appeared, followed by a "premium" service (a bit more money per month) that offered ad-free TV on the premium channels.
Same w/YouTube. YouTube Premium offers ad-free service. But the FREE service is increasingly peppered with increasingly long ads.
I guess the Amazon move is nothing to get your undies in a bundle about. Normal progression of events and all that. Also, Prime is a great service overall and $3 is less than pocket change.