As if the Prime Video app couldn’t get any worse.
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I watched Into The Spiderverse on Netflix yesterday. The audio was in English but the visuals were in German, which given the style was very distracting. I could not change the video source.
Piracy has always been a better experience, it was just more work for a short time.
For us it comes for free from the prime account. I still refuse to watch anything on Prime video, but I believe I’m not pirating because I technically do have access to all these movies/shows. That’s logical right?
Why pay for the prime account? What are you getting out of it?
Have you done the math of what you could do with $140 per year instead?
Can’t speak for them but in my part of the country shipping fees are pretty high, so prime was actually a great thing when they started doing it here, I do save more than I would if instead I shopped for a slightly cheaper version with crazy high shipping in another store.
After almost 20 years as a Prime subscriber I unsubscribed about a week ago. It was the ads, I put up with a lot of nonsense over the years but the ads were the final insult.
I’m not paying full streaming service prices for a service with ads.
I was a long time subscriber as well, but canceled right before Christmas 2022. I missed it for about a week and then I realized most things I “needed immediately” from Amazon I could either 1) drive across town to purchase from brick and mortar or 2) actually just wait for it.
The end result has been me buying less things I don’t need, and buying the things I do need from local retailers (and of course big box stores), or ordering them from other online retailers since the shipping is comparable to Amazon.
2 years in and I don’t miss it at all, will never go back. I do want to watch the Fallout series though.
As they’ve turned into wish.com over the last few years I’ve bought less and less from them so I by the end I was mainly paying for the TV service.
I don’t see myself gong back either.
You can sail the high seas for Fallout. It’s worth it!
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I canceled Prime as soon as they announced they were adding ads and I let them know that was the reason. Fuck them. We moved to streaming because it wasn’t cable, now these fuck heads are trying to turn streaming into cable. Capitalism is the fucking worst.
I’m busy with work lately, but I’m investing into setting up Jellyfin, and the moment that’s running, I’m canceling as well.
Would cancel sooner, but I’m not the one that actually uses it, so this was the compromise.
Ditto, but Plex. I know Plex has its issues, but I need stability and ease of use since I share streaming apps with 4 other households.
Trash guides.
That’ll get you sorted.
The arrs are amazing
Yeah, I’ve got a full *arr setup so far - just need to iron out a few kinks before I can consider it “done”. Mainly just dealing with my server computer being incredibly slow with - I assume - transcoding.
If you’re steaming on your local network you should be able to disable transcoding on your clients.
Jellyfin is the way. I’ve been running my server for 2 years now
It isn’t “capitalism” it is that there isn’t a meaningful push back
It’s capitalism because they’re only doing this to further the never ending pursuit for more capital
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I don’t pay for prime for the video though, I do it because 10 members of my family like the 2 day shipping lol the video is just icing that we honestly rarely use. Just “The Boys” and “Clarksons Farm” really
I only have it because I have prime for shopping. If they were separate fees, I would not have streaming.
If you live near a regional transportation hub it probably won’t make a difference on your delivery times. We dropped prime when our “1 day” deliveries kept turning in 3 day deliveries and never saw a difference.
And honestly a lot of the stuff I used to get on there isn’t even cheaper on Amazon anymore. Half the time if I check the manufacturer website they’re having a sale or have no shipping costs or cover returns longer, something like that. YMMV, you know your situation and needs better than me.
I’m about 6 years completely Amazon-free. A key component of the switch was realizing a lot of the random stuff I’d buy (mostly cycling equipment) is cheaper on eBay with faster shipping. The irony is that the seller is likely the same one on Amazon and the items would be delivered by Amazon Fulfillment Services.
I’ve been going back to eBay more recently as well! If anything I feel more confident that what I get on eBay is going to actually match the listing, since AFAIK they don’t do the same insane “jumble all items with the same ID code together in a bin and hope all the sellers were honest about it being real” system Amazon uses.
The only reason I don’t is that I can buy a bunch of stuff from Amazon and get it in one or two boxes, instead of a bunch of stuff from all over the country in a bunch of boxes. It’s about saving a little bit of carbon emissions.
Does it make a significant difference? Absolutely not. But it makes me feel better. (Also Amazon packages are more often reusable. The boxes and paper packing are better than eBay bubble envelopes and bubble wrap encased in packing tape.)
For me its kinda worth it. I can can next day or same day delivery, which is kinda nice when Im an impatient ass. Also I share it with my family, so we all make use of it.
If it were just me, definitely would not be worth it.
I live near multiple regional hubs. I have no subscription myself. It takes them 4-7 days to get my package to me.
My friends who live on the same block as me gets them in 1-2 days with their prime memberships
This includes if we both order the same exact things.
So yeah, YMMV
This doesn’t work for me. Regional hub is 20 miles from me. Two day shipping is now just "free shipping over $35 and takes a week to arrive.
I agree with your other points though. Amazon isn’t the cheapest option anymore. My local Walmart is actually better. I know Walmart is still a shit company but still…better in terms of getting what I need.
You may as well buy from Aliexpress if you are shopping on Amazon. The only difference is the price and the transit time.
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Aliexpress is great for the cheap useful stuff for around the house.
Electronics too (like LEDs, microcontrollers, and sensors not phones and TVs). Often brands have a store on both Ali and Amazon but Ali is cheaper with longer shipping times of basically a week to a week and a half.
Same, and even that is getting worse. I feel like I have to fight with the search algorithm to actually find what I want for the best price. Most of the time, I could order something better from another retailer for a better price and still get free shipping. They don’t even do free returns anymore.
I notice a lot of stuff has paid shipping if you dont order the correct stuff.
I started acquiring my prime videos elsewhere even though I have prime
Say it out loud. We’re both pirating content we’ve paid for. What a dumb system.
“vampire.”
I deleted my Amazon account a couple years ago and haven’t looked back. Everyone has their own needs, but I’m just letting you know: it can be done!
Did it this last cycle. Didn’t renew, don’t miss it. In fact the announcement of adding more ads into the video service I didn’t want, but had to pay for to get prime lead to me just leaving.
And become a pirate!
The enshitification continues.
I actually get Prime TV series from the high seas even though I’m subscribed to Prime. It’s simply better UX this way.
It’s shocking how bad their ui is. I don’t get it.
The sad thing is, it’s much better than it was.
You’d see a movie, read the truncated blurb, click into it to see the full details, only to get the exact same text in a bigger font, so you’d actually see less of it.
I cancelled it the day they announced more ads.
And just about anything you try to do to actually read the description would start the movie, including doing nothing for 10 secs (because you are fucking reading the description). Till you hit the back button which just boots you back to the home screen, so you can start the selection process all over again.
Helpfully they do include IMDB scores when browsing for stuff, sadly all their stuff is total shite so all the scores are low. But hey, at least they include them.
The only way to watch anything on Prime is to make your selection in advance somewhere else and then search for it. If you type in the literal title of the movie, it will mostly be in the top 10 of the search results. This includes resuming watching something you were watching, like their hit series Fallout. You would expect the resume watching thing to be proudly the first item on the home page. OMG you actually watched something of ours, we are so happy. Nope it’s buried away on the 5th or 6th line and you need to scroll to get to it. It also happily resumes the previous episode at the credits, without the helpful next episode button. If you do manage to get to the next episode, you will need to watch the first 5 secs of same ad you’ve seen a million times (because they only seem to have the one ad on their platform) before you can skip to the content.
I don’t know what those guys are smoking, but their app is total garbage.
Usually big corps collect all your personal information and tell you it’s a good thing because they use it to make useful recommendations. That way you at least get something out of it. At Amazon they just take all your personal data and when it comes to recommendations it gives you a big middle finger. I don’t know here’s a romcom from 12 years ago, you like that stuff right? Whatever fuck off.
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I never used Prime Video, and I cancelled my Prime subscription in protest against this shit. Never going back.
Amazon also horrifically mangles and compresses their video for seemingly no reason all the time.
It’s not for no reason, it’s to lower bandwidth costs. It may not be a reason that benefits you but there is definitely a reason.
They don’t even want to spend the money to provide you the paying customer with HD engagement slop…
And yet peasants still using this shit service and pay for it too!
Same. I ditched AZ once they added ads PV. After 2 20s back to back ads, I unfurled my Jolly Roger. Fuck ads.
I do the same with a bunch of content. It’s amazing how I’m able to run a streaming service from my basement that’s better than Disney or Amazon.
Same here. I have Prime but only for their Amazon Prime delivery services, not for their video or audio thing(Amazon refuses to unbundle their stuff in my country). To make it worse, Amazon Prime Video, Atleast last I tried didn’t go to full HD(or even 720p) on Firefox on Linux, so there is no point to it.
And there is hardly an ethical concern to it. I am paying for a service but getting my hands on the material; just via a different supply chain because Amazon sucks.
didn’t go to full HD(or even 720p) on Firefox on Linux
you will run into similar restrictions on other services that use drm.
It is insane to me how piracy is making a comeback because decision makers forgot Gabe’s lesson
What’s Gabe’s lesson?
Piracy is a service problem.
There’s a reason I use spotify and steam.
Yeah, theres a very good reason I dont use Spotify anymore. Not any music streaming services at all. Only good ol’ reliable mp3s. Their idea of “service” is to silently remove songs from my playlists as their licenses expire, and then top it by replacing “Hotel California” with the WORST cover song I’ve ever heard.
Imagine if Sony stopped selling on Steam, and Steam in response silently replaced my “Days Gone” game with “The Day Before”? I would have been so pissed. But with music it seems that is totally okay.
I miss having my library fully in mp3. I started using Deezer just for convenience, and I kept only the mp3 I have for rare songs and versions. Now every time Deezer kills a song in my playlists, I regret my decision, and I’m too lazy to rebuild my mp3 library. At least Deezer keeps the name of the song greyed out in the playlist, and if it finds another instance of the same song it’s easy to replace it.
“We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem,”
“If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.”
And I haven’t pirated a game in I don’t even know how long now because of Steam.
TV show? Last week.
I’ve only pirated one game recently and that’s only because you can’t really get it legally anymore.
Fuck you Microsoft for killing games for windows live and killing a bunch of PC games in the process.
Fuck that BS :(
I do pirate games that I buy on Steam - just to have a backup copy in case something happens to my account. I want to truly own my media. Nonetheless, this is the only place I have paid for media since we ditched the DVD player)
Many Steam games are DRM-free, they’re just not advertised that way. Try copying the game files elsewhere and shutting down Steam, for most older games, they’ll still just work.
The games I bought were fairly new indies. Didn’t think about that though!
Wow, what happened to paying for things supporting the product and not needing ads?
You’re forgetting one important thing - Bezos needs more money! Line must go up. Always. At any cost.
yeah, companies gotta do what a companies gotta do. and we get NO say.
I’m surprised they think this is useful… if I’ve paused a video it’s because I’m answering the phone or front door, making a coffee, going for a shit etc… I’m almost never going to see these ads 🤷🏻♂️
I unsubbed from prime last year once the ads were announced on prime video.
There’s no reason to have it anymore imo.
A VPN sub is like $40 a year and that lets me get any media I want.
Free Shipping without prime starts at orders over $35. Who doesn’t spend at least $35 in 2024?
Our research shows that we can fill up to 80% of the visual field with ads before we induce seizures!
Pioneering a technique to insert ads into the middle of your seizures so we don’t have to worry about going over 80%
With the Amazon Alexa equipped with the GM-AL Vision System, we can time the ads between vision lapses and achieve nearly 95% ad prevalence in 91% of Prime subs.
With the Extended View VR headset equipped with new eye-opening visuals we are seeing 98% percent ad observation with only a 23% hospitalization rate for blindness and numbness of the zygomatic nerve.
Both the Amazon Alexa with GM-AL and Extended View headset will be available for $99.99 and $249.99, or $49.99 and $149.99 with a prime subscription, this next fiscal quarter.
Adverts are inevitable, these companies cannot help themselves. The temptation to double dip… A subscription from stupid saps and money from advertising. Soon the ads will creep into the other subscription tiers.
Piracy and ad blocking is the only escape.
Guess the vast majority of people are “stupid saps”
Yes.
Until they’re pushed too far
Just imagine. If you install Amazon video on an external streaming device and hook it up to a new Roku TV, you could get the pleasure of looking at multiple layers of Pause screen ads.
Prime video could absolutely get worse, don’t kid yourself.
Jesus christ do these people not understand what “Pause” means? It means my roommate just walked in and wants to discuss something. It means we’re looking at the freeze frame to see some aspect of the shot. It means the same damned collection of events should happen any time a “Pause” control’s been triggered since the invention of playback.
Why are the UX people not fighting them on this? Why does design have to be about breaking everything these days?
UX vet here.
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UX usually never ever has the final say on this stuff. Product management, finance, and marketing almost always win out in most companies. Heck, in just about every agile training that is given, people are taught that product management gets the final vote on whether or not a feature gets prioritized.
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Amazon is famous for being driven by bean counters and analysts. Many of their product development decisions are driven by measurable short term incremental tests. Amazon has never really known how to build physical or digital experiences that people love.
This is one of the reasons I went to Apple TV for my streaming box.
All the streaming services seem to be in a race to make the slowest, worst looking, least consistent application possible. And Apple at least has a bit of a hand in making them reign it in a bit, and keep the players consistent.
“ooh, we’re averaging only 75% cpu use, we can cram another shitty effect in here…”
Although this pause menu crap will 100% appear in the Apple TV too. Paramount+ and some others are already doing it.
Apple does allow video apps to use their own player, and not the default player. And many of the non-Apple players are total trash.
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UX designers present to Directors and VPs; VPs and Directors speak to their C-level; C-level and Board want more money; VPs and Directors tell UX/UI team; UX team complains; designers fired; UI outsourced at 2x rate; Ad driven website achieved; Consumer Satisfaction drops; Revenue increases; Board rich; People poor; Sad
The UX people did have that fight. It ultimately comes down to “take your check and do it, or we can find someone who will”
So why are they taking the checks? Why not fight?
Have you worked for a mega corp?
There is no fighting this head on…but there are options for you know… Some compliance friction :)
That all sounds great.
Here’s more ads
Spending all that time and money setting up my homeserver is looking better and better every day…
Yep. Just ordered 4 12tb hdds for a zfs setup
I plan to recoup the cost in cancelled subscriptions.
