Bezos has to find some cash to pay for the running costs of his yachts tho.
We can't begrudge him of a little profit to help surely.
I’d been planning to review whether I should renew my Amazon Prime Membership. I want to reduce frivolous spending and have often seen items that I do need, at lower prices elsewhere online. It seems that essentially Amazon surreptitiously charge you for the "free" delivery. I don't like that their recommendations are heavily sponsored and seem skewed to punt cheap, Chinese drek.
I barely watch Prime Video and so would certainly not miss not having it but the email I received this morning, nonetheless could be the tipping point.
“An update on Prime Video : Dear Prime member,
We are writing to you today about an upcoming change to your Prime Video experience. 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. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership. We will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional £2.99 per month.”
A reminder.
Amazon’s profits for the year to Sep. 30th 2023 were, $256,000,000,000. I think they already have enough money available "to invest in compelling content."
David
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations
Bezos has to find some cash to pay for the running costs of his yachts tho.
We can't begrudge him of a little profit to help surely.
Every year I ask my wife if we can cancel Prime and every year she nearly has a heart attack.
Curious thing with Prime is they never email me about the renewal or even send a receipt. I notice it on my credit card bill and then it’s in my order history tab.
Amazon Prime is great IMHO and well worth the money. Netflix I'm on the fence about TBH. Disney plus I need to keep for my son and we also have YouTube Premium which removes the ads and makes for a far more compelling experience.
My likely cull will centre around Sky itself - if there was a way to get Sky Sports and BT sports on their own without paying the £120p/m I currently do (includes Broadband) then I'd be over that like a rash as I rarely watch anything on Sky that isn't on one of the Sports channels.
We also have it and I've not received anything from them about this yet, but like you we did a bit of an audit on the subscriptions and streaming services we pay for and cancelled a couple before Christmas. December seemed like the worst month to get rid of Prime and we do use Prime Video a bit, but if they start adding adverts to a paid service that'll be the tipping point for me.
EDIT: Wileeeeey, that's nearly a parcel a day!! (off to check mine... :)))
Last edited by gcleminson; 3rd January 2024 at 13:56.
Cancel it. If you miss it easy enough to turn back on surely
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I've just checked my benefits; 90 packages, 1 book, 30 movies / shows, 200 songs. The last is a mistake and a result of Alexa starting to play something, when I say "resume" meaning the TV not a song.
I have 150 days remaining but I can't see me renewing. I am VERY advert adverse, so I freely admit I may be over-reacting. :)
- - - Updated - - -
Indeed.
David
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations
I had the email this morning as well, now considering whether I want to renew my Prime when it comes up at the start of February. The changes they made to Prime Music a while back have made it a sack of smelly brown stuff IMHO, I used Prime delivery less than 90 times last year, but there are a few things I watch on Prime Video. Hmmm...
Dave E
Skating away on the thin ice of a new day
Yeah, I'll keep the standard Amazon Prime for the free delivery and the TV, but after cancelling the £16 Netflix/m - I have taken up the £4.99 (with ads) service. I'm more than happy to watch and download on my Ipad, and not bother about hi-res TV.
Amazon Prime may go later this year.....................
Looks like my son is caning the videos (student digs no tv licence). With the convenience of next day delivery, it appears we’re getting pretty good vfm
I cancelled Prime when the price rose to £99 a year. I always checked prices against other sites and found many original manufacturer prices lower. Not paying for postage is a con, you pay somewhere along the line. Do you honestly think Bezos pays for your postage? I also give the delivery guy, if I catch him, a pound or two. If everyone did that, it wouldn't be such a bad job. Very little worth watching on Prime for me and to cap it all, Bezos, IMO, isn't a decent human being.
id guess adguard or pihole should be able to block these adds,
we had 192 prime deliveries last year and also use it for photo storage so i guess ill hang on to it.
I’m not sure if any ad blocker would be able to block them.
If they are at the start or end of a movie or series then I wouldn’t mind too much.
If they show them during then that’s a no go.
I'm renewing, I get more than my money's worth. Plus their customer service is top notch. Adverts are a nuisance, but I just mute and read something else.
Probably cancel mine after Reacher Season 2 has finished.
It annoys me how they keep mucking around with the Prime Video interface, with each new iteration making it harder to use. Beggars belief that you can't filter out stuff you've already watched. Also, the amount of content that has extra charges on top of the monthly fee seems to be accelerating far too much for my liking ...
I'm on a Prime trial at the moment, but I've not seen anything that really inspires me to go with it on a permanent basis.
A few TV series are OK, but not worth £9 a month, and I'm not a big film watcher and can live with waiting a few days for stuff - Even with free delivery, I can usually find the same items cheaper elsewhere.
I'd dump Netflix, too, but my wife wants to keep it and we do watch a lot more on it than Prime when we have it (usually on free trials).
We also subscribe to Disney, but that was a mistake as we bought it for our son a couple of years ago for his birthday and forgot about the auto-renew! We rarely watch anything on that, either.
The obsession that some have with having every streaming service available baffles me...
M
Last edited by snowman; 3rd January 2024 at 17:11.
Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
I get a lot of use out of Prime. Next day free delivery is incredibly convenient. Prime video has plenty of offerings that suit my taste. They just sent me the email explaining the extra £2.99 a month to continue ad free from Feb. Not over-joyed of course. But have signed up. I dislike ads intensely and £2.99 a month won't kill me.
Do these ad blockers (in effect) fast forward past the ads?
Ad breaks, I just go the kettle, fridge, toilet during these, bought nowt from Amazon in the last two years and never anything I needed NOW! Not a Bezos type customer really then.
I’m paying the extra, as much as I hate it. I’d happily pay the extra on sky to not have adverts.
In the scheme of things it’s a few pints a year & my time / relaxation is more important.
The number of times I’ve heard “Alexa - play Disney music”.
I’ve had a few free trials + joined for last month as was useful for the fast delivery. Wouldn’t continue though as I don’t use the books, music etc + most of the films are mediocre at best with a few exceptions. Good service though.
That’s interesting.
I use DNS blocking service control-d on my mobile devices but watch Amazon mainly through the tv.
I could set it up on the router though so it blocks the to. Food for thought!
Although if I do that I might end up breaking some service on my wife’s phone and getting all sorts of grief!!
Getting my money's worth
Cancelled sky 3weeks ago, it was costing £89 pm and I was only watching man u games,thought I would just get day passes on now TV. The day later now TV offered 6 months at £20 per month. Happy days
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I just use the free trials…they seem to come up often with various lengths from 1 week to a month. When there isn’t a trial available, I’ll just opt for free delivery to a locker.
I doubt I will renew next time, most items are more expensive than elsewhere and in some cases it’s cheaper to buy from Amazon without Prime paying for the postage! How can that work?
Less and less items are next day now and they won’t have the small amount of football they currently have in the future.
Ross
I cancelled prime when they jacked the price up and don’t miss it. I still buy from prime and still get free delivery to a local pick up point.
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I love Prime!
Only get prime if we need it like last minute gifts before Christmas. Every time we do I watch maybe 2 or 3 films and that's it. Not much on there. I spend more time looking what's on there than watching a film.
Mrs got Netflix just before Christmas for the first time also. Looked on there and couldn't find anything I wanted to watch. Looked a right load of tripe.
Normal TV does me fine and the few channel streaming services. Watched sleepers tonight on legend. Great film.
I don't have prime, but never pay for postage. I just put stuff in the basket until there's enough there to qualify for free delivery.
I don't have Sky, Disney, Youtube premium or any subscription other than the cheap Netflix one, and I'm cancelling that next month as I've watched everything of interest to me.
I watch YouTube through free Brave browser so there's no ads. It's pretty much all I watch now, or Iplayer which is a God-given right considering how much we pay on TV tax.
Same here , one of the first things my grandson does when he is up :). When he was about three or four he mainly shouted unintelligible things at Alexa. One day I was walking into the room and I heard Alexa say “ do you want me to learn your voice” ? No I bellowed. It was then I realised I could turn off Alexa purchases too !!!
Last edited by higham5; 4th January 2024 at 08:51.
To be fair I cannot find those stats either, I have tried on app and laptop.
As above, clicking the link then going to last payment - that just shows me my last payment which was £95 for a year's membership.
Thanks, yes I have tried that and on my account it is not there for some reason. That page simply lists a load of things I could be using such as Amazon music and then some FAQs at the bottom. I would be embarassed to see how many packages we have received so maybe they have hidden it from me haha!