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Amazon Prime Video will start showing ads on January 29th unless you pay extra for ad-free (www.theverge.com)

submitted 2 years ago by return2ozma@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] baltakatei@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Amazon replacements:

Audiobooks: Libro.fm (no DRM)
eBooks: eBooks.com (specifically, their DRM-free section)
Shopping: basically any major online retailer's website
Electronics: System76 (for gaming machines), ThinkPenguin (for FOSS machines)
Groceries: your local grocer, lol.

As for video streaming, it's going to take a breakup of the Big Tech monopolies via revival of anti-trust laws to fix that. Hear the first chapter of The Internet Con (skip to 2m5s) by Cory Doctorow for more on that.

[–] rockerface@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

The only reason I still have Prime Video is because of a super weird bug where it tries to charge an already expired card. Somehow, it doesn't register as expired and I can just "renew" it every month

[–] lambda@programming.dev 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Honestly. I'm surprised they haven't done this sooner. Prince video is included with a normal prime subscription. So, with some of the originals they've produced and paying for the rights to many movies/shows, they are probably bleeding money with this service..

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[–] auroraborealiz@sopuli.xyz 0 points 2 years ago

Lol time to unprime

[+] Clbull@lemmy.world -25 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

This may be a shocker to many of you but it costs money to produce TV shows.

Cable was lucrative because of the subscription fees and the fact that channels could still run ads. People are now expecting to pay $10 a month for access to everything ad-free when previously they'd have to pay multiple times this amount to watch shows at scheduled times, and still sit through ad breaks. There was no such thing as an online on-demand catalogue just fifteen years ago.

Now imagine that networks are making far less money per viewer, have to pump out shitloads of original content to keep people subscribed (and in the case of Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and others, mitigate the risk of copyright holders jacking up fees for third party content), can't run ads to supplement their income and have to deal with huge levels of inflation because governments had to print a fucktonne of money to bail us out of a financial crisis and a global pandemic.

Piracy has raised a generation of entitled cheapskates that refuse to pay for content, and these are the people who are most likely going to break a lot of studios and publishers.

The only real saving grace here is that this could be the downfall of Disney, which would be a net boon for copyright reform. Disney are the core reason why US copyright law is so fucked and why we're only now close to seeing Steamboat Willie (first Mickey Mouse cartoon from 1924) enter the public domain.

[–] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 years ago

I hope that downvotes are mainly due to the cheapskate remark, because most of the post is quite correct. The fact that people think they have a right to enjoy entertaiment that costs millions to produce and which not only make a profit, but also emplys thousands, many super skilled, foe free, is just plain wrong.

[–] KevonLooney@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Speaking of entitled cheapskates, most of the good content is older shows not new ones. Most of these streaming providers are coasting on shows and movies made before they existed.

I don't care about the "cost of new shows" because most of them suck. Just because you have a big CGI budget doesn't mean you made a good show. Not only that, but good new shows are all cancelled after one or two seasons.

The reason for this is obvious: creating a new show adds another "square" on the Netflix screen. Adding more seasons to an old show doesn't. Plus you can advertise "new show" and people will just watch to see what it is. Viewers need to stop watching things just because they're "new".

[–] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago

Capitalism is fucking the world raw every minute of every day. People will get what they can to mitigate the existentiel crisis they got plunged into. I gladly pay for concerts, cinéma and music CDs, always have. These companies make profits and fatten multimillionnaire executives while providing a poor service. I agree that we've gotten used to plentiful content and it's spoiled us. What's called for, imho, is a reimagination of distribution schemes and redistribution of wealth. I want actors paid a normal wage, more public funding of cinéma (or at all, depending on the country) and semi-public platforms that don't seek profit. To give an example of what I mean, there is madelen.ina.fr which is an archive of french tv and cinéma, accessible for 3€ a month, existing under the umbrella of the INA (national institute of tv)

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