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Amazon to add limited ads to Prime Video starting in early 2024

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Re: Amazon to add limited ads to Prime Video starting in early 2024

#81

Post by vel0city »

tomjen3 wrote: post #72
Mechanical9 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a necessity in society for some form of advertising. People and businesses want to communicate what products and services are available. If a random person wants the ability to start their own business, they're going to need the ability to advertise that they have a new product that they want people to try. Or they want to advertise that there's some societal issue that they want people to be aware of. Consid…

If I want to know what movies are playing, I can ask the cinema. This is far more effective for the both of us. If I want to know who is running for election, this is similarily available. As for social issues? Being able to afford to make noise has proven a drastically inferior barrier than I need.

If I only know about what movies are coming out is by asking the cinema, I'm probably going to miss out on a lot of movies I'll probably enjoy, unless I make quite the habit of asking the cinema on a very regular basis.

Re: Amazon to add limited ads to Prime Video starting in early 2024

#82

Post by thfuran »

vel0city wrote: post #80
thfuran wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you asking how someone who has never heard of the idea of a movie will find out what movie releases are upcoming? Is that really the sort of outlier we want to structure our society around?

Most of the movies I've seen were because of a poster hung someplace or a trailer playing before a movie at the theater or something sparked an interest in seeing it. Movie posters hanging on the wall are a form of advertising. If we didn't allow movie posters to be hung or trailers to be played I would have not known about a lot of movies I've enjoyed over the years.

Are you sure you wouldn't have? If you knew you like watching movies and knew that the way to find out what movies were coming out was to ask rather than have them plastered all over everything, would you really never have done so?

Re: Amazon to add limited ads to Prime Video starting in early 2024

#83

Post by vel0city »

schaefer wrote: post #57

You know what membership hasn’t shoved ads down my throat? My library card. I value it more and more every day.

I get ads all the time every time I walk into the library. Curated displays showcasing whatever author or topic they're trying to push at the time. Is that not advertising?

Not that I mind. I often find neat things in these displays that I might not have thought to look for otherwise. But isn't that kind of the point of ads, to get people to look for things they might not have otherwise known or considered?

Re: Amazon to add limited ads to Prime Video starting in early 2024

#84

Post by vel0city »

jackthetab wrote: post #61
fooster wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People do it all the time. Cable tv.

Old man yelling at clouds here. These same arguments were brought up with cable TV back in the day; one of the benefits of cable TV, we were told, was there wouldn't be any ads since we were paying for it. "There's nothing new under the sun"...

> one of the benefits of cable TV, we were told

Who told you that? Cable TV had ads on practically every channel for the first 30 years of its history, since it was just collecting and transmitting all the local broadcast stations. And even when cable-only stations came out, they often had ads. The second cable-only TV station, TBS, had ads from day one!

HBO was an outlier because it didn't have ads. It wasn't the norm.

Re: Amazon to add limited ads to Prime Video starting in early 2024

#85

Post by vel0city »

thfuran wrote: post #82
vel0city wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the movies I've seen were because of a poster hung someplace or a trailer playing before a movie at the theater or something sparked an interest in seeing it. Movie posters hanging on the wall are a form of advertising. If we didn't allow movie posters to be hung or trailers to be played I would have not known about a lot of movies I've enjoyed over the years.

Are you sure you wouldn't have? If you knew you like watching movies and knew that the way to find out what movies were coming out was to ask rather than have them plastered all over everything, would you really never have done so?

I definitely would have missed a ton of movies that I just would have never known existed.

Since having kids, I don't go to movie theaters very often. Since I don't go to theaters, I don't see the displays hyping new movies, I don't see the posters there, I don't see the trailers. I don't watch regular TV so I don't get many ads. If you were to ask me for 5 sci-fi movies that came out recently several years ago, I'd be able to easily tell you some that I at least wanted to see, if I hadn't already seen them. These days? I couldn't tell you two in the last two years. I still like movies, I'm just no longer passively surrounded by movie-info, so I don't get any of that info.

And so yeah, I'm absolutely certain I've so far missed out on many movies that I probably would have enjoyed, I just never knew they existed, largely because I haven't been exposed to any advertising of those movies. Movies that I would have known about, had I been subjected to ads for them.

I'm currently living in that world of needing to pull up the cinema's website to know what movies are out there, and I absolutely know far less about movies I'd like to see. Because I'm not going to just pull up the cinema's website every few days to see what movies are currently out there just to see "nope nothing I'm interested in", its a lot easier when the information comes to me.

I fully agree, not all advertising is good, a lot is actively harmful! But at the same time, advertising can be useful, even as the consumer.

Re: Amazon to add limited ads to Prime Video starting in early 2024

#86

Post by vel0city »

gdulli wrote: post #78
edgyquant wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's a necessity in society for some form of advertising Objectively false

The best concert I ever saw (Nightmares on Wax) was one I only knew was going to be in town from a TV commercial. I don't follow concert news. I realized recently that I only ever see blockbuster movies anymore because I've hardcore eliminated advertising from my life. I don't know what movies are coming out anymore if they're not huge and mainstream. That's kind of a bummer. Movie trailers were one kind of commercia…

Almost all concerts I've gone to without a friend taking me was because I heard about the concert on the radio.

Re: Amazon to add limited ads to Prime Video starting in early 2024

#87

Post by sys32768 »

I have found I can get fantastic deals on eBay on blu-ray and DVD titles via thrift store sellers, sometimes an entire blu-ray season for $10 shipped.

I only keep Prime because of the PBS Documentaries add-on which is fantastic, and those are difficult to find anywhere else.

Re: Amazon to add limited ads to Prime Video starting in early 2024

#88

Post by instagib »

causi wrote: post #38

The entire Prime Video thing for me has never been anything more than a parasitic money-suck for my two-day shipping.

It used to be good old shows or movies which cable viewers used to or may still watch more of. I never watched anything on it. Terrible UI.

Then, they started making more shows and movies that were good so I watched them. The pre-roll advertisements started but were skippable annoyances.

Now ad supported platforms are mixed in with prime content unless you select prime only. UI is bad again. Movies/shows stop in the middle while the app is loading ads or something. The content hasn’t improved much and the “new” section is back to old shows and movies. Back to not watching again.

Idk 1-2 day shipping would change for me since the distribution center is closer than the grocery store. I don’t think the three times I needed overnight shipping and two actually went through are worth the yearly charge. Two day shipping gets rescheduled often also.

Re: Amazon to add limited ads to Prime Video starting in early 2024

#89

Post by inversetelecine »

dazc wrote: post #34
fxtentacle wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big issue in my opinion is that movie execs have this misguided belief that if you stop people from pirating your content, every prevented download will turn into a sale at full price. But I expect that people will simply stop watching mediocre movie and low-effort series. Or wait for rebates, like those people who avoid cinema and then rent the bluray later. As a result of this misunderstanding, they try technic…

Same thing with the music industry fighting torrents for years until finally accepting that people will gladly pay a fair price.

Except, they still fight torrents.

Re: Amazon to add limited ads to Prime Video starting in early 2024

#90

Post by inversetelecine »

sys32768 wrote: post #87

I have found I can get fantastic deals on eBay on blu-ray and DVD titles via thrift store sellers, sometimes an entire blu-ray season for $10 shipped. I only keep Prime because of the PBS Documentaries add-on which is fantastic, and those are difficult to find anywhere else.

Indeed. Even Amazon third-party has good deals on used discs. I miss FamilyVideo who had tons of rental discs for sale for $2-$5 during sales and $5-10 normally.
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