I flat out do not watch ads. If a platform has ads, I do not watch it full stop. I pay YouTube for no ads. If I lost that option, I would not watch YouTube. Same with all of the other streaming services. Netflix pushed it last year with preview rolls. It was barely acceptable/tolerable. But I will eagerly jettison any service that makes me pay for ads. Heck, I even look askance at people who willingly pay money to un…
Amazon Prime Video content to start including ads next year
311–320 of 335 posts
Re: Amazon Prime Video content to start including ads next year
#312I flat out do not watch ads. If a platform has ads, I do not watch it full stop. I pay YouTube for no ads. If I lost that option, I would not watch YouTube. Same with all of the other streaming services. Netflix pushed it last year with preview rolls. It was barely acceptable/tolerable. But I will eagerly jettison any service that makes me pay for ads. Heck, I even look askance at people who willingly pay money to un…
> I pay YouTube for no ads Except you still do get ads. With every single major YouTube video dropping a "now to talk about our sponsor" segment.
SponsorBlock is an amazing tool to stop this. I’m constantly surprised at how well it works.
Re: Amazon Prime Video content to start including ads next year
#313Re: Amazon Prime Video content to start including ads next year
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nor sure why anyone would expect somwthkng else. Streaming doesn’t make things any cheaper than traditional tv, production might be slightly cheaper but not because of streaming. Shareholders still want the same roi. Everything being VoD is a pretty nice feature though.
> Streaming doesn’t make things any cheaper than traditional tv Streaming is oodles cheaper than owning traditional TV station.
It really isn't cheaper. Netflix pays $1bil/yr to aws. The only advantage streaming providers have is that you're already paying for an internet connection. But TV over internet solutions have been a thing for a long time so even this doesn't really matter. At the end of the day it's just bits going through a plastic tube from one computer to another. If anything, the 1 to 1 on-demand aspect of streaming would make this the more expensive option.
Re: Amazon Prime Video content to start including ads next year
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Streaming doesn’t make things any cheaper than traditional tv Streaming is oodles cheaper than owning traditional TV station.
But the networks didn’t (mostly) own the traditional TV stations. Streaming cuts the middlemen out of the loop which is probably a bit cheaper though overall.
The new middlemen are cloud (unless you're amazon/google) and internet providers.
Re: Amazon Prime Video content to start including ads next year
#316I flat out do not watch ads. If a platform has ads, I do not watch it full stop. I pay YouTube for no ads. If I lost that option, I would not watch YouTube. Same with all of the other streaming services. Netflix pushed it last year with preview rolls. It was barely acceptable/tolerable. But I will eagerly jettison any service that makes me pay for ads. Heck, I even look askance at people who willingly pay money to un…
> I flat out do not watch ads
You must not have lived before the Internet or streaming video.
There used be this thing called Cable TV, where every few minutes the show was interrupted to show several 30 second commercials. You could not skip them.
There was no amount of money you could pay to avoid this horror. Only the strongest of humans had what it took to go without. The rest of us were brainwashed into buying detergent.
Re: Amazon Prime Video content to start including ads next year
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
If he'd stopped when he had enough, I wouldn't be able to order stuff at 23:00 and have it delivered at 07:00. If Musk had stopped when he had enough, I won't be able to take weekend vacations to orbital hotels in my lifetime. Enough money to live comfortably is just one goal; building cool things is another orthogonal one.
When those “cool things” are made through exploitation (and they are), being ok with it makes you a deplorable shithead. These are not things worth the human costs associated.
Who is being exploited and how?
Re: Amazon Prime Video content to start including ads next year
#318Whilst I use prime video, thats only because it comes 'for free' alongside shipping, which (at least in the UK) still is pretty good in terms of next-day, sometimes even same day. I wish they would do a cheaper tier without all these additional 'benefits' (Video, Music, Twitch etc), but I suspect the reality is that its sort of a loss leader even without those benefits.
Good news then, that’s what they did. You get a $36/year discount for not getting ad free movies and a $120/year discount for not getting music.
Its still gone up from the original price to £95 a year though, removing features now, such as ad-free video, doesn't come with a discount. In fact there is no option to totally opt out of video and pay less tha £95.
Re: Amazon Prime Video content to start including ads next year
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
> quasi-monopoly AKA, not a monopoly. Monopoly is such a funny buzzword to me because it's both wildly misused and completely misunderstood to be an inherently bad thing. In reality, there is rarely a true monopoly and the only bad thing about them is that they enable anti-competitive behavior and that's the thing that's illegal and bad. Amazon "quasi-monopoly" comes from having the best service. Great service is goo…
No true Scotsman argument aside, anti-competitive practices by very powerful firms are a bad thing, even if the firm got the market power because they have or had the best product.
> No true Scotsman argument
I was wary of the phrasing when I was writing it because of that but I don't think it's a "no true scotsman" argument because there is a real legal definition of monopoly that they clearly don't even come close to satisfying. I probably should have replaced the word "true" with "real" or "legal".
Re: Amazon Prime Video content to start including ads next year
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
When those “cool things” are made through exploitation (and they are), being ok with it makes you a deplorable shithead. These are not things worth the human costs associated.
Who is being exploited and how?
The workers who are worked to the bone, while the profit goes to the shareholders. Don’t pretend to not know how terrible Amazon treats its labor.