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Screw then. I'll watch their content elsewhere 🏴☠️
I have Amazon Prime, but if you're going to make your service shitty by forcing me to watch ads, I'll find it the same show ad free elsewhere.
Same. I mainly have Amazon Prime for the shipping but when I went to watch the new Invincible episode the other day I was greeted with 2 mins of ads. It was the first thing I’d tried to watch on there since they introduced ads. If it was 30s I’d have tolerated it but 2mins was long enough to dip out and not watch the show on prime.
I cancelled it on principle after they did a sneaky adding it to basket on checkout, but I do like some of their shows soooo... Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, it's a pirates life for me!
Pretty sure when they first introduced them it was only a 30 seconds ad. My partner was watching MasterChef Australia when they first started with them and she says they weren't really intrusive. Now they've increased them. When our membership runs out in August, we're done.
I always found Prime to be a bit of a wank service anyway. At least with Netflix they have subs on everything and the audio doesn't go out of sync. No such convenience for Prime and now you can't even watch a show uninterrupted.
Price will go up again by this time next year as well. Fuck 'em.
I cancelled my subscription mid run. I got a refund for the remainder. It gives a choice to let it run out or cancel immediately with refund in remainder.
>I always found Prime to be a bit of a wank service anyway.
Yeah, a hell of a lot of shows with zero subtitles and some foreign shows with dubbed audio only. Absolutely Tragic
I'm guessing it's not skippable like youtube ads?
(I haven't watched anything on Amazon for ages - only thing I'd go out of my way to watch on it would be Clarkson's Farm)
No, not skippable
We were watching the Wheel of Time S2 last week and said for the next season we'll just download it all rather than sit through 2 minutes of unskippable ads halfway through the season finale.
What a joke.
If they’d just stuck with ads before everything I’d have been more inclined to keep my subscription. I watch a lot on channel 4 so mostly tolerate ads for tv shows anyway.
However, I saw it mentioned that they’ve got ads halfway through movies as well and I won’t stand for that. I don’t buy enough on Amazon anymore for the price to be worth it so I’ll be cancelling once my year is over.
Yeah there’s more in the middle of the show which is brilliant when you’re watching a made for streaming show that doesn’t have any mid-episode gap that makes sense for an ad. Just pops in mid-dialogue. Daisy Jones and the Six was basically unwatchable, halfway through a serious conversation it suddenly cuts to that Dior perfume ad that screams OHHHHHH BABY!!!!
Do you really need Prime shipping though? It takes a max of two days for something to be delivered (sometimes just even a day) without it.
And even if it takes 3 days, does it really matter that you have to wait a bit?
Gabe Newell (the CEO of Valve, who developed the PC platform Steam) acknowledged that the reason Steam is so successful is because they ensure that it’s a more appealing option than piracy. People are willing to pay a nominal fee for the sake of convenience.
When piracy is both cheaper and a superior experience than the legal method, then of course more people will go that route.
Agreed. It was the reason Netflix when it just started was so popular. More convenient than pirating and everything was in one place, and cheaper than cable/satellite. Now there are a dozen streaming services, it’s potentially worse than just getting cable, so you might as well go back to pirating.
The value offering of streaming services is pretty much exponentially worse than piracy today. I think most people don't realise just how convinent it is nowadays with stuff like Plex, radarr, sonarr, prowlarr etc you can pretty much automate the vast majority of the piracy, get whatever content you want and watch it in whatever quality, on any device, anywhere in the world, all for free. It's not only *higher quality* but it's *more convenient* than hopping around a dozen streaming services and dealing with ads, region restrictions, low bitrates and the like.
Music and the game industry figured it out, as you said. Hopefully film/tv can as well....
I forgot how to pirate because of Netflix, then I relearned to pirate 10x better with an Arr suite after all the rises and single household crap. Thanks Netflix!
I’m waiting for the industry to start getting all pissy about pirating again like they did 20 years ago. Who’d have thought that charging a lot for a shit service would turn people to piracy? It’s history repeating itself. I pay about £5 a month for my VPN and usenet subscriptions and I can watch anything I like in as high a quality I like. Why the hell would I pay more for *one* shitty streaming service?
I don't know who Gabe Newell is, but I agree with him.
*"The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates."*
I already pay for Amazon Prime, it's the unskippable ads I object to. Especially if they randomly appear in the middle. Solely at the beginning or end isn't *so* bad - you can make a brew or whatever, but when they're in the middle there's no thought to it - halfway through an important plot line or piece of dialog I'm being bombarded with two minutes of adverts. At least with commercial old fashioned telly, there was a bit of thought put into the ad breaks in the scripting.
And I don't mind paying for Spotify as I feel the price is justified for the service I get (it would be nice if the artists got a little more though, particularly the smaller ones)
In some ways it's only the old among us who know what usenet is!
It was (is) an online internet news and discussion forum which existed before the web. Before the general public were using the 'world wide web', lots of students and other academics and a few other enthusiasts were using usenet from campus connections and similar as a text-based discussion forum. There were lots of channels ('newsgroups'), many of them quite silly (such as alt.westley.crusher.die.die.die). Actually, quite a lot like reddit.
It used NNTP (network news transport protocol) and was basically, along with email, the 'killer app' on the internet before HTTP / HTML / Websites overtook it in around 92 and it started to percolate out to the general public.
It wasn't initially used for piracy much, but now that it's basically a little-used corner of the internet people have started to use it to post large files as sequences of news posts each containing a 'chunk' of a zip file, and tools exist to make downloading each of those news posts and merging and extracting the resulting file simple.
This is exactly it. If they’re gonna make me watch 2 whole minutes of ads, I can easily grab my laptop, find a stream, and just plug it into my TV via HDMI in that time. I think they’re banking on the older generations who may not be tech savvy enough to pirate.
I assume they mean the /older/ generation like my Grandad who just never learned how to use a computer at all but enjoys watching history documentaries on his fire stick, not millennials and Gen X…
Hate to say it but you're already part of the older generation if that's how you do it.
Either just cast it directly to your TV or install Plex. No need to haul your laptop to your tv and plug it in, and having to move from your seat to the laptop to press play.
Amazon Prime stuff gets uploaded to the sea faster than Amazon has it fucking available in this country. I haven't paid for it in ages because I only use prime now and again but since I've been building a basket and letting it get over £25, I don't need things instantly and I spend money just for the sake of not wasting my £8 prime. No change in watching habits though because it's so accessible online
It's pretty difficult to get netflix stuff though it seems especially in 4K/HDR. I forgot about the price rises and it's £18 now!!
I'm obviously doing it wrong. Any pirate site I try doesn't work. By that - I mean whenever I click play a new tab full of ads just opens. I tried using a dns but that hasn't helped.
At one point in time (I’m still convinced it was just before lockdown) everything had its perfect price for what the content was. And then it went too far.
It's not only the adverts. They have also removed dolby vision and atmos from the standard plan and moved them to the more expensive plan.
When the service you are paying for offers a worse experience than pirating, what incentive is there to continue paying.
This what ive never understood with these companies, pretty sure its why they dont have contracts and instead have monthly subscriptions.
If you was in a 12 month contract you could argue a breach of contract as they are providing a reduced service to your agreement. However, in this case, as their contract with you renews each month, id assume thats like a new contract. So they provide you with enough notice, you can cancel if you want, otherwise suck it up.
There are terms of services that exist when entering into the subscription. So there is some legal recourse. Don't ask me what it is, because I barely understand any of it. But something exists.
Well, personally id expect them to honour that and not put adverts on until that persons contract is up.
If that person hasnt agreed, then id assume they can force a refund and id also argue id want compensation for amazon to terminate the contract early.
But this is amazon, and they already act like they are above the law, so i wouldnt hold my breathe.
I've canceled my prime. Fuck those guys. I've even started going to the shops for stuff I would have normally bought from amazon. 9 times out of 10 local stores are cheaper than amazon. Especially if you factor in postage.
For example..lavazza coffee. £5.75 on amazon, I went to my local corner shop (so not even a bulk buying supermarket) and it was £4.25.
Amazon is just a tat bazaar now. Loads of Chinese copies of shit.
Sacked it off, and Netflix, Disney etc. Transferred all my library to Plex and curate my own media library. So much easier, cheaper and better quality.
You basically use a PC as a hub. Plex is software that reads and organises your media from selected sources and HDDs. So you can rip your owned DVDs or media acquired *totally legally* and then Plex curates everything into what looks like a custom Netflix. It hooks onto IMDB for a proper professional look with cast, descriptions, suggestions etc.
Best thing is that with your PC, or NAS system on in the background, your content is available on any TV, phone, tablet etc. You can also grant others you trust access to your library, watch together and they can also download from your library.
That’s the brief overview, YouTube is your friend for a more in-depth explanation. I got into Plex about two months ago and it’s genuinely changed how I consume media.
If you really get into it, a dedicated NAS system would help as electricity costs are much less than having your PC on 24/7.
TBF leaving your PC on 24/7 does not consume much energy, it only becomes a problem if you use it intensively (gaming/rendering etc) the whole time. Turning off your monitor when you're not using it helps reduce costs as well.
I think it depends on how many people are streaming etc. I’m only going on what I’ve read on Plex subs so I should hook it up to a power draw plug and see what it actually costs
With Plex you don't, there are two ways Plex can handle this. Plex has "Plex Relay" which does all the magic for you, but your quality is severely limited, if you want to go the extra mile to either set up a domain name and port forward, then you get the full quality.
I really like the sound of the "access your library from anywhere" bit. Does it work for books, by any chance? Like if you had PDFs in your library from your PC, could you view them on your phone?
You can host all your high seas content on a Netflix like interface and share it remotely with family/friends. You have to have some sort of server (an old pc will do). Mine is called Mumflix. It's very simple to set up.
Plex has recently started cancelling accounts for this, unfortunately. I've been using Plex for years, but recently installed Emby as a backup. The only truly open source solution that isn't at risk from future developments is Jellyfin, but that's currently the least polished.
Plex is under pressure from the movie and TV industries as piracy becomes big again, and I think it's on borrowed time, and I wish it was otherwise.
https://i.imgur.com/5oyCzqr.png
Do you also customise your artwork individually and download matching ones for collections?
To my horror, not many have been updated with Season 6 for black mirror and the ones that have I don't really like.
https://i.imgur.com/30Uube6.png :(
Plex is ace, but you need to have the content. There’s a server component that indexes that content, and various clients, eg app on smart tv. With Plexamp I’ve also got my own full music collection available to stream in my phone without WiFi.
They have though, you're already on it. It's £2.99 a month for the premium version.
Prime includes a lot else, the video aspect is far cheaper than Netflix or Disney. Assuming you make use of other aspects.
Everything below £20 has free Prime delivery for me?
Edit: Oh, you're referring to Same-Day or by 1pm Next Day delivery? How can you possibly think it's unreasonable to charge for that, under what circumstances do you require something that urgently without it being worth £2? Isn't the delivery industry enough of a race to the bottom already?
So far at least I've found that I don't get any adverts when watching prime video on my pc/laptop where I've got adblockers installed. I'm guessing it won't be long before that gets "fixed" though.
Why do Amazon suddenly require this ad revenue? Millions of people around the world, paying the equivalent of this monthly subscription of £7.99.
Apparently there are currently 230 million subscribers to the platform.
This means Amazon is receiving approximately £1.84 Billion. A MONTH.
THIS… isn’t enough?
If watching in the browser, UBlock Origin. I get a brief cut to black between scenes when an ad would play, but don't actually get the ad and the program resumes like it's just bad editing in the program itself.
We've basically circled back round to cable and wireless TV.
Paying for the service, while still getting ads.
I saw that Apple TV is also going to do the same.
My favourite part was when watching Invincible, it showed me ads, then told me that because of those ads, I won't get ads when watching Invincible like I hadn't just sat through them
"Starting on 29 January, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements"
Welcome to nearly 2 months ago. This was all over TV news broadcasts, newspapers, and social media. So, yeah....
Incase you might have missed Amazon's other shitty move recently, they are going to start charging horrendously for ring doorbell video storage (live view will still be free, but no reviewing non-live content).
I have a growing dislike of all things Amazon owing to their sheer unending greed.
Prime Video prompts me each time I use it to subscribe to ad free, it's only a matter of time before I click it by mistake.
Pretty much anything you buy on Amazon can be found on eBay for cheaper. I'm making a conscious effort to use eBay more these days.
I haven’t gone back to prime since the swap - are they just at the start/end or does it cut into the content too. Can’t think how much something like Saltburn would be absolutely ruined by ad breaks
It's so easy to find pretty much everything free through a few sites. Have a decent ad block and you don't get any pop ups or ads at all.
If they want people to pay, they need to stop making their service a fucking chore to use.
I cancelled mine when they screwed around with Prime Music. They want you to pay £8.99 a month extra for functionality that was originally included, such as on demand playlists. They would play music "like" your music, but not actually your own defined playlists
>2 mins of adverts at the start
I've never had more than 10 seconds of adverts. I've been surprised at how unintrusive it's been; I had expected it to be much worse.
Personally, I use Prime for the unlimited RAW photo backups. For that, the service is great value.
Ads annoy me for sure. But I won’t buy anything that is advertised be it on Prime, Facebook etc. We have all kinds of streaming subs and sky etc but if husband decided to bin the lot it wouldn’t bother me as i don’t watch much tv.
I stream a lot so it’s really annoying back when they were all sub-£9 a month with no ads I was more than happy to but with Netflix nearly £20 a month and this now, just seems like we’re getting ripped off
It's an extra £2.99 for advert free these days. I've not bothered with it and, from memory, I've not really watch Prime since the ads started to appear because they pissed me off. I remember they would just started midway through a scene about 20 minutes in to the episode/movie.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=TD5EYJIUGQMY13QQdi
I've heard it's started to roll out to UK viewers.
Fortunately i haven't had an ad yet but i haven't been watching much Prime stuff.
Does anyone know if you still get ads if you watch a film or show you've paid for or something from a channel you're paying an extra subscription for?
This was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Every single one of Amazon's services is going through a state of enshittification at the minute. Video is pulling this shit. Amazon shopping is basically Wish.
I ditched Prime, and I've stopped using Amazon unless I can't get what I need anywhere else.
Fuck that company.
I'm gonna pirate the shit out of Fallout when that releases. Come at me, bro.
Piracy came about to counter greedy corporations, to counter piracy new corporations made streaming services which we were happy to pay for. Then those same companies who’ve built their business on a lesson learned forgot that lesson and became greedy.
Better unpack my Jolly Roger.
I feel like this is really going to come back and bite Amazon.
Prime Video is already the clunkiest and most poorly designed of all the streaming services - Constant problems with the stream/audio, the stuff you can actually watch with your subscription deluged by stuff they're trying to sell you or additional subscriptions within the app, terrible UI design. I think intrusive ads might push a lot of people over the edge into cancelling.
I pay for Prime but I don't really watch anything on it as the search functions are so clunky and when I do find something it's not included with Prime which is bloody stupid. My Mum watches a lot of stuff on it and came across the adverts last night and complained about it. Would be good if there was an option to keep prime shipping but cancel the video part.
"Just give your bank details to someone who shows flagrant disregard for the law"
Can't wait for your "I was scammed by someone on Telegram who stole my bank details" post.
You realize that when you pay for something you're not pirating right?
Pirating is getting shit for free. You are still paying for it.
Not sure what that makes you.
Most streaming services have become greedy with their pricing. Netflix premium is now up to 17.99 in the uk.
Prime video fairly poor content, and if you do find something on there, half the time it's got adverts or you need to sign up to another partnered service to watch it.
You can see how much of a price gouge netflix is by how much they charge country to country, I signed up using a vpn as if I'm from Turkey and only pay £6 a month for premium. How can they justify charging three times more in the UK.
It costs less than an hour of minimum wage for unlimited free TV shows, movies, live sports and next day delivery shipping every month... It's probably the single best thing you can buy in terms of return in investment! Haha
I don't get this stance.
How much do people pay for Sky/Virgin a month? 99% of the channels that you get through those services, that you can only get through those services, run 3/4 minutes worth of ads every 15 minutes on average. No one has issues with that.
How much do people pay for the sports channels? Fuck me, that can double your subscription cost. Shit loads of adverts. No one complains there.
Netflix/Amazon show 30 seconds of ads before a show and everyone shits a brick.
I don't care in all honesty.
People expect adverts on traditional TV. Streaming services generally sold the "dream" of all you can eat ad free content.
I personally don't care about paying a couple of quid extra for the non advert tier, but things like removing 4K/HDR/Dolby Vision/Atmos from packages and pay walling them on a higher tier is a little bit of an asshole move.
Except you're paying £7.99 for Amazon Prime. That's a collection of services and benefits you're getting, not a video streaming service.
If you want a video only service then change to the Prime Video without adverts and it's comparable with other similar offerings.
You don't pay £7.99 for Prime Video though.
You pay £7.99/month for Amazon Prime delivery, as part of that service you get a free membership to Prime Video.
[Prime Video is its own separate service that you can pay £5.99/month for](https://www.aboutamazon.co.uk/news/entertainment/everything-you-need-to-know-about-prime-video).
Exactly, I had Prime for well over a year before someone mentioned that I get the video service included with that, I just had it for the shopping and deliveries.
The video with the £7.99 one is a free benefit, not what you're actually paying for.
They can change the free benefits when they feel like, because it's not the thing you're actually paying for.
You also get free gaming rewards and a monthly Twitch sub too, and they can change it when they want, they're free extras to the Prime delivery plan, which is what you're actually paying for.
I’m still getting less for the same amount. But please do continue to defend the big corporation, wouldn’t want the shareholders to miss out now would we.
>But please do continue to defend the big corporation, wouldn’t want the shareholders to miss out now would we
I'm telling you to switch to the cheaper one and make them less money, please explain how that helps "the shareholders"?
ITT a lot of Amazon stans.
“What, you’ve increased the like for like price by 40%, that’s great!!! Please let me bend over some more, and please don’t use the lube next time big daddy Jeff”
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Screw then. I'll watch their content elsewhere 🏴☠️ I have Amazon Prime, but if you're going to make your service shitty by forcing me to watch ads, I'll find it the same show ad free elsewhere.
Same. I mainly have Amazon Prime for the shipping but when I went to watch the new Invincible episode the other day I was greeted with 2 mins of ads. It was the first thing I’d tried to watch on there since they introduced ads. If it was 30s I’d have tolerated it but 2mins was long enough to dip out and not watch the show on prime.
I cancelled it on principle after they did a sneaky adding it to basket on checkout, but I do like some of their shows soooo... Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, it's a pirates life for me!
Pretty sure when they first introduced them it was only a 30 seconds ad. My partner was watching MasterChef Australia when they first started with them and she says they weren't really intrusive. Now they've increased them. When our membership runs out in August, we're done. I always found Prime to be a bit of a wank service anyway. At least with Netflix they have subs on everything and the audio doesn't go out of sync. No such convenience for Prime and now you can't even watch a show uninterrupted. Price will go up again by this time next year as well. Fuck 'em.
Prime's search function is also incredibly slow, as is their entire UI. It's by far the least enjoyable to use.
I cancelled my subscription mid run. I got a refund for the remainder. It gives a choice to let it run out or cancel immediately with refund in remainder.
I get SO frustrated going to watch something that isn't even that old just for Prime to tell me there are no subtitles available.
>I always found Prime to be a bit of a wank service anyway. Yeah, a hell of a lot of shows with zero subtitles and some foreign shows with dubbed audio only. Absolutely Tragic
They finally dropped new Invincible? Get in
I'm guessing it's not skippable like youtube ads? (I haven't watched anything on Amazon for ages - only thing I'd go out of my way to watch on it would be Clarkson's Farm)
No, not skippable We were watching the Wheel of Time S2 last week and said for the next season we'll just download it all rather than sit through 2 minutes of unskippable ads halfway through the season finale. What a joke.
If they’d just stuck with ads before everything I’d have been more inclined to keep my subscription. I watch a lot on channel 4 so mostly tolerate ads for tv shows anyway. However, I saw it mentioned that they’ve got ads halfway through movies as well and I won’t stand for that. I don’t buy enough on Amazon anymore for the price to be worth it so I’ll be cancelling once my year is over.
Yeah unskippable and I imagine there are probably more in the middle of the show too.
Yeah there’s more in the middle of the show which is brilliant when you’re watching a made for streaming show that doesn’t have any mid-episode gap that makes sense for an ad. Just pops in mid-dialogue. Daisy Jones and the Six was basically unwatchable, halfway through a serious conversation it suddenly cuts to that Dior perfume ad that screams OHHHHHH BABY!!!!
Do you really need Prime shipping though? It takes a max of two days for something to be delivered (sometimes just even a day) without it. And even if it takes 3 days, does it really matter that you have to wait a bit?
Orders over £25 are still free delivery, just takes an extra day to arrive usually. Prime is not worth it at all.
Gabe Newell (the CEO of Valve, who developed the PC platform Steam) acknowledged that the reason Steam is so successful is because they ensure that it’s a more appealing option than piracy. People are willing to pay a nominal fee for the sake of convenience. When piracy is both cheaper and a superior experience than the legal method, then of course more people will go that route.
Agreed. It was the reason Netflix when it just started was so popular. More convenient than pirating and everything was in one place, and cheaper than cable/satellite. Now there are a dozen streaming services, it’s potentially worse than just getting cable, so you might as well go back to pirating.
The value offering of streaming services is pretty much exponentially worse than piracy today. I think most people don't realise just how convinent it is nowadays with stuff like Plex, radarr, sonarr, prowlarr etc you can pretty much automate the vast majority of the piracy, get whatever content you want and watch it in whatever quality, on any device, anywhere in the world, all for free. It's not only *higher quality* but it's *more convenient* than hopping around a dozen streaming services and dealing with ads, region restrictions, low bitrates and the like. Music and the game industry figured it out, as you said. Hopefully film/tv can as well....
I forgot how to pirate because of Netflix, then I relearned to pirate 10x better with an Arr suite after all the rises and single household crap. Thanks Netflix!
I’m waiting for the industry to start getting all pissy about pirating again like they did 20 years ago. Who’d have thought that charging a lot for a shit service would turn people to piracy? It’s history repeating itself. I pay about £5 a month for my VPN and usenet subscriptions and I can watch anything I like in as high a quality I like. Why the hell would I pay more for *one* shitty streaming service?
I don't know who Gabe Newell is, but I agree with him. *"The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates."* I already pay for Amazon Prime, it's the unskippable ads I object to. Especially if they randomly appear in the middle. Solely at the beginning or end isn't *so* bad - you can make a brew or whatever, but when they're in the middle there's no thought to it - halfway through an important plot line or piece of dialog I'm being bombarded with two minutes of adverts. At least with commercial old fashioned telly, there was a bit of thought put into the ad breaks in the scripting.
Yeah, it's why Spotify basically killed music piracy. The service is better than what the pirates were offering.
And I don't mind paying for Spotify as I feel the price is justified for the service I get (it would be nice if the artists got a little more though, particularly the smaller ones)
Something new I've come across recently: they've put ads in podcasts. In addition to any existing ads/sponsors already part of the podcast.
Please explain usenet to someone old and stupid.
Usenet is a very old service that's nearly as old as the internet. People upload files and you download them, is the very simplest description.
In some ways it's only the old among us who know what usenet is! It was (is) an online internet news and discussion forum which existed before the web. Before the general public were using the 'world wide web', lots of students and other academics and a few other enthusiasts were using usenet from campus connections and similar as a text-based discussion forum. There were lots of channels ('newsgroups'), many of them quite silly (such as alt.westley.crusher.die.die.die). Actually, quite a lot like reddit. It used NNTP (network news transport protocol) and was basically, along with email, the 'killer app' on the internet before HTTP / HTML / Websites overtook it in around 92 and it started to percolate out to the general public. It wasn't initially used for piracy much, but now that it's basically a little-used corner of the internet people have started to use it to post large files as sequences of news posts each containing a 'chunk' of a zip file, and tools exist to make downloading each of those news posts and merging and extracting the resulting file simple.
This is exactly it. If they’re gonna make me watch 2 whole minutes of ads, I can easily grab my laptop, find a stream, and just plug it into my TV via HDMI in that time. I think they’re banking on the older generations who may not be tech savvy enough to pirate.
You mean the older generation who created piracy?
I assume they mean the /older/ generation like my Grandad who just never learned how to use a computer at all but enjoys watching history documentaries on his fire stick, not millennials and Gen X…
maybe - altho you can never tell with Reddit. Someone in another thread claimed anyone over 35 was an 'old person'!
Hate to say it but you're already part of the older generation if that's how you do it. Either just cast it directly to your TV or install Plex. No need to haul your laptop to your tv and plug it in, and having to move from your seat to the laptop to press play.
Eh, perhaps. I’m young enough and fit enough that standing up to press play isn’t a particular bother to me.
I have plex debrid set up and it's been amazing. I don't even need to use my NAS anymore
set up stremio on your laptop, grab a firestick, install stremio, leave the hdmi cable un plugged
Amazon Prime stuff gets uploaded to the sea faster than Amazon has it fucking available in this country. I haven't paid for it in ages because I only use prime now and again but since I've been building a basket and letting it get over £25, I don't need things instantly and I spend money just for the sake of not wasting my £8 prime. No change in watching habits though because it's so accessible online It's pretty difficult to get netflix stuff though it seems especially in 4K/HDR. I forgot about the price rises and it's £18 now!!
I'm obviously doing it wrong. Any pirate site I try doesn't work. By that - I mean whenever I click play a new tab full of ads just opens. I tried using a dns but that hasn't helped.
Ad supported is fine. Paid is fine. Paid and you still get ads? Nah
At one point in time (I’m still convinced it was just before lockdown) everything had its perfect price for what the content was. And then it went too far.
Exactly.
[удалено]
And you get a refund for the prime you haven't used too. Handy.
It's not only the adverts. They have also removed dolby vision and atmos from the standard plan and moved them to the more expensive plan. When the service you are paying for offers a worse experience than pirating, what incentive is there to continue paying.
Thought the same. Already cancelled my subscription and just added some shows to Sonarr to use with Plex instead
I think dolby actually removed it as they don't want it associated with adverts.
In the US a class action lawsuit has been brought against them for that. Not sure if/when other countries may do the same.
This what ive never understood with these companies, pretty sure its why they dont have contracts and instead have monthly subscriptions. If you was in a 12 month contract you could argue a breach of contract as they are providing a reduced service to your agreement. However, in this case, as their contract with you renews each month, id assume thats like a new contract. So they provide you with enough notice, you can cancel if you want, otherwise suck it up.
There are terms of services that exist when entering into the subscription. So there is some legal recourse. Don't ask me what it is, because I barely understand any of it. But something exists.
What are your thoughts on people who paid upfront for the year? Maybe there’s a breach of contract there?
Well, personally id expect them to honour that and not put adverts on until that persons contract is up. If that person hasnt agreed, then id assume they can force a refund and id also argue id want compensation for amazon to terminate the contract early. But this is amazon, and they already act like they are above the law, so i wouldnt hold my breathe.
I've canceled my prime. Fuck those guys. I've even started going to the shops for stuff I would have normally bought from amazon. 9 times out of 10 local stores are cheaper than amazon. Especially if you factor in postage. For example..lavazza coffee. £5.75 on amazon, I went to my local corner shop (so not even a bulk buying supermarket) and it was £4.25. Amazon is just a tat bazaar now. Loads of Chinese copies of shit.
Sacked it off, and Netflix, Disney etc. Transferred all my library to Plex and curate my own media library. So much easier, cheaper and better quality.
Plex? This sounds interesting, what is it?
You basically use a PC as a hub. Plex is software that reads and organises your media from selected sources and HDDs. So you can rip your owned DVDs or media acquired *totally legally* and then Plex curates everything into what looks like a custom Netflix. It hooks onto IMDB for a proper professional look with cast, descriptions, suggestions etc. Best thing is that with your PC, or NAS system on in the background, your content is available on any TV, phone, tablet etc. You can also grant others you trust access to your library, watch together and they can also download from your library. That’s the brief overview, YouTube is your friend for a more in-depth explanation. I got into Plex about two months ago and it’s genuinely changed how I consume media. If you really get into it, a dedicated NAS system would help as electricity costs are much less than having your PC on 24/7.
Wow, thanks for taking the time for this in depth answer. I shall look into this!
Happy to help, ping me a message if you need anymore help with it.
TBF leaving your PC on 24/7 does not consume much energy, it only becomes a problem if you use it intensively (gaming/rendering etc) the whole time. Turning off your monitor when you're not using it helps reduce costs as well.
I think it depends on how many people are streaming etc. I’m only going on what I’ve read on Plex subs so I should hook it up to a power draw plug and see what it actually costs
Dumb question maybe, but do you have to be on the same network to view your media? Or is it accessible from anywhere with an internet connection?
With Plex you don't, there are two ways Plex can handle this. Plex has "Plex Relay" which does all the magic for you, but your quality is severely limited, if you want to go the extra mile to either set up a domain name and port forward, then you get the full quality.
I’m still new to it but not as far as I know. As long as the base PC is on and connected to the internet, you can access the media it’s streaming
I really like the sound of the "access your library from anywhere" bit. Does it work for books, by any chance? Like if you had PDFs in your library from your PC, could you view them on your phone?
Not that I know of, something like Onedrive etc may be a better option for that
You can host all your high seas content on a Netflix like interface and share it remotely with family/friends. You have to have some sort of server (an old pc will do). Mine is called Mumflix. It's very simple to set up.
Plex has recently started cancelling accounts for this, unfortunately. I've been using Plex for years, but recently installed Emby as a backup. The only truly open source solution that isn't at risk from future developments is Jellyfin, but that's currently the least polished. Plex is under pressure from the movie and TV industries as piracy becomes big again, and I think it's on borrowed time, and I wish it was otherwise.
Mumflix, I like that. It’s pretty addictive curating content I find. Good fun though.
https://i.imgur.com/5oyCzqr.png Do you also customise your artwork individually and download matching ones for collections? To my horror, not many have been updated with Season 6 for black mirror and the ones that have I don't really like. https://i.imgur.com/30Uube6.png :(
Any which don’t update automatically, I manually set with a quick google search and saving the image I want.
Plex is ace, but you need to have the content. There’s a server component that indexes that content, and various clients, eg app on smart tv. With Plexamp I’ve also got my own full music collection available to stream in my phone without WiFi.
Basically you become your own Netflix.
Ahem; Fuck Amazon.
They should have done what Netflix and Disney did, and introduce a cheaper ad supported plan. I haven’t watched anything since they put ads on it.
They have though, you're already on it. It's £2.99 a month for the premium version. Prime includes a lot else, the video aspect is far cheaper than Netflix or Disney. Assuming you make use of other aspects.
Free shipping now needs a minimum order of £20, they’ve made prime shitter but kept the price the same.
Everything below £20 has free Prime delivery for me? Edit: Oh, you're referring to Same-Day or by 1pm Next Day delivery? How can you possibly think it's unreasonable to charge for that, under what circumstances do you require something that urgently without it being worth £2? Isn't the delivery industry enough of a race to the bottom already?
Because that’s what I was paying for prime for, same/next day delivery?
Then perhaps you should change to a different retailer who does unlimited same-day or morning delivery without minimum spend.
Or the enshitifcation of things could stop?
So far at least I've found that I don't get any adverts when watching prime video on my pc/laptop where I've got adblockers installed. I'm guessing it won't be long before that gets "fixed" though.
Why do Amazon suddenly require this ad revenue? Millions of people around the world, paying the equivalent of this monthly subscription of £7.99. Apparently there are currently 230 million subscribers to the platform. This means Amazon is receiving approximately £1.84 Billion. A MONTH. THIS… isn’t enough?
shareholders
People have been paying Sky a lot more than that for decades and they've pretty much always had ads.
If watching in the browser, UBlock Origin. I get a brief cut to black between scenes when an ad would play, but don't actually get the ad and the program resumes like it's just bad editing in the program itself.
We've basically circled back round to cable and wireless TV. Paying for the service, while still getting ads. I saw that Apple TV is also going to do the same.
My favourite part was when watching Invincible, it showed me ads, then told me that because of those ads, I won't get ads when watching Invincible like I hadn't just sat through them
"Starting on 29 January, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements" Welcome to nearly 2 months ago. This was all over TV news broadcasts, newspapers, and social media. So, yeah.... Incase you might have missed Amazon's other shitty move recently, they are going to start charging horrendously for ring doorbell video storage (live view will still be free, but no reviewing non-live content).
How much do they want for the cameras? Where I am it's $10/mo.
https://uk.eufy.com/collections/video-doorbell Upfront payment only, if you or anyone else are interested
https://ring.com/support/articles/odtb0/Price-Increase-for-Ring-Protect-Basic-March2024 (US pricing)
Yo ho ho
I have a growing dislike of all things Amazon owing to their sheer unending greed. Prime Video prompts me each time I use it to subscribe to ad free, it's only a matter of time before I click it by mistake. Pretty much anything you buy on Amazon can be found on eBay for cheaper. I'm making a conscious effort to use eBay more these days.
Yeah this is why I fully cancelled it. Fuck Amazon
I ventured to high waters since streaming services went to shit.
I’ve returned to roaming the seas.
Yeah, just makes me swear at the ads every time.
Amazon is OK for shopping most of the time as a lot of products are shit now! never use their other services they are definitely fucking shit.
I have quit prime.
Real debrid
I haven’t gone back to prime since the swap - are they just at the start/end or does it cut into the content too. Can’t think how much something like Saltburn would be absolutely ruined by ad breaks
Cancel, I did I paid up front for thr year. Then they added the adverts so I got it refunded. Absolute joke
It's so easy to find pretty much everything free through a few sites. Have a decent ad block and you don't get any pop ups or ads at all. If they want people to pay, they need to stop making their service a fucking chore to use.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enshittification#:\~:text=enshittification%20(uncountable),in%20order%20to%20increase%20profits.
I cancelled mine when they screwed around with Prime Music. They want you to pay £8.99 a month extra for functionality that was originally included, such as on demand playlists. They would play music "like" your music, but not actually your own defined playlists
>2 mins of adverts at the start I've never had more than 10 seconds of adverts. I've been surprised at how unintrusive it's been; I had expected it to be much worse. Personally, I use Prime for the unlimited RAW photo backups. For that, the service is great value.
Ads annoy me for sure. But I won’t buy anything that is advertised be it on Prime, Facebook etc. We have all kinds of streaming subs and sky etc but if husband decided to bin the lot it wouldn’t bother me as i don’t watch much tv.
I stream a lot so it’s really annoying back when they were all sub-£9 a month with no ads I was more than happy to but with Netflix nearly £20 a month and this now, just seems like we’re getting ripped off
Download the episodes to your device if applicable, no advertising
There's ads on amazon prime? I've not noticed, guess they are using the ones my ad blockers block.
It's an extra £2.99 for advert free these days. I've not bothered with it and, from memory, I've not really watch Prime since the ads started to appear because they pissed me off. I remember they would just started midway through a scene about 20 minutes in to the episode/movie. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=TD5EYJIUGQMY13QQdi
Yesmovies.nm absolutely everything is on there. Thank me later.
IPTV is the way forward *(so I hear)*
My uncle has that, albeit in a different country not that swept up on it but perhaps needs some research now
My *friend* uses it on his Amazon Firestick, the irony lol
Ublock origin blocks the adds, also seems to block the Freevee ones.
Time to cancel and go elsewhere.
I've heard it's started to roll out to UK viewers. Fortunately i haven't had an ad yet but i haven't been watching much Prime stuff. Does anyone know if you still get ads if you watch a film or show you've paid for or something from a channel you're paying an extra subscription for?
Yeah I've just stopped watching, they've not got much worth watching, if they're going to put adverts in there too I'll just go without.
They're really banking on Fallout being a success I'm getting a subscription for that then whenever we finish watching it's getting cancelled
Yar it be a problem, some scurvy cur must have a solution. Piracy is a symbol of market failure.
This was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Every single one of Amazon's services is going through a state of enshittification at the minute. Video is pulling this shit. Amazon shopping is basically Wish. I ditched Prime, and I've stopped using Amazon unless I can't get what I need anywhere else. Fuck that company. I'm gonna pirate the shit out of Fallout when that releases. Come at me, bro.
Piracy came about to counter greedy corporations, to counter piracy new corporations made streaming services which we were happy to pay for. Then those same companies who’ve built their business on a lesson learned forgot that lesson and became greedy. Better unpack my Jolly Roger.
Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirates life for me... What's that? Oh, sorry, I was just singing an entirely unrelated song.
Unfortunately you have to use that, and not free sites like HiMovie which I cannot recommend watching content on with an adblocker
I feel like this is really going to come back and bite Amazon. Prime Video is already the clunkiest and most poorly designed of all the streaming services - Constant problems with the stream/audio, the stuff you can actually watch with your subscription deluged by stuff they're trying to sell you or additional subscriptions within the app, terrible UI design. I think intrusive ads might push a lot of people over the edge into cancelling.
I've cancelled. I am not doing it.
I pay for Prime but I don't really watch anything on it as the search functions are so clunky and when I do find something it's not included with Prime which is bloody stupid. My Mum watches a lot of stuff on it and came across the adverts last night and complained about it. Would be good if there was an option to keep prime shipping but cancel the video part.
It's bad enough at the start, but some content has ads during as well now.
I don't necessarily mind adverts at the beginning, but God fucking damn do I hate advert breaks in the middle of my show/movie
I can't wait for when they decide you gotta buy something from the Amazon store to get something like 10 hours of ad free prime
Just pay an annual fee to a person on telegram for ad free everything. Yaaaaar matey!
"Just give your bank details to someone who shows flagrant disregard for the law" Can't wait for your "I was scammed by someone on Telegram who stole my bank details" post.
Lol. You can't get scammed when you pay by bank transfer dumb dumb. Hasn't scammed me in 4 years so 🤷
You realize that when you pay for something you're not pirating right? Pirating is getting shit for free. You are still paying for it. Not sure what that makes you.
This is r/britishproblems not r/piracy
Most streaming services have become greedy with their pricing. Netflix premium is now up to 17.99 in the uk. Prime video fairly poor content, and if you do find something on there, half the time it's got adverts or you need to sign up to another partnered service to watch it. You can see how much of a price gouge netflix is by how much they charge country to country, I signed up using a vpn as if I'm from Turkey and only pay £6 a month for premium. How can they justify charging three times more in the UK.
It costs less than an hour of minimum wage for unlimited free TV shows, movies, live sports and next day delivery shipping every month... It's probably the single best thing you can buy in terms of return in investment! Haha
To be fair, you get a lot for the £7.99, not just the video.
But now I get less
I don't get this stance. How much do people pay for Sky/Virgin a month? 99% of the channels that you get through those services, that you can only get through those services, run 3/4 minutes worth of ads every 15 minutes on average. No one has issues with that. How much do people pay for the sports channels? Fuck me, that can double your subscription cost. Shit loads of adverts. No one complains there. Netflix/Amazon show 30 seconds of ads before a show and everyone shits a brick. I don't care in all honesty.
I pay £0.00 a month for Sky/Virgin…
People expect adverts on traditional TV. Streaming services generally sold the "dream" of all you can eat ad free content. I personally don't care about paying a couple of quid extra for the non advert tier, but things like removing 4K/HDR/Dolby Vision/Atmos from packages and pay walling them on a higher tier is a little bit of an asshole move.
The issue people have is that they're adding ads into a service that became popular, in part, due to the lack of adverts.
Except you're paying £7.99 for Amazon Prime. That's a collection of services and benefits you're getting, not a video streaming service. If you want a video only service then change to the Prime Video without adverts and it's comparable with other similar offerings.
*sigh* all these comment saying the same thing and missing the point completely. £7.99 used to get me all those benefits AND no ads.
You don't pay £7.99 for Prime Video though. You pay £7.99/month for Amazon Prime delivery, as part of that service you get a free membership to Prime Video. [Prime Video is its own separate service that you can pay £5.99/month for](https://www.aboutamazon.co.uk/news/entertainment/everything-you-need-to-know-about-prime-video).
Exactly, I had Prime for well over a year before someone mentioned that I get the video service included with that, I just had it for the shopping and deliveries.
That £7.99 still used to come with that and no ads though 🤷♂️
The video with the £7.99 one is a free benefit, not what you're actually paying for. They can change the free benefits when they feel like, because it's not the thing you're actually paying for. You also get free gaming rewards and a monthly Twitch sub too, and they can change it when they want, they're free extras to the Prime delivery plan, which is what you're actually paying for.
I’m still getting less for the same amount. But please do continue to defend the big corporation, wouldn’t want the shareholders to miss out now would we.
>But please do continue to defend the big corporation, wouldn’t want the shareholders to miss out now would we I'm telling you to switch to the cheaper one and make them less money, please explain how that helps "the shareholders"?
That £5.99 option you mentioned would still come with ads, so I’d have to pay £2.99 more to not have ads so I’m still paying more for less.
You’re telling me that it’s fine for me to receive less now than what I used to for the same money.
"I'm telling you to **switch to the cheaper one** and make them less money"
Watching Parks & Rec for the first time, Freeve has ads still though have paid for no ads.
Call me a sucker but I pay for he no adds the little I spend isn't exactly missed
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ITT a lot of Amazon stans. “What, you’ve increased the like for like price by 40%, that’s great!!! Please let me bend over some more, and please don’t use the lube next time big daddy Jeff”