Amazon has announced to introduce ads to our Prime Video viewing experience. "Luckily" for us, we'll still be able to watch Prime Video without ads, so long as we have the additional cash available. When will this be introduced, and how much will Amazon's prices change? Here's what you need to know.
Coming soon to a Prime Video subscription near you: ads! Honestly, I don't know why I'm acting like I'm surprised.
While Amazon already offers Amazon Freevee, which allows viewers to watch TV-shows and movies for free, as long as they watch those shows with ads, Amazon has decided to up their game.
Soon, even paying Prime members will be subjected to ads while watching their shows on Prime Video. If you're not a fan of ads, you can get rid of them, but only if you pay more.
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Amazon Prime Video: When Are The Ads Coming And How You Can Get Rid Of Them
Amazon just released a statement about Prime Video's future and in it, Amazon revealed that Prime Video will include "limited advertisements" starting in early 2024.
Prime Video will first introduce ads to the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada at the beginning of 2024 and will then add them later on in the year for France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia.
In their statement, Amazon adds:
We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers.
Maybe I'm being a bit cynical, but let's just see how long that statement will hold up.
Of course, not everyone will be subjected to ads during their Prime Video viewership, if they don't want that.
Amazon will also offer an ad-free subscription tier for users, that will cost an additional $2.99 per month (except for live event content such as sports, those will still have ads).
Currently, Amazon has only revealed the ad-free subscription pricing for the US, but they've stated that they will release the price points for the other affected countries at a later point in time.
For those of you that are worried that your normal Prime subscription will cost more in the future, there is no need to worry, at least for now.
Amazon added to their statement that they are "not making changes in 2024 to the current price of Prime membership ". Sounds like that could be the case in 2025, though...
At least we'll have a year to mentally prepare for that.