Starting in 2024, Amazon is going to put ads in its Prime Video library. If you don’t want ads, you can pay a little extra.
Amazon, which is a big company that has something called Prime Video, is going to make some changes. They want to show “less ads” to people who use Prime Video, and they say this will help them make better shows and movies. But if you don’t like ads at all, Amazon has a new choice for you. You can pay an extra $2.99 each month to get rid of all the ads. So, if you already have Amazon Prime (that’s a special membership), you’ll have to pay a bit more if you want to watch things without any ads.
Amazon said, “To keep making cool shows and spending money on them, starting in early 2024, Prime Video shows and movies will have some ads.” They’ll start doing this for Prime members in the U.S., but they haven’t told us how much it will cost in other countries yet.
But here’s the thing: they won’t add ads everywhere all at once. They’ll do it bit by bit. First, in the U.S., UK, Germany, and Canada in ‘early 2024,’ and then in other places like France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in the same year. So, not everyone will get ads right away.
Once they start with the ads, you’ll see them when you watch something on Prime Video. But don’t worry, the price for the regular Prime membership won’t change. You only have to pay extra if you want to watch things without ads.
Amazon will tell its Prime members about these changes a few weeks before the ads start. They’ll send an email to Prime customers and give them the choice to sign up for the ad-free thing.
This change is a bit like what Netflix did. Netflix, another big streaming service, made some changes to its plans this year. They added something called “Netflix Ad-supported Plans” that cost less than their usual plans. But this new plan isn’t available in India yet. In India, Netflix still has a mobile-only plan that’s cheaper than the regular one.
Amazon is doing something similar too. They have a plan called “Amazon Prime Lite,” which is a simpler and cheaper version of their regular Prime plan. It costs less at Rs 999 compared to the Rs 999 you’d pay for the regular Amazon Prime Annual plan. So, Amazon is giving people more choices for how they want to watch things.