Was halfway through a series on Prime Video last night and started seeing ads. Odd, I thought, pretty sure there weren’t any ads on this last night. Wife asked at one point, “Why are we seeing ads?” It was only when I went to change programs that I saw this popup prompting me to pay even more on top of my Prime membership to watch the normally “free” programs ad-free.
Just another executive trying to earn a bigger bonus by squeezing a little more blood out of this turnip and diminishing the value proposition in the process.
Its worse than that - far worse. An amazon delivery driver forced my neighbor to come to the door and listen to a one-minute pitch for Amazon solar panels before he would hand her her package.
The garage door opener my other neighbor bought so that Amazon could deliver packages to a dry and secure location now refuses to open or close unless one watches 2 ads, and answers 3 questions about those ads correctly.
Alexa is now “suggesting” that users stop off at Walgreens to peruse the specials on skin care products as a part of each and every response.
Jeff Bezos’ yatch “Koru” is not just a giant 127-meter 3-masted schooner, those masts support a giant 127-meter by 30 meter electronic billboard that advertises nautical supplies to other ships.
Every Prime Video now has a toy tie-in merchandising deal, and product placements will now be a significant plot point in each show.
That is all extreme but the ‘buy this’ bombardment is everywhere else too. All the ‘live’ tv shows have shopping segments except for the news shows (so far). It’s tiresome.
I’ve encountered the forced interactive ads on other streaming portals, I don’t recall which one(s) but it’s highly irritating. Since when is it good marketing to annoy your prospects?
With minimal exceptions (ie, Black Friday sale on Disney+ for $3/month), I use free streaming services, such as Tubi, FreeVee, and Roku. Big advantage is that if the commercial break is not quite long enough to finish your “business”, then you can back up and not miss anything. Plus they usually tell you how much time you have, so you know if it’s a short “get a beer” break, or the longer “make room for the next one” break.
I feel bad for those that cut the cord and now have to watch commercials. At least with paid cable you can DVR what you want to watch and fast forward through the commercials which is what we do around here…
I wouldn’t know. My “MYQ” broke down shortly after I got it and I have been unable to get it reconnected. Weird.
I’m sure it’s because of my WIFI being weak at this range but Eufy has no issues slightly further away, pulling better than 100 Mbps 95% of the time from a 1000 Mbps router which is 60 feet away and through a brick wall…
I haven’t tried in awhile. Too cold around here. LOL
There’s an additional brick wall separating MYQ though… (Garage)
I watched Them (2021) on Amazon last night. Base Prime there was 30 seconds of ads at the beginning and nothing else.
As to the “movie”… I can’t believe I watched the whole thing. I kept hoping that the next scene might contain something/anything that explained even remotely what the heck was going on. Never happened. I should have read the reviews before wasting life on it.
Humans live in a comfortable dream that repeats itself. They control the dream. They were humans once too. Some humans wake up, most don’t. Daniel wakes to be told that things could be different. Daniel believes it. For a while at least.
The “Storyline” has more exposition than the movie itself.
