While the streaming era began with promises of commercial free television and movie viewing, that promise has gone by the wayside as streaming companies pursue more and more money.
A federal class action lawsuit has been filed in California over Amazon’s choice to add commercials to its Prime Video platform.
“For years, people purchased and renewed their Amazon Prime subscriptions believing they would include ad-free streaming,” the complaint alleges. “Subscribers must now pay extra to get something they already paid for.”
Other streaming services like Peacock, Disney+, Max, and Netflix offer ad-based subscription services as tiers of their subscriptions, however Amazon does not have a tier for ads. Instead of building out a separate advertisement tier, Amazon opted to include ads in its service and charge subscribers extra if they wanted the ads removed.
“Consumers who subscribed to Amazon Prime before the change reasonably expected that their Amazon Prime subscription would include ad-free streaming of movies and TV shows for the duration of the subscription,” a part of the lawsuit noted.
The suit also seeks an injunction to stop Amazon from charging existing Prime subscribers the fee, and giving restitution to those who have already paid. While the streaming era began with promises of commercial-free television and movie viewing, that promise has gone by the wayside as streaming companies pursue more capital. As companies invest hundreds of millions (in Amazon’s case, shy of $19 billion) into its original content. The conglomerate has recouped its initial investment from getting money from higher subscription fees and ad dollars.
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Source: Black Enterprise
