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Same with the ads for Amazon videos on Amazon Prime. They are ads and I don't want ads. But they don't see it that way (don't get me started on the forced watch

Same with the ads for Amazon videos on Amazon Prime. They are ads and I don't want ads. But they don't see it that way (don't get me started on the forced watching of texts on Blue Rays).

matsemann 6y ago
Yes wtf, I'm already paying and trying to watch a series I enjoy, stop pestering me. Just one of many dark patterns at Amazon, cancelling Prime is so difficult that Norwegan Consumer Council and 15 others yesterday started a legal fight with Amazon: https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/amazon-manipulates-customers-to-stay-subscribed/ https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/amazon-manipulates-... The video there is quite aggravating.
- KingOfCoders 6y ago
  I've cancelled Prime, now they hit me with week long delivery times which after a day are reduced by half or less, just to get me back on Prime.
  - uCantCauseUCant 6y ago
    Seven of Prime, Tertiary Attribute of Bezos
  - delfinom 6y ago
    That's normal for non-prime. You get thrown onto the back of the priority queue but at the same time get on the wild scheduling ride their systems take.
  - zwaps 6y ago
    I still have prime, and a good half of my "next day shipping" deliveries are delayed by a day, two days or even more. Granted, the current situation is problematic, but this happened even before and since you are prime, you don't get any money back or something like that. It's just bad luck then. Now, you might think you could rely on the services where you pay extra for same-day delivery or morning next day. But those end up missing the delivery window a good half of the times I used them - even before the pandemic. Next day or same day delivery just isn't something that seems to work reliably here in Western Europe. I know companies where a local driver will literally get in a car and bring me what I need right away, but that doesn't scale to Amazon levels. Given that prime delivery rarely holds its promise, it is no surprise that Amazon needs to make non-prime delivery even less attractive. But you know, there are other vendors! Plus, you are less likely to get a fake product if you order directly from there.
    - ndiscussion 6y ago
      Not sure if it still applies since I cancelled prime, but you can contact Amazon any time a package is late, and they will give you credits or extensions to your Prime sub. That was in the US a year or so ago.
  - nkrisc 6y ago
    I just wait for the free month of prime offers and do my Amazon shopping only during that time. Why pay when they keep giving it to me a few times a year.
  - dazc 6y ago
    I have Prime and, because many of my orders are for business use, I keep being invited to AmazonBusiness where I can download invoices (which I can do already) and buy another kind of Prime or start paying for deliveries again?
  - ballenf 6y ago
    It's amazing to me how long deliveries take if you're not prime. Of course the actual delivery is just as fast, they just wait a few days to fill the order. And the dark patterns on placing an order without re-upping Prime feels like the fake download buttons on download.com without an ad blocker.
- Symbiote 6y ago
  As if that wasn't enough, the full complaint shows that after all that scrolling and clicking (I lost count), an email is sent with a big yellow button, and the website starts showing the same button, "Continue your membership", which re-subscribes with a single click.
  - easton 6y ago
    Anyone who thinks charging a user $99 with a single click and no explanation near the button should be sent to UX jail (where the only way to get food is to come up with a grep command the warden needs to find part of a street address).
    - ascagnel_ 6y ago
      A recurring $99 -- I can't think of any other subscription service that doesn't take you through an explicit approval for signing up.
- buckminster 6y ago
  I'm receiving scam calls from India saying "Your Amazon Prime subscription is about to renew, please talk to our representative if you wish to cancel". If Amazon Prime was easy to cancel this scam wouldn't exist. (I actually tried going along with the scam, but his call centre was so noisy he couldn't hear what I was saying, ffs.)
- mleonhard 6y ago
  I called Amazon to cancel Prime. I wanted them to record my reason for cancelling. And I wanted them to spend some extra money answering my phone call and talking to me.
VBprogrammer 6y ago
Honestly, the most annoying thing about this is when they show you an advert for a series that you have already watched. I mean it's not like they don't have the data already...
- SifJar 6y ago
  The ones that really bug me are the generic "Prime Video" ads. Not advertising a particular show, just telling me how great the service I am already subscribed to is...
- dazc 6y ago
  Most ads I see are for shows I have already decided I will never watch even if they pay me.
jjbinx007 6y ago
Ads on Amazon Prime are infuriating. And I can't help think how annoying it must be for people with disabilities. My other bugbear are the auto playing videos on Netflix and the use of massive spoilers in episode thumbnails. As a single consumer in a vast ocean I don't think my opinions will ever be listened to. Right now it's worth putting up with this crap as the benefits outweigh the cost but if it gets any worse I'll be unsubscribing.
- ilikepi 6y ago
  > My other bugbear are the auto playing videos on Netflix and the use of massive spoilers in episode thumbnails. You can actually turn off "Autoplay previews" now. You have to log into your account from a web browser, and then look at the Playback settings for the profile you want to change.
  - tinus_hn 6y ago
    Note that this anti anti feature was introduced quietly so not everyone may have noticed it yet.
  - aidos 6y ago
    What you can’t turn off is the bit where they drop you into another trailer when you’ve just finished watching a series after months of investment. A little time to digest would be real nice.
    - navbaker 6y ago
      Your "time to digest" is Netflix's "fleeting window of opportunity to keep you engaged" or whatever businessy term describes that.
      - jbay808 6y ago
        They aren't Facebook. They just need to keep me subscribed, not engaged. I bet someone has an engagement OKR anyway, though.
Philip-J-Fry 6y ago
I personally don't mind the ads on Amazon Prime because they're instantly skippable and do actually show things I might be interested in. Plus they don't show random shit like ads for a car or a TV or something. I don't sit and browse Amazon (because the browsing experience on Amazon prime is dogshit), so I go straight to anything I want to watch on there. The only opportunity to discover new shows on there is usually from outside of Amazon, or their pre-roll ads. Also, they should stop showing me ads for things I've watched. They better not make them unskippable ever.
- SifJar 6y ago
  "instantly skippable" depends on device I think. For a long time, there was no "Skip" button in the Roku app, you could only manually forward through it. It has now been added, but very possible there are apps on other devices still missing that feature
  - drdec 6y ago
    My experience - I have a TCL Roku TV, no skip button on the remote. When the promos play on Amazon Prime a Skip control (link? button?) appears on the lower left of the screen with focus. If I press OK on my remote it activates and goes right to the content.
    - SifJar 6y ago
      Yep, exactly same in app on regular Rokus - I was referring to the fact that the on-screen "Skip" is a relatively recent addition (at least on my Roku, Roku Express)
- laumars 6y ago
  I don’t think I’ve ever received an ad on Prime Video. Is it an American thing? Do they happen in the U.K. too? It might be the case that my DNS server (basically PiHole but something I built before PiHole was a thing) is blocking them. However it doesn’t stop inlined ads from YouTube, 4oD, Twitch and other streaming / on demand services.
m-p-3 6y ago
They're annoying, I don't want a trailer recommending me stuff before I watch something, there's already recommendations showing up visually in the list of contents when you choose something.. And yes Amazon, they are ads.
j45 6y ago
I just blocked all notifications from the Amazon app. Works great.
TulliusCicero 6y ago
You also can't change the UI language with Prime Video. I'm an American in Germany, no option to use English.
- snicksnak 6y ago
  On top of that, Prime makes it particularly hard for you to use english. No option to make english the default language for playback. If you switch to english for an episode, the next one starts in german again.... On my samsung TV you can't even change the language from within the menu while watching, you have to close playback, go to playback settings of the movie, change the language, go back to the movie's main menu and then start the movie again.
- rhino369 6y ago
  For some reason, Amazon defaults me to German subtitles, despite me being an American in America.
shultays 6y ago
I am cancelling it the moment the expanse is over. Worst part is, prime crashes my TV's video player. Once that happens I am not able to play any video at all, even on other apps. And ads made it worse since it usually crashes as I switch videos and adds are more video switching.
eadmund 6y ago
I hate the ads on Amazon Prime! The same ad, playing over and over every. single. time. And always for something I have no desire to watch, not in the slightest; something slightly offensive to be shown once and definitely offensive to be shown over and over and over. First world problem, I know. But still highly annoying.
signal11 6y ago
> Same with the ads for Amazon videos on Amazon Prime. On some smart TVs, there's an explicit (or on-screen) button to skip these. If you don't see a skip button and you have a Fire TV remote, you can press the >> double arrow button to skip these. I agree that there should be an option to disable these altogether, like how Netflix offers an option to disable video previews.
atraac 6y ago
That and the terrible video quality is what makes me not prolong prime after some free time we got few months ago with some other product. It's like watching 480p Youtube on a 4k tv most of the time. Netflix or Youtube have zero issues like that...
asidiali 6y ago
The worst - YouTube TV They show you ads for YouTube TV, literally while are you watching TV with your paid YouTube TV subscription. How many ad dollars are just being flushed down the drain...
- r053bud 6y ago
  This is meant to be a replacement for normal cable....which also shows ads. As far as I know there is NO live cable service that is ad-free.
  - asidiali 6y ago
    There are also normal ads for third parties. So not a replacement. They just also run their own ads. And no, it’s not an ad placeholder. Because they have that too. There is a scene that says “you’re watching YoutubeTV, your show will resume momentarily” while a yellow ad bar progresses. They aren’t also analog ads. You can tell when YTV is playing back an ad recorded within the show, vs when they flip the stream from content to ad content because the UI changes. Nope, from what I can tell, they definitely just show their own ads to their customers. When I had Dish, I saw a lot of DirectTV ads. That makes sense. But I never saw Dish advertising Dish. Maybe I just never paid attention.
  - wasdfff 6y ago
    When cable came out it was ad free. That was one of the selling points actually.
  - alasdair_ 6y ago
    >This is meant to be a replacement for normal cable....which also shows ads. As far as I know there is NO live cable service that is ad-free. HBO doesn't show commercials. It DOES use the time between two shows (starting on the hour or half hour) to preview other shows on the same network but I find these slightly less annoying that paid-for ads.
- andromeduck 6y ago
  "already have it" seems like a fairly simple, common, and oh so fustrating problems especially for services that already know your email. Right now the worst offender for me is IBKR for egigh I get ~10 ads per day on YouTube despite both being linked the the same IP/email/device/browser as he service. Likewise with Amazon showing you an ad for a product you literally bought minutes ago as if you'd want to buy another before the first arrives or LinkedIn recruiters trying recruit you to your current role. Specialty equipment like for photography/cycling or 3d printing is the worst. Buy a Sony camera or Peak design tripod and you'll get ads for the same thing for a year. Like accessories and complementary products I'd understand but come on. Just how many thousand dollar cameras do you expect me to buy per month/year?!
mitjak 6y ago
but they're promoting other Amazon shows and they can't be skipped! what possible other framing could there be.
intrasight 6y ago
Pay for your content but then torrent the actual viewing experience. Problem solved - on all platforms.
- snicksnak 6y ago
  I do torrent movies consistently even though I could watch them directly through my subscription, mainly because of two reasons: A) Usually my VPN is active and I don't want to shut it down just that netflix/amazon allows my to watch something B) I like setting the playback speed to ~1.1 of my media player, which is not supported by any streaming provider I'm subscribed to.
  - intrasight 6y ago
    You could setup you VPN just on your torrent client
bigtones 6y ago
Same on Cable TV. It's full of ads in the USA - and that's after you pay $100 per month for a cable subscription.
pensatoio 6y ago
If anyone from Amazon video sees this, I want you to know this is the primary reason I’ve ignored hiring requests from that team (and avoided consuming prime content on prime.) The non-optional ads are infuriating.

Same with the ads for Amazon videos on Amazon Prime. They are ads and I don't want ads. But they don't see it that way (don't get me started on the forced watching of texts on Blue Rays).

matsemann 6y ago

Yes wtf, I'm already paying and trying to watch a series I enjoy, stop pestering me. Just one of many dark patterns at Amazon, cancelling Prime is so difficult that Norwegan Consumer Council and 15 others yesterday started a legal fight with Amazon: https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/amazon-manipulates-customers-to-stay-subscribed/ https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/amazon-manipulates-... The video there is quite aggravating.

KingOfCoders 6y ago
I've cancelled Prime, now they hit me with week long delivery times which after a day are reduced by half or less, just to get me back on Prime.
- uCantCauseUCant 6y ago
  Seven of Prime, Tertiary Attribute of Bezos
- delfinom 6y ago
  That's normal for non-prime. You get thrown onto the back of the priority queue but at the same time get on the wild scheduling ride their systems take.
- zwaps 6y ago
  I still have prime, and a good half of my "next day shipping" deliveries are delayed by a day, two days or even more. Granted, the current situation is problematic, but this happened even before and since you are prime, you don't get any money back or something like that. It's just bad luck then. Now, you might think you could rely on the services where you pay extra for same-day delivery or morning next day. But those end up missing the delivery window a good half of the times I used them - even before the pandemic. Next day or same day delivery just isn't something that seems to work reliably here in Western Europe. I know companies where a local driver will literally get in a car and bring me what I need right away, but that doesn't scale to Amazon levels. Given that prime delivery rarely holds its promise, it is no surprise that Amazon needs to make non-prime delivery even less attractive. But you know, there are other vendors! Plus, you are less likely to get a fake product if you order directly from there.
  - ndiscussion 6y ago
    Not sure if it still applies since I cancelled prime, but you can contact Amazon any time a package is late, and they will give you credits or extensions to your Prime sub. That was in the US a year or so ago.
- nkrisc 6y ago
  I just wait for the free month of prime offers and do my Amazon shopping only during that time. Why pay when they keep giving it to me a few times a year.
- dazc 6y ago
  I have Prime and, because many of my orders are for business use, I keep being invited to AmazonBusiness where I can download invoices (which I can do already) and buy another kind of Prime or start paying for deliveries again?
- ballenf 6y ago
  It's amazing to me how long deliveries take if you're not prime. Of course the actual delivery is just as fast, they just wait a few days to fill the order. And the dark patterns on placing an order without re-upping Prime feels like the fake download buttons on download.com without an ad blocker.
Symbiote 6y ago
As if that wasn't enough, the full complaint shows that after all that scrolling and clicking (I lost count), an email is sent with a big yellow button, and the website starts showing the same button, "Continue your membership", which re-subscribes with a single click.
- easton 6y ago
  Anyone who thinks charging a user $99 with a single click and no explanation near the button should be sent to UX jail (where the only way to get food is to come up with a grep command the warden needs to find part of a street address).
  - ascagnel_ 6y ago
    A recurring $99 -- I can't think of any other subscription service that doesn't take you through an explicit approval for signing up.
buckminster 6y ago
I'm receiving scam calls from India saying "Your Amazon Prime subscription is about to renew, please talk to our representative if you wish to cancel". If Amazon Prime was easy to cancel this scam wouldn't exist. (I actually tried going along with the scam, but his call centre was so noisy he couldn't hear what I was saying, ffs.)
mleonhard 6y ago
I called Amazon to cancel Prime. I wanted them to record my reason for cancelling. And I wanted them to spend some extra money answering my phone call and talking to me.

VBprogrammer 6y ago

Honestly, the most annoying thing about this is when they show you an advert for a series that you have already watched. I mean it's not like they don't have the data already...

SifJar 6y ago
The ones that really bug me are the generic "Prime Video" ads. Not advertising a particular show, just telling me how great the service I am already subscribed to is...
dazc 6y ago
Most ads I see are for shows I have already decided I will never watch even if they pay me.

jjbinx007 6y ago

Ads on Amazon Prime are infuriating. And I can't help think how annoying it must be for people with disabilities. My other bugbear are the auto playing videos on Netflix and the use of massive spoilers in episode thumbnails. As a single consumer in a vast ocean I don't think my opinions will ever be listened to. Right now it's worth putting up with this crap as the benefits outweigh the cost but if it gets any worse I'll be unsubscribing.

ilikepi 6y ago
> My other bugbear are the auto playing videos on Netflix and the use of massive spoilers in episode thumbnails. You can actually turn off "Autoplay previews" now. You have to log into your account from a web browser, and then look at the Playback settings for the profile you want to change.
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  Note that this anti anti feature was introduced quietly so not everyone may have noticed it yet.
- aidos 6y ago
  What you can’t turn off is the bit where they drop you into another trailer when you’ve just finished watching a series after months of investment. A little time to digest would be real nice.
  - navbaker 6y ago
    Your "time to digest" is Netflix's "fleeting window of opportunity to keep you engaged" or whatever businessy term describes that.
    - jbay808 6y ago
      They aren't Facebook. They just need to keep me subscribed, not engaged. I bet someone has an engagement OKR anyway, though.

Philip-J-Fry 6y ago

I personally don't mind the ads on Amazon Prime because they're instantly skippable and do actually show things I might be interested in. Plus they don't show random shit like ads for a car or a TV or something. I don't sit and browse Amazon (because the browsing experience on Amazon prime is dogshit), so I go straight to anything I want to watch on there. The only opportunity to discover new shows on there is usually from outside of Amazon, or their pre-roll ads. Also, they should stop showing me ads for things I've watched. They better not make them unskippable ever.

SifJar 6y ago
"instantly skippable" depends on device I think. For a long time, there was no "Skip" button in the Roku app, you could only manually forward through it. It has now been added, but very possible there are apps on other devices still missing that feature
- drdec 6y ago
  My experience - I have a TCL Roku TV, no skip button on the remote. When the promos play on Amazon Prime a Skip control (link? button?) appears on the lower left of the screen with focus. If I press OK on my remote it activates and goes right to the content.
  - SifJar 6y ago
    Yep, exactly same in app on regular Rokus - I was referring to the fact that the on-screen "Skip" is a relatively recent addition (at least on my Roku, Roku Express)
laumars 6y ago
I don’t think I’ve ever received an ad on Prime Video. Is it an American thing? Do they happen in the U.K. too? It might be the case that my DNS server (basically PiHole but something I built before PiHole was a thing) is blocking them. However it doesn’t stop inlined ads from YouTube, 4oD, Twitch and other streaming / on demand services.

m-p-3 6y ago

They're annoying, I don't want a trailer recommending me stuff before I watch something, there's already recommendations showing up visually in the list of contents when you choose something.. And yes Amazon, they are ads.

j45 6y ago

I just blocked all notifications from the Amazon app. Works great.

TulliusCicero 6y ago

You also can't change the UI language with Prime Video. I'm an American in Germany, no option to use English.

snicksnak 6y ago
On top of that, Prime makes it particularly hard for you to use english. No option to make english the default language for playback. If you switch to english for an episode, the next one starts in german again.... On my samsung TV you can't even change the language from within the menu while watching, you have to close playback, go to playback settings of the movie, change the language, go back to the movie's main menu and then start the movie again.
rhino369 6y ago
For some reason, Amazon defaults me to German subtitles, despite me being an American in America.

shultays 6y ago

I am cancelling it the moment the expanse is over. Worst part is, prime crashes my TV's video player. Once that happens I am not able to play any video at all, even on other apps. And ads made it worse since it usually crashes as I switch videos and adds are more video switching.

eadmund 6y ago

I hate the ads on Amazon Prime! The same ad, playing over and over every. single. time. And always for something I have no desire to watch, not in the slightest; something slightly offensive to be shown once and definitely offensive to be shown over and over and over. First world problem, I know. But still highly annoying.

signal11 6y ago

> Same with the ads for Amazon videos on Amazon Prime. On some smart TVs, there's an explicit (or on-screen) button to skip these. If you don't see a skip button and you have a Fire TV remote, you can press the >> double arrow button to skip these. I agree that there should be an option to disable these altogether, like how Netflix offers an option to disable video previews.

atraac 6y ago

That and the terrible video quality is what makes me not prolong prime after some free time we got few months ago with some other product. It's like watching 480p Youtube on a 4k tv most of the time. Netflix or Youtube have zero issues like that...

asidiali 6y ago

The worst - YouTube TV They show you ads for YouTube TV, literally while are you watching TV with your paid YouTube TV subscription. How many ad dollars are just being flushed down the drain...

r053bud 6y ago
This is meant to be a replacement for normal cable....which also shows ads. As far as I know there is NO live cable service that is ad-free.
- asidiali 6y ago
  There are also normal ads for third parties. So not a replacement. They just also run their own ads. And no, it’s not an ad placeholder. Because they have that too. There is a scene that says “you’re watching YoutubeTV, your show will resume momentarily” while a yellow ad bar progresses. They aren’t also analog ads. You can tell when YTV is playing back an ad recorded within the show, vs when they flip the stream from content to ad content because the UI changes. Nope, from what I can tell, they definitely just show their own ads to their customers. When I had Dish, I saw a lot of DirectTV ads. That makes sense. But I never saw Dish advertising Dish. Maybe I just never paid attention.
- wasdfff 6y ago
  When cable came out it was ad free. That was one of the selling points actually.
- alasdair_ 6y ago
  >This is meant to be a replacement for normal cable....which also shows ads. As far as I know there is NO live cable service that is ad-free. HBO doesn't show commercials. It DOES use the time between two shows (starting on the hour or half hour) to preview other shows on the same network but I find these slightly less annoying that paid-for ads.
andromeduck 6y ago
"already have it" seems like a fairly simple, common, and oh so fustrating problems especially for services that already know your email. Right now the worst offender for me is IBKR for egigh I get ~10 ads per day on YouTube despite both being linked the the same IP/email/device/browser as he service. Likewise with Amazon showing you an ad for a product you literally bought minutes ago as if you'd want to buy another before the first arrives or LinkedIn recruiters trying recruit you to your current role. Specialty equipment like for photography/cycling or 3d printing is the worst. Buy a Sony camera or Peak design tripod and you'll get ads for the same thing for a year. Like accessories and complementary products I'd understand but come on. Just how many thousand dollar cameras do you expect me to buy per month/year?!

mitjak 6y ago

but they're promoting other Amazon shows and they can't be skipped! what possible other framing could there be.

intrasight 6y ago

Pay for your content but then torrent the actual viewing experience. Problem solved - on all platforms.

snicksnak 6y ago
I do torrent movies consistently even though I could watch them directly through my subscription, mainly because of two reasons: A) Usually my VPN is active and I don't want to shut it down just that netflix/amazon allows my to watch something B) I like setting the playback speed to ~1.1 of my media player, which is not supported by any streaming provider I'm subscribed to.
- intrasight 6y ago
  You could setup you VPN just on your torrent client

bigtones 6y ago

Same on Cable TV. It's full of ads in the USA - and that's after you pay $100 per month for a cable subscription.

pensatoio 6y ago

If anyone from Amazon video sees this, I want you to know this is the primary reason I’ve ignored hiring requests from that team (and avoided consuming prime content on prime.) The non-optional ads are infuriating.