I agree with fuming Amazon Prime customers - major new change is unfair

Amazon changes have left customers fuming

As I loaded up Amazon Prime Video on the TV the other night, I was left surprised and confused when something unusual happened. Instead of the streaming service loading to its home screen as usual, I was met with an ad.

Had I put on YouTube by mistake? Nope. Was I logged in? Yes. Had my subscription expired or the terms changed? Not as far as I’m aware.

It didn’t take a lot of Googling to discover that Amazon has added adverts to its Prime Video service, something you have to be a paying Prime customer in order to access – and the perks of Prime don’t come cheap. It’s sparked a backlash online and left customers fuming and threatening to cancel their subscriptions.

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So you have to watch a couple of short ads before and during a show, what’s the big deal, you might reasonably ask. Having a show interrupted by an advert is a pain but in the grand scheme it’s not really a big deal. Kids today might define it as a ‘first-world problem’.

It’s more about the principle and whether customers of Amazon – which is hardly short of a few bob – are getting a good or fair deal. At the heart of it, it’s about a rich, huge company versus ordinary members of the public.

Ads are fine when you’re getting a service for free. This is obvious, as it’s pretty much the only way a free service can be offered, such as YouTube or Facebook. Millions of us use these services for free and probably take that fact for granted.

Terrestrial TV is another example, like ITV and Channel 4. Now the BBC is different. We all pay for this through the licence fee and, guess what, it means we don’t have to put up with ads.

The point is paying customers shouldn’t be forced to watch adverts. They are already putting money in to whichever company it is through their subscription fee.

To be free of the ads on Amazon Prime, subscribers now have to pay even more (£2.99 a month) on top of their monthly or annual rate. It just seems blatantly unfair and another way to make more money out of people, as well as pocketing extra advertising revenue. It’s win-win for Amazon, alright.

Vote with your feet, you might say. If you’re not happy, then cancel the subscription. Some might choose to do this and the global behemoth that is Amazon isn’t going to miss a few lost customers.

And they know this full well. The perks of Prime – the next-day delivery being the major one – will be too attractive for most customers to turn down. Another win for the corporate giants over the man on the street? Yes, but hasn’t it always been this way?