Put up with ads, or pay up more.

Corbin Davenport / Amazon

One common tactic among streaming services is to put ads on your shows and movies. We’ve always had ad breaks on live TV, and one of the main advantages of streaming services was the fact that they were ad-free, but ads are now becoming an option for those users that want to pay a bit less. Now, Amazon Prime Video is preparing to go from ad-free to ad-supported for all subscribers, unless they pay an additional fee.

Amazon has announced that starting January 29, 2023, the Prime Video platform will show ads, and you’ll be able to make the service ad-free again by paying an extra $2.99/month fee. Amazon previously announced this change earlier this year, but we didn’t have a date yet. Now, we do. Amazon’s approach differs from what platforms like Netflix and Disney+ have done, where they have added an ad-supported tier that’s notably cheaper than the regular tier (often with an increase in price to the ad-free tier as well). Here, however, Amazon Prime Video will have ads by default, and the service will cost the same, with the option to remove ads being an extra charge.

Paying the $2.99 fee to remove ads would bring your Amazon Prime subscription up to $18 per month, which will probably be pretty expensive for some (although Amazon Prime has a bunch of other neat perks if you’re a frequent Amazon shopper).

In an email sent to affected users, the company said that users will be treated to “limited advertisements,” adding that “this will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.” The email goes on to add that “we aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership.”

You have a little over a month before the change takes effect, so make sure to get the most out of your ad-free experience while it’s still included in your monthly subscription.

Source: The Verge