Amazon Prime Video lets you avoid commercial breaks at an additional cost. But even after this upgrade, the advertising hasn’t completely disappeared.
Reacher Season 2 (Source: Amazon Studios)
The Amazon Prime Video program has only been running with advertising in Germany since February 5, 2024. As an alternative, however, the streaming service offers you an upgrade: for 2.99 euros per month you can quickly and easily remove the advertising again.
Quite a few subscribers think it’s audacious for Amazon to suddenly charge more money for an ad-free subscription that was the norm just a few days ago and included in the regular subscription price. The consumer advice center also thinks so and has already filed a lawsuit against Amazon. But if you don’t want to live with advertising, you’ll probably have to bite the bullet and pay more for now. But you still won’t be able to stream without advertising.
Ad-free thanks to an additional charge? Not quite! Amazon Prime Video (Source: Amazon)
On the one hand – and this applies less to Prime Video – films and series from the Freevee category will continue to be shown with advertising. That makes sense, after all Freevee is essentially its own streaming service within the Amazon offering, which is financed solely through advertising and does not require a subscription.
But live sports broadcasts shown on Amazon continue to be interrupted by advertising, so the highest surcharge doesn’t help. And advertising breaks are not excluded in the Amazon Channels, which you can add to your Prime subscription.
What is particularly annoying is that Amazon continues to regularly show trailers for Prime Video’s own productions at the beginning of a series or film, even if you have paid for advertising freedom. Amazon probably doesn’t view its own trailers as advertising – we do! In addition, these trailers can no longer be skipped by simply pressing a button, which was always possible before.
Even the additional 2.99 euros per month does not guarantee that you can stream “Reacher”, “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” undisturbed and ad-free. The fact that the additional surcharge isn’t really worth it could be in Amazon’s interest, as the company earns significantly more from the commercials than from the 2.99 euros per month.
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