Amazon Sued over Prime Video Ads: Class-Action Suit Alleges Deception

Somewhere in the prime TOS we have agreed to this and likely much worse. I paused my subscription, not that that will mean anything to them. This lawsuit was inevitable and will change absolutely nothing no matter the outcome. The meaningful change we need is actual consumer advocacy and invalidating predatory TOS clauses. It isn't possible to live in the modern world without accepting the ridiculous and predatory TOS attached to everything and that isn't right.

I cannot believe they didn't roll this out as some feature flag based on account signup/renew date, and instead just told all paid members they're now being downgraded(remember, it's not just ads, it's lower quality).

Except that, from all reports online (including someone in these comments), Amazon will cancel your annual Prime subscription and refund all remaining time without any problem. They don't seem to be holding anyone to the contract. (And of course plenty of people subscribe monthly rather than annually as well.)

So I'm not sure there's any case here at all? Since even with annual subscriptions, it seems you can cancel at any time and get a prorated refund.

The fact is, online subscription services change their benefits/features all the time. And companies seem to handle it two ways: grandfather existing customers for the rest of their subscription period, or offer prorated refunds for people who want to cancel. And while the former is definitely going to make customers happier, I think they're both acceptable from a legal standpoint? So I'm not sure this lawsuit has any chance of succeeding at all.

The article mentions the ads are expected to bring in $3 billion annually.

Even if the lawsuit is successful, I suspect it will cost Amazon much less than what they are projecting to make.

This is exactly what I was going to say. Prime is sold as an annual purchase, and they didn’t structure the deal so that it would kick the ads in when your current term expires.

Best case is that they'll be forced to let us cancel with a partial refund. This is a worthy lawsuit for that reason.

> I look forward to the eventual $.32 settlement I receive.

Do you know why amount is always ridiculously low. Are these lawsuits primarly for the lawyers to make a buck, I dont see how anyone else would be motivated otherwise.

Assuming a settlment is reached, it would probably require Amazon to stop their practice of charging additional fees in exchange for not harassing customers with ads. That latest internet meme from Cory Doctorow labels this particular form of bait-and-switch as "enshittification".

Perhaps the plaintiffs get only a dainty payout as a result of a settlement, but their lawyers will make some decent coin, and that provides the motivation to work to prove Amazon is breaking the law.

How much ad revenue does Amazon make per Prime customer on average. Is it more or less than $2.99/month. We might find out the answer to questions like these during discovery. IIRC, in past litigation we learned that Google makes about $5.50/month per user from ads.

What is the alternative. Plaintiffs could finance their own lawsuits against Amazon. Perhaps they could recover more than $.32. But how much would they have to spend on legal fees and costs to reach a settlement. Chances are, Mr. Napoleon and the other plaintiffs are not paying anything.

People who do not appreciate being harassed by ads by Amazon can engage lawyers to work for them "for free" to stop Amazon from further harassment. Plus, those people might get a check for $.32.

What's the alternative. Keep getting harassed by Amazon and complain on HN expecting something will change. That sounds even less effective and more ridiculous than class action lawsuits and $.32 settlement checks.

This is why companies do this nonsense. The cost is so low, that its just the cost of doing business.

They need an additive punitive damage getting everyone $100.

In any case, sensationalist headlines aside, some lawyer is gonna make a lot of money.

And I'm guessing the case will be settled so we can't just go to small claims court and sue them for 3k each.

Because it’s more profitable to have something that is paid for AND has ads.

Same thing happened with cable TV when it first came out, it was advertised as ad free. Then it filled up with ads, and the streaming services came along promising no ads. Now the circle is repeating itself.

Here is the NYTimes in 1981 on the topic https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-inv...

The problem is that the most lucrative advertising market is to advertise to those people who are willing to pay extra to not see ads. The people who are willing to save money by seeing ads, are also the people who don't have excess discretionary cash that they'd be willing to spend on the products advertisers are advertising to them. This is the paradox that keeps driving this industry around in circles, swallowing its own tail.

There was an interesting interview with a long timer with google on a podcast I listen to (freakanomics?) where the concept of ads came up. Apparently very early on google did the analysis and found that google search provided something like $50 (can't remember the exact number) of actualizable annual value to a typical user. Which is to say they could charge around $5 monthly and it'd still be worth it for most people to pay. But the ads. They could make way more than $50 per user just during the christmas season alone. And so it was a no brainer for them to go with ads (despite anti ad sentiment being a key part of the papers that led to the creation of google...).

So, to answer your question. I think we do value our time less than advertisers do. Worse, is I suspect your eyeballs becomes more valuable to advertisers the more your willing to pay to not see ads...

I'm sure this has been going on for a while but I'm noticing an even bigger obsession with companies manifesting ad inventory locations everywhere possible. Biggest standout recently is Lyft placing large ads in their app while I'm waiting on a ride that I'm paying them for! I too used to think something that was paid for directly with actual money meant no ads but not anymore.

Monopoly is the best position to implement anti-competitive behavior. Copyright is monopoly. It should be no surprise that Copyright has resulted in anti-competitive behavior.

No one can afford to compete with large media corporations, because Copyright explicitly turns media corporations into monopolies.

Absolutely, advertisers are big companies who don't really care how much they're spending on ads. Especially big brands, they have no idea how much advertising helps them, and they don't care about the budget that much. They'll absolutely pay more to put an ad in front of you than you think it's worth to remove it. That's the whole thing with ads.

> why can't we just have something that's truly paid and ad-free?

We can. You just have to make it first.

This is not a question to ask of others, it a just question you ask yourself. Once you answer it for yourself, then just realize that same answer applies to everyone from their perspective.

> our economic system requires prices to increase while product quality degrades to ensure ever-increasing profits for shareholders

Only in the absence of competition. Prices go down all the time while growth remains positive.

> why can't we just have something that's truly paid and ad-free

You can, it just costs more. Ads are a way to make sure that there's a product for more price sensitive customers while keeping revenue high.

The real problem for streamers isn't pricing, it's churn.

> Instead, I'll complain about commercials: why can't we just have something that's truly paid and ad-free? Do we actually value our time less than advertisers do?

Yes, clearly, as revealed by the way most consumers act.

How many people do you know that actually pay for YouTube to get rid of ads? I personally do, and I encourage everyone else to do so, but I assume it's a tiny market.

It is paid and ad free. You just have to pay the new rate.

Perhaps they should have raised the rate of base Prime, and then offered a lower priced paid w/ads option. But there was probably an issue with the annual holders in that case.

So, instead they lowered the features and now folks can up to the new subscription.

Advertisers are sort of benevolent here, if not lesser victims.

Google, Facebook and now Amazon realized the big money is in brokering ads. As brokers, they know everything and control everything, exploiting both the viewers and advertisers.

Amazon's market research suggested to them that you (might) value your time enough to pay an extra $3/month to avoid watching ads.

I mean you can, it just costs $3/month more now. Basically any service out there has truly ad free versions if you pay more.

It sucks that the price point keeps getting farther away, but it does exist.

Greed. That's why. Having a wildly profitable business isn't enough. It has to be as profitable as the market will bear. Pure capitalism.

Seems like whole premise of Prime, and most Apple products for that matter, is to capitalize on the failure to enforce product tying that's illegal under both Sherman and Clayton.

Prime never had video to begin with so I doubt they would discount it for you.

We already are: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39254807

The system is so blatantly rigged, why would you respect the "intellectual property" rights of people who are fleecing you? At this point I'm just ripping everything worth watching using tools like StreamFab, and encouraging everyone to do the same. Given how cheap local NAS storage is these days, you can easily have all your favorite videos and shows in one place. For bonus points, Plex has much better UI than Amazon.

"Went back" to piracy years ago... I actually pirated movies even when they were available on my Netflix subscription. I unsubscribed from Netflix when they started their descent into Netflix-only content.

The ads have always been Freevee's business model. So they might offer an ad-free option at some point but that seems highly unlikely.