Over 73% Believe Amazon Prime Ads Would Affect Their Enjoyment of Video Content

Amazon Prime, including several other online streaming platforms, was considered a savior among many people. The reason — it’s cheap, ad-free, and provides access to a massive collection of movies and TV series, making life fun and easy. 

But, what happens when those streaming platforms start to show annoying ads which could interrupt one of your leisure activities? Could the world erupt as a destructive and evil realm? Nah, just kidding.

Sure, Amazon Prime Video ads would be difficult for some viewers, however, there is a reason behind this shocking announcement. On September 22, 2023, Amazon announced that Prime Video shows and movies will include limited advertisements to “continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period.” Despite stating this reason, this announcement ignited a contentious debate across the social media platforms.

Deep in the diverse social digital jungle, users still cry out vehemently speculating about the discomfort that may arise behind these ads, and promised to cancel their Amazon subscriptions by next year. Moreover, users, irrespective of whether Amazon Prime will include ads, reflected on Amazon Prime’s content, claiming it has been reducing. However, the question of whether all these factors may decrease Amazon’s overall user base remains a mystery.

To further find out and understand the consumers’ points on this topic, Real Research, an online survey app, launched a survey on Amazon Prime adding ads.

Highlights:

• 73.73% believe Amazon Prime Video ads that are long would affect their enjoyment of video content.
• 44.6% believe it’s fair for viewers to pay extra for not watching ads on Amazon Prime.
• 46.16% speculate that investment and participation from the ad industry will help Amazon with producing quality content.

Amazon To Introduce Ads in Prime Video

This shocking news continues to garner viewers and consumers’ attention as 42.13% were very well aware of Amazon Prime adding ads. On the other hand, out of the 10,000 participants, 37.54% were vaguely aware of the introduction of advertisements in Prime Video. The remaining 20.33% had yet to learn about this latest news.

According to the announcement, Amazon Prime Video ads will be initially introduced in the US, UK, Germany, and Canada by 2024. Meanwhile, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia will also begin witnessing ads on Prime Video later in the same year.

Amazon also promised its users that prices for Prime membership would remain the same in 2024. However, users who wish for an ad-free option can take advantage of this feature by paying an additional $2.99 per month for US Prime members. The cost for the Prime memberships for other countries will be revealed at a later date.

Based on the survey results, around 44.6% of respondents believe it’s fair for users to pay an extra amount of $3 for an ad-free subscription plan to Prime members. Meanwhile, 40.47% suggest that it is unfair for users to pay extra and finally, 14.93% are still unsure.

The Critical Decision of Amazon Prime

It seems that the majority of the participants backed Amazon’s decision to add advertisements to the Prime platform. Around 38.87% fully support this decision of introducing Amazon Prime Video ads, meanwhile 29.67% of respondents do not support this decision. The remaining 31.46% have still not decided whether they would support Amazon’s latest decision.

Users, across social media platforms, are complaining that streaming platforms are becoming more or less similar to traditional cable television services. Currently, several streaming platforms have already introduced unskippable and skippable ads in the streaming platforms. These ads are one of the factors that caused a few individuals to cancel their subscriptions claiming it to be similar to traditional TV.

This Real Research survey revealed that 41.2% believed that enforcing ads could beat the notion that streaming platforms like Amazon Prime are cushing traditional TV due to the control over content that it offers to its viewers. 23.27% speculate that enforcing ads on streaming will not be enough for this to happen.

When it comes to Amazon, the company does not just offer streaming services for its users. According to Amazon, Prime members have the opportunity to benefit from its “fast and free” delivery, access to all music and podcasts (ad-free), gaming content, e-books, and more. Once again the users have pointed out that these features seem to be diminishing as time passes which is another reason to have reduced the interest in the users.

Read Also: Survey on The Rise of OTT Streaming Platforms

However, the reason why most of the participants support Amazon’s latest decision to introduce ads to its platform, despite all the negative comments on the social media platforms, could be attributed to Amazon’s promise. In the announcement, Amazon guaranteed to have “meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers.”

Furthermore, the announcement specifically stated that Amazon Prime Video ads will enable the company to invest “in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.” Around 46.16% agreed with Amazon, believing that investment and participation from the ad industry will help the streaming platform produce quality content. Meanwhile, 27.73% opposed Amazon with the belief that investment from ads has nothing to do with content quality.

A Delay For Fun

Reportedly, Amazon Prime Video ads will focus on quality and few speculate it would be around four minutes in duration. After hearing this, around 73.73% agreed that the long ads would definitely affect their enjoyment of video content on the platform.

The remaining 15.12% believe that this would still not affect the enjoyment of video content on the platform. However, it should be noted that the four-minute-long duration arises from the community as the lowest amount of ad time on a streaming platform seems to be at four minutes per hour. In fact, Amazon has still not revealed the duration of those ads in the official announcement and only made a vague promise to include “limited advertisements.”