this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
123 points (96.9% liked)

Technology

59675 readers
3226 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Amazon Video Ad Push Seen Generating Extra $5 Billion in Revenue::Amazon.com Inc.’s push into video advertising will boost annual revenue by as much as $5 billion, according to a Bank of America analysis, mostly generated by new television-style commercials on Prime Video.

top 19 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 108 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Do your part and cancel if ya have it

[–] NanoooK 34 points 10 months ago

Yes, no point of complaining about ads if you keep your subscription.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago

Harder to do if you use Prime for other things. I've never watched a single Amazon video but I'm trying to source other purchase options locally so I can finally cancel the Prime shipping, which was saving our household money over the years. That said, if we can avoid it in the future we'll stay off Amazon.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I pay yearly for Amazon Prime, and I still need the other stuff it provides.

I would cancel just Prime Video if I could… but I can’t.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't provide anything. They already offer free shipping on orders above $25. If you insist on buying from them, just wait to buy stuff until you need $25 worth, then check out.

[–] PinkPanther 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Or... Just hear me out... One could not use Amazon. It's easy for me to say, living in Denmark, where we can order from Amazon, but it's not worth it. Everyone should boycott Amazon, considering they're slave laborers...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I'm 100% with you. All for buying anything you can, not from Amazon. But for some people, especially here in the United States, Amazon has become the only option to buy certain items. Just trying to get people alternatives to paying $160 a year for a service that doesn't really provide much of anything in my eyes.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I think I'll stick to piracy thanks.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago

Because Bezos really needed more money

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

I admit I've not look into any numbers, if they are available, but I bet Amazon has an advantage of Prime customers that don't have it primarily as a video streaming service. Those customers probably wouldn't consider ads a big deal.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

True, but they've maintained healthy profits regardless.

I'm not defending the decision (I got rid of Netflix a long time ago), but they made it knowing full well that it benefitted their long-term financial outlook.

Amazon is on the same boat as the other streaming platforms started since 2018: theyve sunk a ton of capital into building the platform to eat into Netflix's market share, but they need to start monetizing soon otherwise their shareholders will get impatient with the liability still on the books.

TL;DR; all these streamers are tanking the market with their competing services but as long as they can make more per user, they can do it indefinitely (but if 'free' alternatives continue absorbing users, then they'll need to put the cabash on it, or else the entire market will go under)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That MSN article has some numbers that don't add up.

The news is that the streaming giant is accountable for over half of the 4.4 million subscriptions lost in Spain alone in recent months...

The analysis firm asserted that 1.6 million users have left the home of series like Stranger Things overall...

The online streaming service had reported that it had added nine million new users, bringing its total number of subscribers to 247.15 million, during the most recent fiscal disclosure of data.

Ignoring the fact that 1.6m isn't "over half" of 4.4m, the last paragraph says that they added 9m new users. Am I reading this wrong?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

That's 9m globally compared to the 1.6m/4.4m in Spain. They're still adding new users in emerging market countries. I'd imagine the issue is that their users are falling off in their previously established markets (probably western countries, which I'm guessing make more money per sub too).

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

That’s good. I was worried about Amazon’s profits. All those employees on food stamps. The company must be so broke!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

We killed Apple and kept Amazon. There is no streaming but commercial-free streaming, so it now needs to compete with the higher price tag.

Soon it'll be Amazon or britbox, and it's not gonna survive that tribal council.