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posted by janrinok on Thursday October 17 2019, @10:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the colour-me-surprised dept.

Amazon Prime Video is confusing its customers with bait-and-switch tactics, survey shows:

Maybe you know the feeling. You’re scrolling around on Amazon Prime Video, minding your own business, and you stumble upon the perfect Saturday night movie. But when you go to click on it, you realize—wait a tick—it’s only available to rent or buy.

In other words, Amazon is asking you, the person who already pays for a Prime Video membership, to pay even more money to watch a sappy romantic comedy (no judgment) that you never would have actively sought out.

Well, if you’ve ever experienced that bait-and-switch sensation, you have plenty of company. In fact, almost 30% of the most popular titles on Amazon Prime Video aren’t actually included in a Prime Video membership, according to a new report from analyst firm MoffettNathanson.

The firm, with help from third-party market researchers, looked at polling data from almost 19,000 streaming TV viewers to determine which shows and movies were the most popular on Amazon’s popular streaming platform. The top show, not surprisingly, was the Emmy-winning Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, with just over 10% of respondents citing it as their favorite. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan was No. 2, followed by The Boys. About 5% of respondents cited movies, The Office, or Friends as their favorite title on Amazon.

[...] “To clarify, most of the ‘not on service’ shows are available for purchase on Amazon, but are not included with a Prime Video membership,” the analysts wrote. “So, consumers are confusing the streaming service for the Amazon video store.”

[Editor's Comment. Removed duplicate line from last paragraph--JR]


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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Thursday October 17 2019, @10:29AM (1 child)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 17 2019, @10:29AM (#908235) Journal

    Currently, TFS ends in

    [...] “To clarify, most of the ‘not on service’ shows are available for purchase on Amazon, but are not included with a Prime Video membership,” the analysts wrote. “So, consumers are confusing the streaming service for the Amazon video store.”“To clarify, most of the ‘not on service’ shows are available for purchase on Amazon, but are not included with a Prime Video membership,” the analysts wrote. “So, consumers are confusing the streaming service for the Amazon video store.”

    Twice only?!?

    I see your apropos to the Matrix and raise you Lewis Carroll's "The hunting of the snark", more precisely the

    Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
    What I tell you three times is true."

    (snarky grin)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday October 17 2019, @02:26PM

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 17 2019, @02:26PM (#908310) Journal

      Duplicate line removed - thanks.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Thursday October 17 2019, @10:51AM (4 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Thursday October 17 2019, @10:51AM (#908240) Journal

    The significant other thought Prime Video came free with Amazon Prime. Yet somehow we were being charged $9.71 per month for prime Video, despite having Amazon Prime. The annual fee for membership in Amazon Prime is totally separate. I found this out when looking through the credit card bill. And, I canceled Prime Video.

    I don't know which way the lie went. Does Prime Video come with Amazon Prime, but somehow some mistake was made and we were being charged separately for Prime Video anyway? Or does Prime Video not come with Amazon Prime, in which case it seems the name is deliberately confusing.

    And yes, "Prime" Video does not include their entire video collection, far from it.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 17 2019, @11:53AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 17 2019, @11:53AM (#908250)

      Huh?

      You can't get Prime Video separately even if you want to.

    • (Score: 2) by theluggage on Thursday October 17 2019, @01:11PM (2 children)

      by theluggage (1797) on Thursday October 17 2019, @01:11PM (#908270)

      I don't know which way the lie went. Does Prime Video come with Amazon Prime, but somehow some mistake was made and we were being charged separately for Prime Video anyway? Or does Prime Video not come with Amazon Prime, in which case it seems the name is deliberately confusing.

      Third time lucky: it is deliberately confusing. Which is what TFA is about.

      There *is* a metric shedload of content that comes "all-you-can-eat" with Amazon Prime, including the big-name "Amazon Prime Exclusive" shows like Mrs. Maisel and The Boys as well as back-catalogue stuff like as much Buffy as you can stomach. It is fundamentally a good service and - if you make good use of the free delivery as well its probably better value than Netflix.

      The problem is that Amazon conflate this with their digital movie/TV sales service - there is a lot of paid content actively pushed by the same App and if you buy any of that it shows up on your account and credit card under the name "Prime Video". The App is defensibly clear when you go to watch something - look for "on Prime" in the category headings (that's the inclusive stuff) and when you click you'll either get a "buy" button (for paid content) or "Watch now with Prime" (if its free) - but it wouldn't be impossible to slip up if you were distracted.

      The paid content includes subscriptions to some "extra" third-party services - which would presumably turn up as monthly "Prime Video" charges to your card. Maybe Amazon made a mistake, or possibly you or your S.O. inadvertently subscribed to one of these.

      Yeah, Amazon are probably not actively lying, but they are being as economical as possible with the truth.

      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 17 2019, @02:33PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 17 2019, @02:33PM (#908316)

        Do you work in advertising?

      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday October 17 2019, @06:05PM

        by sjames (2882) on Thursday October 17 2019, @06:05PM (#908418) Journal

        That particular economy with the truth is known as "bait and switch".

  • (Score: 2) by SemperOSS on Thursday October 17 2019, @10:59AM (8 children)

    by SemperOSS (5072) on Thursday October 17 2019, @10:59AM (#908242)

    It is irritating when you browse through the catalogue of titles and see something you want to watch, only to find out is not included, which can only be found out by clicking on it.

    The irritation could be minimised in three ways: 1) Have a way to select whether you want to see inclusive films/series only, payable only, or both; 2) Mark each payable film/series/episode with a discrete (but clearly visible still) £/$ sign to indicate it costs; 3) Have distinct sections for included stuff and for payable stuff.

    Or better yet, make all the available content free like Netflix! (And yes, I know that Prime Video is really a conflation of the included, Netflix-like stuff and the Amazon store, bringing me back to the arguments above.)


    --
    I don't need a signature to draw attention to myself.
    Maybe I should add a sarcasm warning now and again?
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Thursday October 17 2019, @11:51AM (2 children)

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Thursday October 17 2019, @11:51AM (#908249) Journal

      I don't know about America, but here in Germany, you can select a page with only prime content. Also on all pages which offer both included and excluded content it is clearly marked which content is included in prime and which isn't, so you don't have to click on a video to find out.

      Now what is annoying is that content that is included in prime does not stay included in prime. So you may start watching a series in prime, and then halfway through find it's no longer in prime. Also it may happen that only some of the seasons of a series are included.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday October 17 2019, @02:58PM

        by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday October 17 2019, @02:58PM (#908331) Journal

        I'm in America and I use a Roku to watch prime videos and the menu is categorized in a way that segregates the "free with prime" from the "pay extra" stuff. I don't love Amazon but it also never bothered me and I've certainly never accidentally bought something.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by SunTzuWarmaster on Thursday October 17 2019, @03:22PM

        by SunTzuWarmaster (3971) on Thursday October 17 2019, @03:22PM (#908343)

        I don't know about America, but here in Germany, you can select a page with only prime content.

        This page was removed from the Amazon Video app, PS3 app, and PS4 app (at a minimum - I suspect it was blanket-removed). As far as I can tell, it was removed because they like money and want to take it from me via the hands of my aging and easily confused parents.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Oakenshield on Thursday October 17 2019, @12:44PM

      by Oakenshield (4900) on Thursday October 17 2019, @12:44PM (#908258)

      I basically quit browsing Amazon Prime video because of this very issue. It was useless and I got tired of spending a half hour searching for something "free" to watch on Amazon. I only got Prime for the shipping anyway. With increased Prime pricing, charging sales tax and increased Amazon prices, I'm sitting on the bubble for keeping Prime.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 17 2019, @02:15PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 17 2019, @02:15PM (#908300)

      Usually there's a diagonal stripe across the top right corner of the picture that says "Prime" if it's part of the streaming service.
      But no, that doesn't make it better because they do tease you with all of the stuff that you can only watch if you pay full price for it.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by choose another one on Thursday October 17 2019, @03:55PM (1 child)

      by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 17 2019, @03:55PM (#908352)

      I haven't yet found (1), but at least on my Prime Video pages (and I don't recall activating any hidden options or anything) both your (2) and (3) are already implemented.

      (2) is implemented by marking the prime (free) titles rather than the payable ones, but the marking is clearly visible (banner across the corner of the thumbnail image, says "Prime" with a tick as well)

      (3) is implemented at least on the Prime Video home page
      - content is ordered into sections, one row for each section (further titles shown by scrolling horizontally with an arrow button/image)
      - each section title either starts with a blue (or maybe purple, I am colourblind) "Prime" or it doesn't, ones that start with Prime are full of included stuff
      - each thumbnail in the section is marked (banner, see above) as Prime or not, sections appear to be all-Prime or all-payable (never seen it otherwise)

      Once I conditioned myself to actually pay attention, the pay/included distinction is pretty obvious and I haven't had a problem with it.

      Where it _does_ impact is looking through recommendation lists (i.e. "people with your weird taste in movies also watched these") and the like, where you _do_ get a mix of pay/prime titles - tricky to see how you do that any other way though.

      • (Score: 2) by SemperOSS on Thursday October 17 2019, @05:52PM

        by SemperOSS (5072) on Thursday October 17 2019, @05:52PM (#908403)

        Actually, it seems that it may be a problem with my Prime Video app (built into my BluRay player). I tried using a browser and suddenly everything I look at is nicely marked.

        Hmmm, maybe it is time to upgrade my system.


        --
        I don't need a signature to draw attention to myself.
        Maybe I should add a sarcasm warning now and again?
    • (Score: 1) by slashnot on Thursday October 17 2019, @08:07PM

      by slashnot (8607) on Thursday October 17 2019, @08:07PM (#908472)

      I've found when browsing the catalogue, that even the free "included with Prime" movies may only be free for a short period of time. I stumbled across the movie Airplane! and added it to my watchlist, because it was free with my Prime subscription. I wanted to show it to my teenage offspring, as an example of a movie that could never be made today - but that's a different subject. A couple weeks later I go to play it, only to find that it's three or four bucks to rent now, depending on SD or HD.

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 17 2019, @11:25AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 17 2019, @11:25AM (#908245)

    They advertise millions of books on Kindle Unlimited for $10 per month but when you actually look at the content 99.9% of it is self-published Harlequin romances, enthralling nonfiction like "List of Harry Potter Movies and Order to Watch them in" and compelling series like "Oscilloscope Sales in Brazil", "Oscilloscope Sales in Dubai", "Oscilloscope Sales in Uzbekistan", etc.

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 17 2019, @11:50AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 17 2019, @11:50AM (#908248)

      Sure, the series starts off slow - the author shouldn't have set the first book in the aftermath of Carnival, when so many potential purchasers were indisposed - but the second book really comes into its own with the surprising overlap between electronic diagnostic equipment and Middle Eastern political maneuvering. By the third book, you'll really be drawn into the new world growing in Central Asia, close to the thriving Chinese market, but still with strong ties to the old Russian ways. I can't wait to see the scrappy little manufacturer become a true global force in the upcoming sequel, "Oscilloscope Sales in Eswatini!"

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Rupert Pupnick on Thursday October 17 2019, @12:57PM (1 child)

      by Rupert Pupnick (7277) on Thursday October 17 2019, @12:57PM (#908263) Journal

      Finally, some top shelf oscilloscope drama! Such a huge untapped market-- what took them so long?

      • (Score: 4, Funny) by fadrian on Thursday October 17 2019, @01:11PM

        by fadrian (3194) on Thursday October 17 2019, @01:11PM (#908271) Homepage

        To be fair, I stopped looking at the oscilloscope porn in the late nineties when Tektronix stopped being a force in the market. Those hot traces were never the same afterward.

        --
        That is all.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by donkeyhotay on Thursday October 17 2019, @02:11PM (1 child)

    by donkeyhotay (2540) on Thursday October 17 2019, @02:11PM (#908296)

    When you search for the movie, it will say Rent $2. Then when you click on it, the rental is actually $3, with no $2 option available. Not that an extra dollar matters that much to me, but it's still a "bait and switch" technique that leaves a bad taste in one's mouth.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 18 2019, @06:34AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 18 2019, @06:34AM (#908717)

      That is false advertising and is illegal. You should complain to your state agency or you will only see more of it.

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