Amazon wants to introduce advertising in its streaming service Prime Video. From February 5th, users will have to pay more if they want to watch films and series ad-free. This goes too far for consumer advocates.
The Federal Association of Consumer Organizations (vzbv) wants to take legal action against Amazon because the company is introducing advertising in its Prime Video streaming service. From Monday, February 5th, users in Germany will have to pay 2.99 euros more per month if they want to watch films and series ad-free.
Consumer advocates are bothered by the fact that advertising is being pushed onto customers without their consent. Prime customers were informed about this at the beginning of January. If they don’t respond, from February 5th they will only be able to watch films and series with advertising recordings. Amazon promises “limited advertising.” They want to “show significantly less advertising than linear TV and other streaming television providers.” Rented or purchased content should not contain any advertising recordings.
The Federal Association of Consumer Organizations sees this as a significant change to the contract, for which the consent of the users would have had to be obtained. This is a “disregard for consumer law,” said vzbv boss Ramona Pop to the “Handelsblatt”.
New trend on the streaming market
Advertising on streaming services is not new. Providers such as Disney and Netflix introduced cheaper, advertising-financed subscription models some time ago. Amazon argues that in this way it is possible to “continue to invest in attractive content and continue to increase these investments over a long period of time.” Ultimately, it’s also about retaining customers for whom a standard subscription is too expensive. Because the competition is getting bigger: A few years ago, Netflix, Disney+ and Co. shook up the market and competed with TV channels with their offerings.
Many streaming services are now under pressure themselves. In economically difficult times, many customers also look at the price. “Streaming users are putting the red pencil on,” says a streaming study from 2023 by the management consultancy Simon-Kucher. The main reasons are “the desire to save, subscription prices that are too high and too many existing subscriptions.” It is not a foregone conclusion whether, against this background, Amazon’s calculation of being able to score points with customers with new offers will work.