Hacker News Reader

Comment by pavanlimo | Hacker News Reader

I had unsubscribed from Prime Video for precisely this reason. I think it's about time I gave it another chance.

It had been a long time since I looked at Amazon Prime and it's no better now.

The interface is total garbage. It's a bizarre mix of Netflix and amazon's regular website. Search is useless. You can't get an A-Z list of everything. You're forced to sort by either "featured" (aka what they are advertising) or "new". Content they want more money for (in addition to what you already pay them for Prime) is mixed in with everything else. It's basically full of ads.

I keep prime for shipping but anything I can't get on Netflix I can find online without dealing with Amazon's terrible interface.

It's pretty easy to toggle content that is included free with Prime video only, rather than seeing it and content available for purchase.

Selecting UHD versions is still hot garbage though.

Is there a preference to hide that stuff everywhere or is it just a specific search term or check box when searching? An option you can set once that applies to the entire account would be a big plus!

I don't believe there's a global setting, but from the home screen there is a page that is content included with Prime Video only, and at least on most devices it is a single colour button to select the subscription content only on searches.

Are you talking about the website or the apps for TV's, Rokus', FireTV's, and now chromecast?

The website and the apps are very very different

The website, maybe the apps are better (at least they shouldn't give you amazon's store interface) but I suspect the problem of content they want extra money for mixed in with what your prime subscription gets you is still an issue.

Not in the Roku App

On FireTV it can be, but it fairly easy to avoid as well. For that matter is actually fairly easy to filter out non-prime content on the website as well, if you know how to use the basic filters

I think you're the first person I've ever seen who subscribed to Prime for the video instead of the free shipping.

Prime Video + Prime Shipping + Prime Music is ~16 USD per year if you get the subscription from India. I used to live in India but not anymore. So I was keen to only use Prime Video + Prime Music (since Prime Shipping doesn't work outside of India for that sub). Both Prime Video and Music were rather unsatisfactory, and no Chromcast support was just the last straw for me to unsub.

In India, I don't know of anyone who actually pays for prime. Everyone gets it free bundled with their mobile or broadband plans.

All of these plans get Amazon Prime with free shipping, prime video and Amazon Music ad-free unlimited downloads:

Airtel: - INR 299 (USD 4.37) per month plan includes unlimited call/text and 2.5GB data per day and includes Amazon Prime.

BSNL: - INR 399 (USD 4.37) per month plan includes unlimited call/text and 30GB data per month.

Vodafone/IDEA: - INR 399 (USD 5.83) per month plan includes unlimited call/text and 40GB data per month and includes Amazon Prime (full year) and Netflix (3-months trial).

Reliance Jio: - INR 149 (USD 2.19) for unlimited voice/text and 1.5GB per day. Bundles HotStar (which streams cricket, tennis etc live) along with premium content from HBO, Starz etc.

IMO, all of the telcos in India have strong TV apps that give access to Movie/TV/News/Sports content (live+recorded) on mobile screens for free (bundled with really cheap mobile plans). Then there is Hotstar which is orders of magnitude better content than prime videos. So, unless someone is getting prime video for free I doubt anyone would be paying for it.

Even music is very much like that. Prime Music is good. But there is Airtel's Wynk, Jim has Saavn, then there is Youtube which has huge viewership for music videos.

But this only works if you are a new prime user and not an existing one :(. Though at least in Airtel you get INR 1500 worth of Netflix subscription which is pretty useful.

IMO Hotstar is not orders of magnitude better in terms of content.

Prime has big sitcoms like the office, 30 rock, seinfeld etc.

Their B&W and 60s/70s movie catalog is also much larger than any other services.

with Airtel, doesn't Amazon Prime free subscription end after 12months ?

It hasn't been one year yet. So let's see. I would expect it to renew for free next year as long as I'm subscribed to their 499 or higher plan.

There are a lot of people in countries that have no Amazon Prime shipping benefits - Prime Video is $5.99/mo or €5.99/mo in those places.

I use prime for the movies too!

I have a laugh every time I see their "Recently Added Movies on Prime" section and find films from 2007. Or their "Popular|Trending Movies on on Prime" and see films with a <5 score on IMDB. There is no reason I would keep Prime for its movie offering! In the last six months they've added more and more sponsored offerings too, which is _really_ annoying -- I mean, I'm a subscriber, stop advertising to me.

> I'm a subscriber, stop advertising to me.

I hate it when I miss the start (separate annoyance: seems often that audio takes a few seconds to start? Maybe that's the Shield's fault rather than Prime's) so I rewind, and then it hits me with the advert again...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com