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[–] 62 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Amazon is clearly struggling financially, and needs the revenue. Think of the starving investors!

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  • [–] 54 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Also be aware that Amazon donated one million dollars to the Trump inauguration and is a sponsor of the Jun 14 military parade.

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  • [–] 138 points 1 year ago (25 children)

    I'm old, so many may not relate. I remember when the big selling point of this newfangled "cable TV" thing was zero ads. Can you imagine that?

    Yeah, I have Prime for the savings on shipping. Got the Kodi addon for watching Prime, never used it except to watch The Expanse a few years ago. Would have been fucking enraged if I had seen ads cut into that. Fuck am I paying for?!

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  • [–] 44 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)

    I think about this all the time. Kids today have no experience of the media without ads. Like we had commercials, but imagine Mr. Rogers stopping his show every 5 mins to sell you athletic greens and test boosters.

    This image has a totally different context today then when it was first created

    Anyways, these kids will grow up and make even worse and more annoying ads. They'll be the next Gen of marketing executives in a decade or two. There's nothing we can do about it.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    I prefer the obvious product placement in old movies, tv shows. How funny it is to see product placement all over the place on the kitchen shelves of Seinfeld, the sugar cookie of Honey I Shrunk the Kids.

    The list could go on.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Larry David said Seinfeld was just before studios did product placement deals and that they missed out on a lot of extra money from it. He said a lot of things they referenced were just plot devices. I'd say the one clear exception was George and his Rolled Gold pretzels that he was a commercial spokesman for at the time.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago

    I don't know about Seinfeld, but I know in Friends, they used look-alike, but not real products.

    It's not Sprite, it's Sprita. Same logo (for the time), but not the same.

    It wasn't skittles, it was skitles.

    You see where I'm going with this. They wanted the feel of a real apartment, without the legal trouble from using real products.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Honestly product placements in shows often made them feel more real. Yeah they’re drinking Coke…that’s what me and my friends do too. Products are already placed all over my house.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I'm really torn here. Like people complain when superman flies through an ihop or there are billboards. But they make it more grounded. My problem is that they frame it like a commercial. Or world war z where brad pit is drinking every pepsi(?) or Heineken(?) like it was a commercial. In one of these godaweful tranformers movies, they just show products in a way that is so disgusting not even an actual commercial would do it.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Fucking weird, isn't it? Another rant would be about where is all the advertising money coming from?! Imagining being a buyer, I'd have to wonder how well my spend would be profiting.

    A couple of decades ago I played around with being a salesman. Top advice was to try this ad, try that ad, compare results. Surely these people are finding revenue from spending on these ads? It just seems impossible to me that there's profit for all of these cockroaches.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    Actually for my kids at least it's different. They're so used to ad blocked YouTube and ad-free Netflix. That when the adblocker fails for whatever reason they get first delighted to see something new and very soon after annoyed at having to see that shit all the time and cry for someone to help them.

    We watch regular TV so little. The other day we didn't have internet for several hours, maybe a few days. That's when we discovered that the TV is actually too far away to reach the cable of the satellite dish.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    imagine Mr. Rogers stopping his show every 5 mins to sell you athletic greens and test boosters.

    Or imagine the Flintstones advertising cigarettes to kids in the middle of the show.

    Or comedy shows named after the sponsoring toothpaste company with sponsor breaks throughout.

    Sure it’s gotten really bad lately, but mass media has always been rife with obnoxious advertising, both in-your-face and subliminal. The early days of Netflix streaming were really the anomaly as far as access to non-pirated ad-free media. The broadcast TV generation had their coping mechanisms with the mute button and eventually DVRs, but “media without ads” has basically never been a thing.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Some time ago i found a old VHS of karate kid that i recorded. That was on free open tv and the commercials were super short. And i think two for the whole movie. I downloaded some trash tv like 60 day fiancee, and it was accidentally an episode where they left the commercials in. That was the most insane shit i have ever seen. They streched a 45min show into a 1 1/2 hour show. With the same pharma commercials over and over all the goddamn time and then the recap after every commercial. This shit has to rot your brain in some capacity.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I've had the same thoughts about people who watch free to air TV. Between the same set of ads every ad break, and the frankly dubious quality of the programming, it has to be contributing to some type of cognitive decline.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    The worst are reality show “result” episodes. Seriously, you’re doing a two hour special with extra ads, all about recaps, when the only goal is to announce who won last week?

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  • [+] -8 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Cable tv wasn’t invented to have zero ads . The original selling point of cable tv was to provide broadcast tv to those that couldn’t pick up OTA broadcasts.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I feel like you weren't there, in that time and place. Or maybe you were in some weird pocket where OTA wasn't available? Can't remember anyone bitching about lack of antennae service. Yeah, it could be sketchy, but I think most of us could drag in ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I grew up in the 70's and had cable TV as soon as long as I could remember and it was the exact same broadcasts people that lived in DC or Baltimore got, we just got them from cable since the mountains we lived in prevented any OTA from getting through. And I am pretty sure I wasn't alone with my cable TV.

    In 1968, 6.4% of Americans had cable television. The number increased to 7.5% in 1978. By 1988, 52.8% of all households were using cable. The number further increased to 62.4% in 1994. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television)

    I think one could argue they invented cable TV so that more people could see ads, not to stop showing ads.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Well radio was originally mostly about advertising, and when TV came around it was just gonna be radio but with moving pictures! So yeah, it was about spreading more advertisements around to more people.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    What. Cable has only been available in cities and you could get the OTA Chanel's.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    What? Not everyone lives in or near a metro area. Some people live in valleys or mountains where an OTA signal doesn’t reach. I should know that is where I grew up.

    Plus if you read up on the history of cable TV you will find that it was invented for just those reasons.

    “At the outset, cable systems only served smaller communities without television stations of their own, and which could not easily receive signals from stations in cities because of distance or hilly terrain”

    It isn’t that hard to read up on it and understand the history. Instead I guess just downvote because you don’t like the answer.

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  • [–] 71 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I recently did the same on my jellyfin server. 100x the ads actually.

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  • [–] 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I'll do you one better. I'm upping the ads on mine by 1,000,000x.

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  • [+] 32 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Get the pirate hats ready, we are sailing the high seas ☠️🏴‍☠️

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Just renewed proton vpn yesterday (didn't get any mails or anything, it just popped a box out of nowhere), had that sweet 3 year deal running out 🥲. Its some cash (a hundred something for 2 years) but I'm trying to do my honest work.jpg.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I use Proton VPN, and their mail and password service. It has all worked flawlessly so far

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Me too, except I didn't get the email saying my pro vpn was about to expire, which might be my fault ofc. Gotta check the oarameters :-)

    It's really good IMO and I'd recommend it fullheartedly, Switzerland has some of the best laws out there too concerning privacy too.

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago

    And I double my piracy. Checkmate, corporations.

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  • [–] 27 points 1 year ago

    Oi Ue, it's fooking diabolical mate. Omelander topped me wife and now more ads on the tele, diabolical.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago

    Fuck them, I'm not paying for ads, let alone paying more for more ads. I already got rid of my prime months ago, I need to stop supporting amazon anyway.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago

    That's why I cancelled my Prime subscription. After that, Amazon randomly re started my Prime subscription, twice; that's why I deleted my Amazon account.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    Nice I love it. We didn't stop ads years ago. Content creators deserve to be paid right guys. Right!!

    Maybe the next Internet we can be more proactive. Whenever that is

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I mean yes they deserve to get paid. Do you do stuff for free? I mean it's funny how people complain about ads but nobody is willing to pay for anything.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, people create stuff online without getting paid all the time. We literally built the Internet that way. Go back to the early days forums, blogs, dumb memes, personal websites, fan videos none of that was about money. People made stuff just to share it, to be part of something, or just because they wanted to.

    It’s only after financial incentives got introduced ads, sponsorships, “influencer” money that everything started getting worse. Suddenly it’s all algorithm-chasing. Everyone’s copying each other, following trends, tweaking thumbnails, timing posts. The content got way more polished, surebut also way more boring. It's all the same stuff over and over.

    So yeah, people deserve to get paid if that’s what they want. But pretending like people only create if they’re paid is just wrong. Humans naturally create. Always have. We write songs, we draw, we tell jokes. Money didn’t start that, it ruined it. It made it a job. It made it about likes and reach and SEO. It turned the internet into a shopping mall.

    Now everything online feels fake. Safe. Recycled. All because the moment you attach money to something, people start optimizing for profit instead of originality. That’s the trade-off.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago

    doubles Prime Video piracy per hour

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Gotta pay for all those crappy movies they make starring Dwayne Johnson.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    It's crazy how much money that cunt makes for the shittiest movies imaginable. Somehow people like that guy too.

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  • [–] 35 points 1 year ago
    [–] 17 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Pirated content of course has no advertising in it, so it makes sense to pay good money for a service that has adverts in it or how else am I going to learn about all those fabulous products I just have to buy?

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    You guys get ads on Prime?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    No, a good adblocker takes care of that.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    Farewell Amazon videos. Oh, and I'm trying to do all my shopping NOT on Amazon. Fuck bezos, trump, and all the other orange butthole sucking fat cats.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    I have been cancelling subscriptions to Trump supporting companies since January. I was on a yearly sub with Amazon.

    Thanks for the reminder to cancel..........

    ........ cancelled.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Glad I cancelled Prime some time ago. Haven't missed it and I usually get free shipping anyway by buying elsewhere. I'll even pay more to avoid Amazon.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I'll be quitting after my wife finishes her series. I had noticed it is getting worse. Plus, unless I screwed up somehow, that $2.99 no-adverts charge appeared without any action on our part. We cancelled and went back to the cheaper version. It really bugs me that a company making money hand over fist finds it necessary to fuck their customers over unless they pay even more.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago*

    Amazon seems to randomly start subscriptions. And then you think you’re crazy and did something stupid but I’m pretty sure they’re just evil. I have been subscribed to Audible multiple times and I have never listened to an audiobook in my life.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    I cancelled the moment they put ads in the plan I had been paying for. Don’t miss it for a second. Not even prime shipping.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    Do you know how many ads are on Jellyfin?

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Good thing I cancelled prime along with all my subscriptions and accounts with US companies just after Trump was elected.

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    [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    "I can't see ads!"

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  • Awesome, now piracy can also double!

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Pray I do not double them again. And again, and again....

    Literally, ads infinitum

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I’m was going to say …. I’ve mostly given up on Prime Video but tried to watch it last night and it was intolerable

    Netflix too. Even trying to use it according to their rules, they decided my home network is not my home network. I have to keep using the extra authentication, and they are not willing or able to fix it. I’m really just holding out for Wednesday, but maybe I should cancel, and resubscribe in December when I can watch the whole season

    I’m not currently frustrated with Disney+, but am also not watching anything there.

    I generally try to stay at 2-3 subscriptions but sometimes none of them are worth ot

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    While my kids are watching Disney+, if there is a wifi blip the stream gets messed up. The video starts going into a fast forward type mode and the audio disappears. That's when I hear my kid yell from the other room "there's no words again!"

    Never have those issues streaming from my jellyfin server.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I watched just the one episode of Wednesday and came to the conclusion that whoever wrote it had never seen The Addams Family at any point.

    It was painful to watch.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago*

    The first episode was definitely questionable but once the season got the family out of the way, the fan service out of the way, and focussed on Wednesday, it was much better.

    It was definitely a good idea to focus on the one character independent of the family, to avoid conflicts with the original show

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  • [+] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    +100% ads --> -100% amazon purchases

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Amazon funded Trump's inauguration, they've doubled their advertisements, they mistreat their warehouse workers, for people who don't use Amazon often you're paying more money than you'd spend on just paying for shipping on the occasion you need fast shipping or if you don't need fast shipping you can still get free shipping if your order is more than the threshold which I think depends on your account might be $25 or $35.

    Given all these things I really hope no one is subscribing to Amazon prime. I'd highly recommend anyone who uses Amazon prime to cancel it. Being shown advertisements on something you're paying for is insane. This should be the final straw for any Amazon Prime customer.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Mine ended on the 5th, i didn't renew it. It's the first time since i got it that I didn't but everything's chinese rebranded shit there now and the shows are better if i torrent them.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago
    [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    I noticed paramount+ was included in a subscription service my wife has. I setup an account, loaded the app found a show to watch. Made it threw 3 episodes decided to pirate the show instead because the commercials were to annoying.

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