I stopped giving them my money when they helped overthrow democracy. Just acquire their content overseas...

It's fucking infuriating. I've started muting the TV, but I've been considering just torrenting the shows instead.

They don't even bother timing the breaks with when a scene ends like they used to do on cable. They'll just straight up interrupt the show in the middle of dialogue.

Welcome to the right side of history matey

Yeah that’s one of several reasons I host my own plex server, I control my content and don’t have ads shoved in anywhere. Jellyfin also a great option if I wasn’t sharing with friends who wouldn’t be able to use it remotely as easily.

The experience pirating is superior to the paid options now too, smoother and easier to navigate - none of this random series of categories with low budget crap I don’t want, but the algorithm thinks is the only thing I’m interested in so 1000 iterations of horror sci fi it is.

FYI ad-free prime is a seperate $5/month. 4K is also gated behind that, now.

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/entertainment/prime-video-ultra-ad-free-streaming-subscription

It was always going to be this way... bundling streaming with Prime shipping was a temporary "gateway drug" from the start.

TBH it's not terrible if you just subscribe for something specific then cancel...

But the Prime video player drops frames for me, on brand new hardware across multiple platforms. Sometimes it crashes or won't start. So I find myself "watching via other means" anyway.