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Amazon Splits Prime Video Service To Compete Directly With Netflix (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Starting today, non-Prime members can subscribe to Amazon Prime Video for $8.99 per month. You can cancel any time, you don't have to subscribe to a year upfront. With an Amazon Prime Video subscription, you only get access to Amazon's video library -- no expedited shipping, no music library. When it comes to Amazon Prime, it still costs $99 per year. And yes, it still includes Prime Video. You can also choose to subscribe to Prime for $10.99 per month. You get access to expedited shipping, Prime video, Prime Music, and the Kindle Lending Library. The move is to help the service compete directly against Netflix, Hulu, and other video streaming services. TechCrunch reinforces Amazon's latest move as being in-line with the subscription launchpad they have going with Amazon Prime: "The company can try out new services and see if they work. From day one, these new services will have millions of subscribers. And Amazon certainly spends a lot of time tracking what its users do with these new services."
Seriously, almost every Netflix subscriber will agree that the Netflix GUI has literally only gotten worse with every new iteration. From removing sort and filter options, to putting too much emphasis on movement and DVD box covers to the sheer amount of resources it takes up, it's been a non-stop cluster. It's as if they want to make it difficult for you to watch something you think you would like.
But still, it's 100 times better than Amazon Prime's interface.
What happened to the days of highly functional web interfaces?
This might be cool if Amazon would bother to put in Chromecast support, no one is stopping them. Hulu, Netflix, CBS, HBO, and many other streaming vendors have managed to do it. Without that they are nowhere near worth paying for.