Amazon Prime Video, one of the many benefits of Getting an Amazon Prime subscriptionAbout to show ads soon while you stream its library of TV shows and movies, including many original series and movies.

diverse The ads will reportedly start appearing sometime in early 2024 in the US, UK, Germany and Canada. Later, the ads will appear on the service for people in France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Australia. In a statement, Amazon says Prime Video content won’t have as many commercials as you’d find on legacy TV networks or other ad-based streaming services.

If you want to continue watching these movies and shows without ads, Amazon will give you that option, but at an additional cost of $2.99 ​​per month. No word if Amazon will offer an annual fee for ad-free Amazon Prime Video. The company already offers a completely free ad-supported streaming service, Amazon Freevee.

With this change, almost all major streaming services now offer both ad and ad-free programming. Currently, the only major ad-free service is Apple TV+, which costs $6.99 per month.

This is just the latest development in what many have called “stream inflation,” as streaming services are now less concerned with growing their subscriber numbers and more concerned with being truly profitable.

So far, we’ve seen Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ announce significant price increases for their ad-free streaming programs that will begin later this fall. Peacock also announced price increases for its Premium and Premium Plus plans in July. YouTube Premium prices increased by $2 per month to $13.99 per month in July as well.

One smaller streaming service, Starz, is actually bucking this trend. It announced a month ago that it lowered the price of access to the service with an annual subscription from $74.99 to $69.99.

As an Amazon Associate wWhen you purchase through links on our site, we profit from qualifying purchases.