Amazon Prime Video’s disappearing act could point to a future without the service

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Something strange is going on with Amazon Prime Video. A report from news site Cord Busters originally claimed that the tech giant quietly pulled the plug on the service in the United Kingdom. If you head over to Amazon Prime’s UK page, you’ll notice that Prime Video isn’t among the list of plans near the bottom. All you see are Prime Monthly and Prime Annuals. The same thing is happening on the American website. Scroll down to the “Choose Your Plan” section and it’s not there.

As it turns out, Prime Video continues to exist although it’s being obscured. If you go down to the bottom of the UK website, you’ll find Prime Video listed among the other subscription plans with a direct link to sign up. This isn’t the case with the US page, however. There isn’t a clear indicator of Prime Video’s availability in the States; not a cornered-off section or even a small hint. Luckily, the subscription’s signup page is still live if you know where to look or if you have a link. The cost of the subscription hasn’t changed. It’s still $8.99/£5.99 a month.

On the Amazon mobile app, it’s featured more prominently. Prime Video is tucked away in the settings menu behind a single expandable tab and it’s still available for download from app stores. All seems good, right? Not exactly, as on mobile, we couldn’t purchase Prime Video by itself. Instead, we were being pushed to buy the regular Amazon Prime plan at $14.99 a month. There was no option for the cheaper service.

Amounting problems

We don’t know what to make of this. On one hand, it may be the start of a new effort to drive up more revenue. By hiding or possibly even ending the service, the platform could be forcing people to purchase the more expensive Amazon Prime if they want to watch shows like Fallout. It’s entirely possible. Back in late January 29, Prime Video introduced an ad-supported plan as the new base service which understandably annoyed a lot of people. They had to cough up an extra $2.99/£2.99 a month to get rid of commercials. 

However, the sudden disappearance of Prime Video could be the cause of recent bugs. Recently, people have begun to notice weird problems with the service. Second episodes for certain shows are coming out before the first, audio for entire languages is missing, and translation errors are just some of the issues viewers have run into.

We’re leaning towards the glitches as the source of Prime Video’s disappearance. Amazon has reportedly disputed Cord Busters’ claim in a statement to Engadget saying Prime Video is “still available in the US as a standalone… subscription.” Hopefully, this will remain the case. It’s currently one of the cheaper streaming options out there as compared to the other major services. The whole situation could be a bug or bad code wreaking havoc. But something tells us there’s more to this story.

If you’re looking for something to watch over the weekend, check out TechRadar’s latest roundup of the seven newest movies and shows on Netflix, Prime Video, and Max.

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