Prime Video's Commercial Breaks Suck

I try not to complain about the nickel-and-dime nature of today’s entertainment landscape. Once I start it’s difficult to stop. So I keep my mouth shut — rare for me — and pay for the services that have what I want. Occasionally I realize I haven’t used a service in months and cancel it (Starz, Peacock). Or that I only use a service when I’m in a particular mood, so I pay for a month here and there (Crunchyroll). Netflix and Disney+ I keep mostly for the kids. I can drop Max until the next season of The Last of Us finally airs. AppleTV releases intriguing sci-fi series often enough that it’s worth keeping.

But Hulu and Prime Video are my mainstays. The former lets me keep Archer on an endless loop and has a solid movie collection. The latter, which started out as an inconsequential bonus to free shipping, is now home to most of my favorite current series — Reacher, The Boys, Gen V, Invincible, The Power, LoTR, even The Wheel of Time when I feel like hurting myself. And it has a solid collection of both movies and classic series. But Prime’s recent move to include commercial breaks in everything has turned a pleasant viewing experience into an exercise in frustration.

I’m not against ads in general. I grew up without cable, so everything I watched came with frequent commercial breaks. But programs were designed for it. Obvious pauses between acts gave viewers time to hit the bathroom and maybe grab a snack. A human being programmed when the breaks took place and for how long. They made sense. But while new series often stick to the tradition of 42-minute episodes, story acts aren’t as clearly defined. Computers are deciding where commercials are appropriate. As a result, ad breaks are inserted with all the subtlety of the Kool-Aid Man bursting into a funeral home. That’s not unusual; Tubi and every other FAST service out there does the same. But they’re free, apart from whatever internet access costs in your area, so you get what you get and don’t get upset. Those of us using Prime are paying $139 a year for diminishing returns, and we get commercial breaks. Commercials for what? Amazon Prime!

It’s all about the money, of course. Someone has to pay for Jeff Bezos’s inevitable second divorce. And despite a net profit of over $30 billion dollars in 2023 — earned in part by laying off 27,000 people — the shopping titan decided the best way to improve their financial outlook was to annoy Prime members into shelling out an additional $3/month in exchange for an ad-free experience. It’s already worked on Dustin, so they may have a point. But for someone like me, a stubborn ass who’d rather suffer through ads than give Amazon an additional penny, all it does is lessen the impact of their “premium” series.

Watching the latest episode of Invincible, I saw REDACTED brutally killed in front of their horrified friends right before the show cut to a Stepford family who couldn’t believe their Prime deliveries were both fast and free. It was more jarring than watching someone’s head explode, which happened as soon the break ended. Talk about emotional whiplash. Structured commercial breaks in a network sitcom or procedural are fine. Ads spliced in randomly with no thought for action or plot development are another thing entirely.

It won’t improve when new episodes of their premier dramas air. Jack Reacher will push someone feet-first into a woodchipper, and mid-scream the screen will cut to an ad for the “One Medical Membership” plan, where Prime members getting a jump on the looming corporate dystopia can pay $9/month for substandard medical advice and A.I. record transcription. It can’t be a HIPAA violation if no one viewing your medical data has a human soul.

Is this whole piece because I got annoyed when Amazon cut my favorite violent cartoon into chunks and filled the gaps with promotions for services I already have or don’t need? Absolutely. And I’m sure Netflix and Hulu’s ad breaks aren’t any better. That doesn’t make it less frustrating to get invested in a story and then knocked right out of it. I’m resigned to paying six different entertainment companies a month. The ability to watch productions as originally designed doesn’t seem like much to ask in return.