Amazon doesn’t stand a chance against Netflix
Online giant Amazon has built its own streaming platform with Prime Video. Compared to the competition, however, the app has several glaring weaknesses that are really annoying to use.
A comment by Gregor Elsholz
Operating the Prime Video app on my TV feels like walking through a flea market. A noisy, confusing flea market where vendors screamingly pull my sleeve to sell me worthless junk. Sure, on some of the tables valuable treasures among mountains of mediocre blockbusters hidden, but the search for worthwhile films and series is unpleasant and time-consuming work on Amazon Prime. Why can’t the giant company get the hang of building a decent streaming service?
Prime Video is an indictment for Amazon
The main reason why the Prime Video app is so annoying to navigate is because films and series pop up everywhere that are not included in the Prime subscription. Instead, highlights are advertised everywhere that have to be rented or bought separately as video on demand – and then often too separately divided into a 4K and an HD versionso that the wrong version quickly ends up in the shopping basket.
Also separate channel subscriptions such as MGM, Home of Horror or Arthaus+, which are integrated into the Prime interface but not included, cause confusion when scrolling. In addition, Freevee, a free channel that came up with the groundbreaking idea of offering films with commercial breaks, has been receiving increasing promotion for some time.
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Not only the jumping back and forth between inclusive content, extra channels and VoD offers is chaotic, the division into different genres is also possible haywire on Amazon Prime Video and Freevee in particular – for example, the ominous rider Best of Freevee features both the award-winning Peaky Blinders series, as well as soft-core pseudo-drama, Scream 4 and some B-movie outings by Nicolas Cage. Anyone who finds what they are looking for in this chaos is guaranteed not to have looked for anything.
Rather watch Netflix: Amazon’s streaming app is disappointing across the board
One or more sensible filter functions in the app could easily help. But at least a view that only displays Prime content would be less give the impression of a dirty grave tablewhere everything costs extra. It’s even more frustrating, however, when I actually find something in the chaos that I want to watch – for example some obscure horror trash from the 1980s – but then after starting it I realize that the original sound is missing.
Offering only German dubbing as an option for a streaming service in 2023 is ridiculous – but it fits in wonderfully untidy and defective appearance of Prime Video in general. Anyone who goes to the flea market has to reckon with broken and incomplete products and be willing to get their hands dirty looking for hidden gems. When it comes to streaming, however, I can do without all the disappointment and extra work and therefore prefer to see what the competition has to offer – fortunately there are enough alternatives.
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