It’s affordable, and it comes with an extensive media library. Despite showing up on the scene after Netflix, it quickly caught up and gave the most-subscribed-to platform a run for its money.
So, What’s the Problem With Prime Video?
Certain content requires you to either rent or purchase it before you can view it, regardless of whether you pay $8.99 per month for the membership or not.
You’ll often find titles advertised on its homepage that are not part of your subscription, like Spider-Man: Far From Home, in the image above. It costs $3.99 to rent and $9.99 to buy. And this is where the issue lies.
Renting a movie online is fantastic, but how do you distinguish between free and paid content? Why isn’t it easily recognizable if something will cost you extra instead of being included with your membership fee? Why is everything lumped together by default, and you’re the one responsible for figuring it out?
Why Is Prime Video’s Messy Catalog a Big Deal?
Even if you decide to bite the bullet and pay to watch the features that don’t come free, there’s still a fine print to consider.
If you rent, which is the cheaper option than buying, you have a period of 30 days to begin watching what you rented. If you fail to do so, you lose out and have to pay for the same thing again. Once you start the viewing, you have 48 hours to finish watching, and if you don’t manage to do that, you have to pay again.
Maybe you can swallow that loss when it comes to a movie since they tend to cost between $1.99 and $2.99 for the most part. But if you have your eyes on a show, it’s a whole other story.
You either pay per episode or per season for a show, and prices vary wildly. Misfits requires you to pay $2.99 to view Episode 1 and $4.99 for its Season 1, and Supernatural costs $2.99 for Episode 1 and $35.49 for Season 1.
If you search for a movie or show, you’ll see it appear among the results, and you’ll have to click it to find out if it’s free or paid. Apart from clicking it, you have no way of knowing whether it costs extra. So, Prime Video can get your hopes up and crush them in a minute.
Streaming services like Netflix may autofill the title you’re searching for in the search bar, but unless it comes for free with your membership, you won’t see it listed among the results. It’s a much simpler way of consuming content via a streaming service—you pay a subscription fee, and you only see what you get.
