Amazon Prime TV app letdown

[Entai]

I said i was looking for The Grand Tour...an amazon exclusive... come on. Everybody else got it.

And ive just checked now and neither TGT or Sneaky Pete are in the prime originals and exclusives section!

:/ Look at each section under movies. Prime...then paid..then prime...then paid..then some more paid. Tv is the same - exusives, then featured channels, the sponsored - oh that looks good..click on it...nope, that's paid - then 'buy', then 'recommended' which is all paid content too..

I don't want paid content. i'm never going to buy any of it. You can filter paid content out on the website - you cant do that on the firestick and when you search for something, an actor for example, the content is all jumbled together and you don't know if its paid until you click on it. There's no excusing it, it's just poor.

I'm already a prime subscriber, i'm well within my rights to agitated by the layout and advertising of the additional paid content. As i would be if netflix started doing it as well.

It's not a poor layout, it's not a bad layout.

Think on this who, in Amazons eyes are their best Prime customers ?

The ones like you who pay one sub per year, watch all the free stuff and never buy any extra content.

Or the ones who buy a new film or series or whatever once or twice a week ?



EVERYONE who looks on Amazon Prime film/tv lists are prime subscribers, you cannot get it without being one, so that is irrelevant.

However Amazon are there to make a profit, as big a profit as they can, and for every one person like you, who will never buy any paid content, there are a thousand who will buy paid stuff regularly.

So Amazon lay out the menus so that the majority of people browsing think, "oh that sounds good lets buy that and watch it".

They are pandering to the ones who will buy, not the ones who will never buy.

I would almost bet my house on the fact Netflix WILL change their layout to something similar at some point or other, they are also there to make money not to please people.

 

[james.miller]

Think on this who, in Amazons eyes are their best Prime customers ?

The ones like you who pay one sub per year, watch all the free stuff and never buy any extra content.

Or the ones who buy a new film or series or whatever once or twice a week ?

You still pay for prime, and amazon make it more difficult for me to get to the content i pay to have access to than it needs to be. You know, I'd be more inclined to consider buying something that wasn't included with prime if it wasn't either shoved in my face under the tv / movie sections or mixed in with prime content without differentiating the two when you search for anything.

So Amazon lay out the menus so that the majority of people browsing think, "oh that sounds good lets buy that and watch it".

You're suggesting that it's targeted marketing but it really isn't that clever. Targeted marketing would advertising something related to the thing i'm looking for. Amazon instead thinks advertising games like sonic the hedgehog in the movie section is a better idea.

EVERYONE who looks on Amazon Prime film/tv lists are prime subscribers, you cannot get it without being one, so that is irrelevant.

However Amazon are there to make a profit, as big a profit as they can, and for every one person like you, who will never buy any paid content, there are a thousand who will buy paid stuff regularly.

The 'non-paid' content isnt free, i still chuck amazon £80 a year or whatever it is. It doesnt matter that £80 covers other amazon services or not - a portion of that goes towards my prime movie and tv access. I want to know what content i can watch without paying extra on top and filter all the other stuff out. I can do that on the website, i cant do it on the firestick. The website has a whole INCLUDED WITH PRIME section * - Job done, so there's no excuse when it comes to fireOS.

* and, for that matter, there's more content listed on the website too.


To fix the fireOS issue, IMO, they need to do the following:

- Give it feature parity with the website: same content listed, 'included with prime' sections for both tv and movies and group by genre. Seriously, where is that on fireOS?
- Add 'premium' banners to the thumbnails for 'paid' content when you search for something so you can clearly see whats paid without having to click on it first.
- Give us the option to turn off the sponsored content sections
- Have proper targeted suggestions for content to watch based on what I've watched previously and stick to the relevant section, ie suggest movies in the movie section and tv in the tv section.

 

[cheesyboy]

Agree with @james.miller the firestick interface is just awful.

Not so bad on the phone app: prime stuff has an overlay tag to tell you it's prime.

 

[TheVoice]

I would almost bet my house on the fact Netflix WILL change their layout to something similar at some point or other, they are also there to make money not to please people.

What do you mean "change their layout"? Netflix doesn't charge for anything beyond the subscription fee, they'd have to fundamentally change their business model and their catalogue if they were going to start mixing in content you have to pay for with what's already included in your subscription fee.

 

[Entai]

What do you mean "change their layout"? Netflix doesn't charge for anything beyond the subscription fee, they'd have to fundamentally change their business model and their catalogue if they were going to start mixing in content you have to pay for with what's already included in your subscription fee.

I mean at some point or other they will start to add paid for content onto their services, so yes most likely at some point they will change their whole business model, and they will just expand their existing catalogue to include extra paid for content.

Be it six months or six years, eventually it will happen, virtually guaranteed.

You still pay for prime, and amazon make it more difficult for me to get to the content i pay to have access to than it needs to be. You know, I'd be more inclined to consider buying something that wasn't included with prime if it wasn't either shoved in my face under the tv / movie sections or mixed in with prime content without differentiating the two when you search for anything.

You're suggesting that it's targeted marketing but it really isn't that clever. Targeted marketing would advertising something related to the thing i'm looking for. Amazon instead thinks advertising games like sonic the hedgehog in the movie section is a better idea.

The 'non-paid' content isnt free, i still chuck amazon £80 a year or whatever it is. It doesnt matter that £80 covers other amazon services or not - a portion of that goes towards my prime movie and tv access. I want to know what content i can watch without paying extra on top and filter all the other stuff out. I can do that on the website, i cant do it on the firestick. The website has a whole INCLUDED WITH PRIME section * - Job done, so there's no excuse when it comes to fireOS.

* and, for that matter, there's more content listed on the website too.

To fix the fireOS issue, IMO, they need to do the following:

- Give it feature parity with the website: same content listed, 'included with prime' sections for both tv and movies and group by genre. Seriously, where is that on fireOS?
- Add 'premium' banners to the thumbnails for 'paid' content when you search for something so you can clearly see whats paid without having to click on it first.
- Give us the option to turn off the sponsored content sections
- Have proper targeted suggestions for content to watch based on what I've watched previously and stick to the relevant section, ie suggest movies in the movie section and tv in the tv section.

Think of it like a supermarket, they almost always continually move stuff about so you can never always go to the exact same place every time to get what you want, you have to go hunting.

While hunting you might see other stuff and buy it on impulse.

Targeted marketing works to an extent, but varied marketing has been proven many times to work much better in getting customers to purchase items they would otherwise never have seen, considered, or even thought of looking for.


Yes it's annoying, but it's a well proven business model, that works, works very well as far as the business is concerned, ok agreed not all customers will like it, however the vast majority will put up with it and just carry on using the supermarket, therefore that type of system will not change.


I'd love to see the figures as to who watches what from website vs stick, vs phones etc, and how often each customer watches stuff out of their normal viewing profile on each type of device, I bet it's far higher on the stick than website for instance, which to the bean counters means the system is working great.

 

[jpaul]

There is an analogy with supermarkets organising products on aisles/shelves -

But can't you, like Nowtv, find material using the productive PC interface (with a keyboard), add it to your now watching list, which then becomes available on the stick.?

(I assume for all the vendors, if you buy something additional to your subscription, you cannot watch 5 minutes and say give me my money back, since I had read that Netflix, at least, are very careful about the picture quality and content of the previews, but, I suppose that is only following hollywood click-bate strategy.)