By Dennis D. McDonald

How can the first episode of ARCHIE said to be “free” on Amazon Prime if you have to pay for Amazon Prime to watch it?

Amazon’s retreat from including commercial-free programs with Amazon Prime subscriptions may be due to disappointment with the reception of its super-expensive but awful RINGS OF POWER series.

This is not a review of ARCHIE the Cary Grant biopic series now streaming on Amazon Prime.

Amazon Prime customers, in the US at least, need to be aware that, while Amazon advertises ARCHIE as being available on "Prime Video," it's only the first episode that's available for “free”. You must subscribe to BritBox in addition to what you are already paying for Amazon Prime to watch beyond Episode 1. In other words, watching Episode 1 is not really “free” to people already paying Amazon Prime fees to access Amazon’s video streaming service.

I'm certainly NOT suggesting that commercially produced programming should be made available for "free." Unfortunately, the Prime Video user interface, traditionally the most confusing of all the streaming services, is now even more confusing for Amazon Prime customers.

Also, Amazon Prime customers, who in the past were able to watch many Amazon Prime supplied without any commercials (other than the annoying Amazon Prime commercials at the beginning of programs) are now being required to pay another $3 per month to get a service that was formerly available commercial free and included with their annual Amazon Prime subscription. (Don’t get me started on the annoyance to having to watch those pre-program Amazon commercials on a service I’m paying for already.)

I would be happy if I could just say to Prime Video, "Just show me ONLY those things I'm already paying for." I understand why they don't do that given how frequently searches display titles for which you have to pay extra. They know what they are doing and it reminds me of poorly designed web interfaces from decades past, but is obviously purposely designed to show you as many purchasable programs as possible as part of your search.

I doubt we will be subscribing to BritBox to see the other episodes of Archie, even though my wife enjoyed Episode 1. We already subscribe to other streaming services whose interfaces are much simpler to navigate and who also have a wide variety of programming offerings. I suspect that Amazon’s retreat from including commercial-free programs with Amazon Prime subscriptions is due to Amazon’s disappointment with the reception of its super-expensive but awful RINGS OF POWER series. As a result they are are now nickel-and-diming customers to make up for that debacle.

As a businessman I have to sympathize; TANSTAFL and all that. Nevertheless, I would appreciate a cleaner approach to making program offerings available and would even consider dropping Prime Video access completely if it would reduce my annual Prime subscription fee. I suspect, also, I’ll be watching less Amazon Prime programming as a result of all this.

Copyright (c) 2023 by Dennis D> McDonald