Amazon Prime Video with fewer and fewer functions

If you want to enjoy Amazon Prime Video without restrictions or commercial breaks, you have to pay extra. Everyone else is regularly shown advertisements and suffers from poorer picture quality. This did not go down well with the community. But the cost-cutting measures continue. Now a feature has been removed for both customers with an advertising subscription and those who pay extra.

Amazon Prime Video now without “Watch Party”

According to a report from our colleagues at Golem.de, Amazon Prime Video is apparently continuing to make big cuts. A reader of the IT news website has pointed out to the editorial team that a very popular feature, “Watch Party”, has been removed. Here, subscribers to the streaming service could watch a series or movie together.

Poor customer communication

Confirmation of the deletion immediately followed via a document from Amazon itself. Once again, the tech company can be accused of poor customer communication. Just as it concealed the differences in quality during the introduction of streaming subscriptions with and without commercial breaks, it has once again failed to inform customers about the deletion.

The whole thing is particularly annoying for all those who switched to the ad-free streaming subscription with additional costs specifically for Watch Party. After all, the feature had only been available to “premium customers” since February 2024. Naturally, customers of the streaming service are correspondingly annoyed and are now venting their frustration in an Amazon forum. It is absolutely understandable that the community is seething.

But tempers would by no means be so heated if Amazon Prime Video were to openly communicate that austerity measures were unavoidable. Other streaming providers have also increased their prices in recent months. But unlike Amazon, they are being very open about it. We can only hope that this is finally the last secret cut by the tech company. Otherwise, consumer advocates could slowly but surely become aware of the really questionable methods.