Amazon is shutting down Freevee, its free streaming service that it launched in January 2019 under the name IMDb Freedive and then later rebranded twice to IMDb TV and Amazon Freevee, as part of a broader effort to trim costs and streamline its video division.
Freevee was Amazon’s take on what the industry calls a FAST service — free, ad-supported streaming TV — and included shows such as Judy Justice, Neighbours, Tribunal Justice, America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation and Bosch: Legacy, as well as older originals, including Jury Duty, High School, Hollywood Houselift with Jeff Lewis and Primo.
Amazon is moving much of Freevee's ad-supported, free streaming content to Prime Video, keeping many of the shows accessible for non-Prime members through the app.
With the consolidation, Amazon is leaning into Prime Video serving as a hybrid destination for both Prime members and non-members, offering a mix of new and old movies to rent, buy, or watch for free — with various levels of “free” depending on your subscription level.
It's a pretty brilliant move that goes against the standard for the rest of the industry.
Streaming competitors such as Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, Max, Peacock, and Paramount+ offer either ad-supported tiers or ad-free tiers with no option to rent or buy movies. Subscription choices for consumers are very binary — Ads or No Ads — however either tier requires a subscription, with no additional forms of monetization for the companies once a viewer subscribes.
Whereas Amazon is more going with a variation of the Google TV and Apple TV route, which offer a combination of free streaming, paid streaming, alongside the ability to rent or buy premium content. Effectively Amazon is turning Prime Video into a freemium model with various tiers of monetization that include ads, subscriptions, and one-time purchases.
The golden era of video streaming has officially come to an end.
Remember when you'd have one subscription that all your friends and family used that enabled you to watch a broad catalog of TV shows and movies? Now it's obvious that streaming is headed in the direction of in-app purchases on top of your subscription.
What's next? Gifting actors coins and Jewels?