The fifth paragraph goes directly to Qui Bono: It costs them licencing fees to people like Dolby Laboratories. So, it's the kind of choice which drives directly to outflows of revenue.
They made a bet less people will cancel, than the net outflow of licences, and those who pay $2.99 are on their way to being made to pay more rather than meeting the licence-tax.
Yes, it's interesting how fast streaming has rotated from fierce competition to be better (more content, exclusive content, big name productions, dolby, 4k, ad-free, etc) to being worse (reduce ability to share / insert ads / what can we cut / slowing the new content pipelines).
Feels like a super accelerated version of seeing capital rush into a space and then right back out.
Everyone is now desperate to stop burning money, and will either cut or merge themselves into break even.
Prime Video is in that weird spot where most people have low expectations and don't feel like they paid for it. There were already pre-roll ads (for other prime shows) under some conditions, so people who stuck through them will probably also stick through the new sponsored ads I guess.
I think this will be the straw in the camel's back for only a small slice of their members, especially as Netflix is also enshittifying their service.
Prime Video is for me the worst compared to the other streaming services I use (Netflix, Disney, HBO). Why? Here in Switzerland they skimp on languages, which means half the catalogue is in only one language and most irritating, not even in the original one - imagine Hollywood movies only available dubbed in German, or Korean dramas only in French (with bad syncing). And the same with subtitles, sometimes there's none, sometimes they pick some random language as sole available... it's a dumpster fire.
They made a bet less people will cancel, than the net outflow of licences, and those who pay $2.99 are on their way to being made to pay more rather than meeting the licence-tax.