For customers who are wary of locking themselves into a $99 yearly Amazon Prime membership, a new pay-by-the-month option announced Sunday could be enticing — especially for the streaming perks offered by Prime Video.
"Amazon is in this to win this. Before, video was an afterthought to free shipping. Now, it's top of mind. In order for this to [succeed], they're going to have to market it and spend a lot of money on new content," Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter told The Hollywood Reporter.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Additionally, in recent years Amazon has invested in creating original shows such as Transparent and Mozart in the Jungle, and picked up major arthouse films like Spike Lee's Chi-Raq and Sundance darling Manchester by the Sea. Amazon already has deals with major films screening at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
"What this says is that they now believe the content is good enough to justify a stand-alone service," Pachter said.
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fineSpeed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
