Prime Video quietly cuts Dolby Vision and Atmos support unless you pay its new upgrade fee
Amazon confirms that it’s making Prime Video even worse if you don’t pay more
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A few weeks ago,Amazon started putting ads into the feeds of Prime Video subscribers. The pitch was simple:Amazonwants more money, so if you want to continue getting the ad-free Prime Video service has offered you for years you’d need to pay more. And now there’s an even worse issue if you don’t start paying more for Prime Video: the loss of bothDolby Atmosand Dolby Vision.
As discovered by German site4KFilme, and then corroborated by Forbes, subscribers to the newly ad-supported Prime Video tier are no longer able to stream thebest Prime Video seriesandbest Prime Video moviesin either Dolby Atmos or Dolby Vision.
As described byForbes: “In the ads-free account, the TV throws up its own confirmation boxes to say that the show is playing in Dolby VisionHDRand Dolby Atmos. In the basic, with-ads account, however, the TV’s Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos pop-up boxes remain stubbornly absent.”
At first I thought this was a cock-up: surely no streamer would be so anti-consumer as to degrade customers' audio and video without warning? But nope: Amazon has confirmed it isn’t a mistake. Such a move could result in Amazon seeing more legal action like theclass action lawsuitover its introduction of ads.
Opinion: Amazon’s move is deeply anti-consumer
The Vergehas confirmed that the removal of Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision is no error or technical fault. According to a spokesperson: “Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos capabilities are only available on the ad free option, on relevant titles.”
The word “enshittification” is being thrown about a lot. Coined by Cory Doctorow, the term describes how companies get customers locked in and then slowly but surely degrade the product and demand more money to deliver the features that they’re taking away. And this looks like a very clear example of that. The pirate sites must be rubbing their hands in glee.
What’s galling about it isn’t so much the removal of the features, as bad as that is, but the way Amazon has done it. It’s like leasing a car only to discover one morning that the car company has changed the contract and you need to pay more cash if you want to get your tires and your steering wheel back.
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The move says a lot about Amazon’s attitude to Prime Video customers, none of it good. The streamer has removed core featuressecretly, without any notification or any notice, and when people noticed it’s just shrugged. And that’s got to make you wonder: what other features will Amazon start holding to ransom? How long before it decides Premium subscribers must be milked for more money too?
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Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir,Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock bandUnquiet Mind.
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