Changes to Amazon’s Prime Video service in South Africa are slow to arrive, but they generally do. The company introduced ads on its platform at the beginning of 2024. These eventually made it to South Africa, despite no official ‘Prime with ads’ tier launching. Now, the Yanks are getting some features yanked from the basic plan.
Never fear, though. Amazon has also announced Prime Video Ultra, which will return the resolution features subscribers are about to lose. And a few other things, if we’re being totally fair. They’ll just have to add about R85 ($5) on top of an existing Prime or Prime Video subscription.
Prime Video: Ultra-lame
The reason given for Amazon charging more to get features back? Apparently, “ad-free streaming with premium features requires significant investment.” The lost feature, 4K video, might not seem major if you’ve only got an HD TV. But for folks with those lovely high-res screens, losing the ability to stream supported content might sting. Dolby Atmos support will also be locked behind the new Ultra tier.
Amazon isn’t just sticking functions away and asking for more money, however. The internet giant is also making the deal a tiny bit sweeter. The basic tier nets an extra concurrent stream (meaning four are available), presumably to make up for losing 4K streaming. Ultra gets five concurrent streams. The number of available downloads is also increasing. Prime Video with Ads users get double the number of downloads (50 at a time, up from 25), while Ultra subscribers can download up to 100 items at once.
Amazon’s newest change is a case of ‘win some, lose some’. There’s no guarantee that the American changes will make their way here in a hurry. If or when they do, the company probably won’t say much about it. The company tends to leave Africa alone. When it does mix things up, it doesn’t really give anybody notice.
