The writing was on the wall. Some time ago, Amazon pulled a fast one on Prime subscribers by introducing ads for everyone. Subscribers who did not want the new experience could pay Amazon a few bucks extra to get rid of the advertisement again. To hammer that home even more, Amazon recently started to show more ads to users per hour.
Questions about the fate of Amazon’s then ad-powered streaming service Freevee came up at the same time. It did not really make sense to have Freevee as an option if all of the streams on Prime Video would also show advertisement to users.
Amazon kept Freevee around for the time being. CNBC reports that some Freevee users see notifications when they launch the app on their devices about the upcoming end of it.
According to the report, Amazon plans to put the standalone Freevee app to rest in August 2025. The notice states “Prime Video is the new exclusive home for Freevee TV shows, movies and Live TV”.
The app will stop working in August 2025 and users may tune in directly on the Amazon streaming service to get their Freevee fix. Amazon users, with or without Prime Video subscription, may continue to watch free content with advertisement on the Amazon website. The only requirement for that is an Amazon account.
Closing Words
Amazon established Freevee in 2019 to stream videos with ads to users. The decision to turn Prime Video into a bigger version of Freevee came in 2024. The only differentiating factor will be that users may watch Freevee content on Amazon without a Prime subscription going forward. Other than that, you will get ads either way unless you pay extra.
It is probably only a matter of time before Freevee is retired entirely and the available media library is integrated into the Amazon Prime Video library.
As far as I’m concerned, I started to watch more content on DVD and Blu-Ray again as it is giving me full control and a (mostly) ad-free experience.
You are absolutely right. If both services serve ads, there is no point to keep both services. Maybe some older shows will be licensed out to other streamers.
I canceled prime soon after trying it, the ads were more often than over the air tv. There are better services than