Amazon removes ad-free Twitch streaming from Twitch Prime, users are furious

Twitch CEO Emmett
Shear
Getty/Steve
Jennings

• Amazon’s incredibly popular Prime service is losing a
  major benefit: Ad-free Twitch viewing.
• Going forward, Twitch viewers who want an ad-free
  experience have to pay for Twitch Turbo.
• Twitch explained the change in a blog post on Monday,
  which said that the video streaming company, “re-evaluated some
  of the existing Twitch Prime benefits.” 
• Many Twitch users are furious with the change.

Amazon’s Prime service offers
loads of benefits: Free shipping on a ton of Amazon products,
a library of streaming entertainment, and even discounts at
Amazon-owned Whole Foods.

And, up until this week, if you were an Amazon Prime subscriber
you could also enjoy an ad-free viewing experience on the video
streaming service Twitch, which is owned by Amazon. But on
Monday, Twitch
announced a major upcoming change to its Twitch Prime service
that would no longer make that the case:

“As we have continued to add value to Twitch Prime, we have also
re-evaluated some of the existing Twitch Prime benefits. As a
result, universal ad-free viewing will no longer be part of
Twitch Prime for new members, starting on September 14.”

Put more simply, even Twitch Prime paying subscribers will see
ads on Twitch streams.

The only way to remove ads from the Twitch experience now is to
pay even more for Twitch Turbo, a separate subscription service
for Twitch which costs $9/month.

Amazon/Twitch

It’s a move that Twitch fans are furious about. 

“I’m just floored at Amazon’s greed here. I’m considering
ditching Prime altogether,”
one Reddit user wrote on the Twitch subreddit. “I’d
honestly prefer to have ad-free viewing instead of the free
games,”
another user wrote. 

As the latter post alludes to, Twitch Prime began offering free
games and in-game content to subscribers recently. Much of the
time, these free games and/or in-game content are less than
thrilling — loot box partnerships that Amazon strikes with game
makers like Blizzard Entertainment for “Overwatch,” for example.

Getting free loot boxes for “Overwatch” is nice, but it’s not a
strong argument for paying for Twitch Prime.

More importantly, Sony and Microsoft offer excellent free games
through PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold every month. By
comparison, the offerings through Twitch Prime are paltry at
best. It’s these free offerings that are being cited as a
replacement for ad-free Twitch viewing.

“On top of everything you get through Amazon Prime, this year
alone we’ve offered members more than $1,000 worth of games and
loot,” Twitch said in a blog post. But for many, the main reason
to subscribe to Twitch Prime was for the ad-free experience.

As one user succinctly put it: “I probably claim less than 25% of
the free stuff they offer with Prime. Ad-free viewing is the only
perk besides the monthly free sub that I care about. Big yikes
from me for this change.”