Amazon draws flak for bringing ads to Prime Music: What’s changing?

Amazon is rolling out ads on Prime Music while completely removing the option to download songs. The move comes nearly a year after the e-commerce firm introduced ads on Prime Video, asking users to pay extra to continue watching shows and movies without advertisements.

Earlier this year, it had paywalled 4K content. Which Prime benefit will Amazon decouple from its existing subscription package next, or begin charging extra for? And is the change just limited to India? Ad-free Music now costs Rs 99 more: Amazon sent existing Prime users the following email on Tuesday, informing them of the changes to its music benefits. “Starting July 2, 2026, your Amazon Prime Music benefit will include ads and no longer support downloads.

You’ll still have access to over 100 million songs and 15 million+ podcast episodes, on demand. To continue enjoying unlimited music, ad-free, and listen offline, now with HD & Spatial Audio, try Amazon Music Unlimited at a special offer for Prime members.” Essentially, Amazon is rebranding Prime Music as Amazon Music Unlimited and asking existing customers to pay extra for a benefit that was already bundled into a single subscription service comprising Prime Video, Prime Music and even Luna Gaming. Amazon Prime membership continues to be available in India for Rs 1,499 per year.

But customers will have to cough up an extra Rs 99/month if they do not wish to hear ads on Music. Meanwhile, non-Prime users will have to pay Rs 119/month just to get an Amazon Music Unlimited subscription. In a blog post, the company also said it will soon launch an Amazon Free Music tier, making the music available for non-subscribers at no cost.

However, that service will also include advertisements and offer limited features. What benefits will be restricted in the Free tier remains unknown. Why has the move sparked backlash from netizens? Internet users described Amazon’s forced rollout of ads on Prime Music as a deliberate attempt to degrade a paid feature, with some threatening to cancel their subscriptions if the company does not back away from its plan. “They’ve deliberately degraded a paid feature to squeeze more money out of you.

This is the same playbook Amazon used with Prime Video. Remember when that launched with no ads? Then suddenly you’re watching ads mid-episode unless you pay an extra fee on top of your existing subscription,” wrote a user on Reddit. “Amazing how every downgrade is marketed as a benefit these days. Prime members paid for a service that included ad-free music and offline listening, and now those features are being stripped out and sold back through a more expensive subscription.

Corporate greed disguised as a product update,” wrote another user. Is Amazon violating fair competition law? In December last year, a court in Germany reportedly ruled that Amazon’s rollout of ads on Prime Video without user consent was illegal and a violation of fair competition law. As per the ruling, Amazon sent an email to users in early 2024 announcing it would introduce “limited ads” on Prime Video starting in February.

Users were asked to pay an additional Rs 129 per month to bypass ads. The Munich I Regional Court found the email to be misleading.

The court said Prime customers had expected an ad-free service when they signed up and that Amazon was responsible because it had made an ad-free experience the ‘subject matter of the contract’. However, a federal judge in the US ruled last year that Amazon was within its rights to introduce ads on its Prime Video service, adding that ads constituted a “benefit modification” legally permissible under the company’s terms of service. Concerns about how ads are being implemented on streaming platforms: When Amazon introduced limited ads on its Prime Video service last year, Nikhil Pahwa, founder and editor of MediaNama, expressed concern about streaming platforms increasingly displaying ads when users switch between content. “If an ad plays simply because a user presses play, it can be highly disruptive and irritating. I’ve noticed this issue issue particularly with SonyLIV, which plays ads before every show.

For example, when I watch football highlights, an ad break interrupts the video midway, and instead of resuming where it left off, it starts over from the beginning,” Pahwa said. Limited Advertisements Coming to Amazon Prime Video in India: What’s Changing? How big is Amazon’s ad business? Hint: Probably a bigger cash cow than AWS Here are the dark patterns used by Amazon to trick consumers into Prime memberships