Amazon adds instant video to Prime accounts, begins war with Netflix

Will Brinson

Screen shot 2011 02 22 at 10.40.24 AM1 Amazon adds instant video to Prime accounts, begins war with NetflixNetflix has dominated the streaming internet television market for a while. Until, perhaps, today, as Amazon announced on their home page that free streaming of thousands of movies will be available to all Prime members, starting today.

For those that don’t know, being an Amazon Prime member costs $79 a year and basically means free two-day shipping and better prices on stuff (and, don’t tell anyone, but if you have an .edu account, it’s FREE).

Jeff Bezos, Founder & CEO of Amazon, dropped the news in a letter, which you can see on Amazon.com (or here if they pull it, which would be surprising).

Millions of people are already Amazon Prime members and enjoy unlimited free two-day shipping. Today, we’re excited to add a brand new benefit to Amazon Prime: unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of 5,000 movies and TV shows. Prime will continue to be $79 per year — this new benefit is being added at no additional cost.

You can instantly stream the movies and TV shows on your PC, Mac or any of nearly 200 models of Internet connected TVs, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes.

[…]

If you are already a paid Prime member, you can start watching now. If not, join the millions of people who are already members. Start your one month free trail of Amazon Prime now and begin enjoying the benefits of free two-day shipping and unlimited instant streaming of movies and TV shows today.

First off, Prime’s pretty awesome. I pay $79 a year for it — without the streaming — because I order a TON of stuff from Amazon every year and it pays for itself in shipping costs by June.

But this is a game changer, for a couple of reasons.

One, I just added free streaming of tons of movies and TV shows. Although I’m not gonna lie — the TV shows suck a freaking egg. “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and “Rocky & Bullwinkle” stood out as good option.

HRRRRRRRRM.

Although seeing “Analyze This” as the 17th-rated movie isn’t any more enticing, honestly. That being said, “Stripes,” “Best in Show,” and the “Girl Who [Did Zany Action] to [Weird Object]” series, which are stupid fantastic books, are on there as well.

Basically, the list appears to include primarily classics, which is fine, especially now.

Because the war against Netflix won’t be won in a day. Instead, it’ll be won as more and more people see Prime as an alternative to an additional $10 (or thereabouts) monthly charge because it also offers free shipping on books, etc. It’ll also be won because, um, Amazon sells DVD players.

And if the italics seem pointless to you, how about this: Amazon sells Prime-streaming compatible DVD and Blu-Ray players.

But there’s more, too. See, not all of Amazon’s instant video collection is FREE. No sir. In fact, the good stuff all costs money. Want to watch “Mad Men” (instead of Mister Effing Rogers)? You gotta pay for the season or for the episode. Same goes for “The Social Network.”

This will probably make people who would prefer to pay one cost all year or month a little angry, but remember: these titles wouldn’t drop on Netflix streaming until later anyway. You can certainly get the disc shipped to you, but you’re not going to be able to watch it for a little while.

So, yeah, pluses and minuses jump off the page early when it comes to Amazon’s service. But the most important thing to remember is that competition in the marketplace usually equates to lower prices and higher quality service. And that benefits one person the most: the consumer.

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