The Bait and Switch of Amazon Prime Video Pretending Its Movies Are Free | MZS

It’s also supposedly streaming on several subscription-based sites. Curiously, one of the platforms listed is Amazon Prime—or so this graphic at the top of Google’s search results claims. You know, Amazon Prime: the place where the film is not free with a Prime Subscription, and they try to trick you into buying a Starz subscription.  

There’s a lot of this misleading — we could say loose — labeling on Amazon. You’d think the world’s largest online marketplace wouldn’t feel the need to inflate the appearance of its Prime Video inventory, but it’s happening. The word “Prime” has turned into a way to get you to look at stuff that’s not free with Prime.  

The 1981 werewolf movie “The Howling” is listed as a “Prime Video.” But right under that, it says it costs $5.99 to rent. So which is it? Is it an Amazon Prime video that’s free to members? Or is it a thing you can rent that has nothing to do with your Prime subscription? (The latter.) Same thing with the 1960 swords-and-sandals epic “Spartacus,” which is labeled a “Prime Video,” but at the time of this writing was listed as costing $1.99 to rent and $15.99 to buy. The 1933 Barbara Stanwyck movie “Baby Face” has a Prime Video designation, but whoops: turns out it costs $3.99 to rent and $8.99 to buy. “Kill Bill Vol. 1” is listed as a Prime Video, but right underneath that, it says it’s a $3.99 rental, $12.99 to buy. (“Buying” streamable videos is a sucker’s game, because the platform can disable it any time they want — but as it will say on my tombstone, I digress.)

If I browse a little bit more, I start to envision a smooth lawyer in the mold of Perry Mason putting a personification of Amazon on trial (it would probably be a cartoon swoosh mark wearing a bespoke Italian suit) and leaning on the edge of the witness box while intoning, “Maybe you can help me understand this: if a movie is not actually free to Amazon Prime Members, and you can in fact rent it other places for exactly the same price as it’s offered on Amazon, then what, exactly, makes it ‘Prime’?”

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