There are handful of things I find worth watching on Amazon’s Freevee service. But Amazon announced the brand will disappear within weeks.
When I first encountered Amazon’s Freevee channel, it had a different name. I first saw IMDb TV. The channel rebranded in April of 2022 to its current name. But just when you get used to the new name and logo, Amazon says it’s going to pull the plug.
It’s nice to see streaming channels that offer things for free without your having to subscribe. One of the nice things about OTT – short for “over the top” which refers to boxes like Roku and Amazon Fire — was that even if you cut the cable cord, you had plenty to watch on the free channels.
But the free channels seem to offer less of the things people want to watch. That means, unless you’re lucky enough to find one or two streaming services with most everything you like, you could end up paying as much as you were for cable to see everything you like.
I’ve managed to avoid that. My cable bill was upwards of $75-80 per month. Not counting Amazon Prime, I don’t pay near that much for the streaming channels I subscribe to. When you add Amazon Prime’s monthly cost to my list of subscriptions, even then I’m sure I’m well below what cable alone cost.
The good news is Amazon says the Freevee library will move to its Amazon Prime service. What’s free will be available to non-subscribers there. Amazon Prime subscribers shouldn’t lose access to anything.
So at least there’s that.
An Amazon reference called it a way “to deliver a simpler viewing experience for customers.” I don’t know that it’s all that “simpler.” It’s certainly more simple for Amazon. But once we customers know where to find what we like, we know.
It does make me wonder a bit about the free service Tubi. While much of what I can find on Freevee is also available on another service I subscribe to, there seems to be more on Tubi that isn’t.
When one free streamer disappears, for whatever the reason, I think it’s only reasonable to wonder if others are next!
