JOSE ROMERO
campus editor
Streaming services typically provide users with a Swiss Army knife of functionality unless you’re Amazon Prime Video.
Prime Video is the faulty abandoned charger left in a drawer gathering dust of services. It doesn’t work well but, once in a blue moon, it manages to stumble its way into getting the job done.
The app and site’s user interface looks like they were ripped straight out of an early 2000s food blog with its bland color palette and lack of personality. Compared to Netflix and HBO Max, it seems as if it’s a student project that was completed in a day the night before the deadline.
My main issue with the service is that I have to trudge through a clunky interface to get to the content I want to watch. “The Boys” is a great show, but I shudder at the thought of having to click my way through the service. Once I manage to hold my breath long enough to select the show, an ad will greet me — ones that can’t be disabled—for other exclusive content that I’ll never watch since that means continuing interaction with Prime Video.
Other big companies seem to know when it’s time to do a full redesign or add requested features for convenience’s sake. Heck, Prime Video got multiple user profiles last year, seven years after Netflix introduced it. The only feature that it has that others don’t is its “X-ray” functionality, in which a show can be paused at any time to see the name of the actors along with some trivia about what’s on screen.
Issues with Prime Video stem from Amazon’s priorities. The main site has one of the most advanced search algorithms on the internet.
Meanwhile, their streaming service is further down the benefits list for a Prime subscription. You just happen to get to watch “Sneaky Pete” along with having something as efficient as free two-day delivery.
Who knows, Amazon could be strapped for cash? According to CNBC, it’s only valued at $1.7 trillion, so perhaps there aren’t enough pennies in the Bezos piggy bank.
