Just joined Amazon Prime.

Orphan Black is a good show only available on Prime.

I would never pay for Prime for the streaming service. That's just a perk.

quote:

---

Is this service worth the money in the long run?

---

Considering the other benefits of Prime, free shipping, free music, free cloud storage, free Kindle lending library, etc. it is worth the money. If I had to choose a streaming video service only I'd choose NetFlix. But honestly their libraries are fairly comparable. NetFlix has better originals (every Amazon original pilot I've watched has sucked), but Amazon has many HBO shows.

As for what to watch, as you've seen the movie selection is generally pretty bad, most people watch TV shows. Some of the better exclusives they have in addition to the HBO stuff is The Americans, Justified, Vikings, and Suits. I've never seen Justified or Suits, but they are generally well liked on the board.

I actually preferred Amazon's UI over Netflix until they changed the way they put the movies in order.

The only experience I have with Amazon's UI is on my Roku. The way it was done when I hated it so much was basically find the genere you wanted and scroll through...if there was more than one season of something it would just randomly show up somewhere in the listing. I remember seeing X Season 1, B season 14, C season 3, X season 5...and so on. It made it impossible to keep track of stuff (I had been watching Stargate and lost track of where I was b/c of it)

quote:

---

I would never pay for Prime for the streaming service. That's just a perk.

---

^

If you got Prime for the streaming service then you will be disappointed. Netflix is better. However, if you shop online then the Prime is well worth it. I do all my Christmas shopping on Amazon and only get Prime products. I use it constantly throughout the year, as well. It has easily paid for itself many times over with what I have saved on shipping costs. I love getting things in 2 days, will never be able to go back to standard shipping. The streaming is just a perk, which I have hardly used since I have Netflix streaming and HBOGo.

Yeah, people join Prime for shipping, but to be honest, I've never heard of people joining for television.

Dude, you can get television options way better elsewhere. One of the perks for me was movies, being able to get them before the other options for cheaper.

quote:

---

How does a company that deals in movies not have any of these available?

---

I wonder this too. I have Netflix, Amazon, and Uverse On-Demand, and there are still frequently times I can't find a particular movie. Roku's search helps most of the time but not always. It would be nice if there was a complete IMDB library to select from without needing multiple subscriptions and access to one off apps. I hope that the content distribution model changes soon so that this can happen.

quote:

---

How does a company that deals in movies not have any of these available?

---

About 3 years ago NetFlix was at a crossroads, the movie channels they had or could have had deals with wanted them to go to a tiered pricing model. Showtime wouldn't renew unless they went to tiered pricing and HBO had said they'd give them shows if they charged more. Both were worried about losing their premium status by being associated with a one low price NetFlix.

NetFlix saw that people mostly watched TV shows on their service anyway (due in no small part to how bad the movie selection was back then even with the Showtime deal), so they backed off movies, doubled down on TV and started focusing on creating original content like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black.