Amazon has announced that you can now subscribe to their stand alone Prime Video streaming service with out being an Amazon Prime member. Amazon’s Prime Video has given Netflix some major competition over the last few years. While their movie selections have been on par for the most part, Amazon has gotten a bit of an edge with their television show selections, most notably Doctor Who, which Netflix famously dropped recently.
Amazon Prime also has a unique approach to their original series programming, by actually releasing all of the pilots produced by Amazon, and letting the viewers decide which make it to series (why more networks don’t do this is mind boggling). The award winning Transparent and the critically acclaimed The Man in the High Castle were both put into production by this method.
As far as cost is concerned, the stand alone Prime Video service will be $8.99 per month, versus the existing Amazon Prime membership, which is currently $99 per year. Amazon Prime also includes access to free shipping on a huge selection of Amazon products and access to Amazon’s Music Streaming service, as well as Prime Video, so it’s really unclear why one would choose just the Prime Video service at this point. It can be assumed the membership for Amazon Prime will increase in the near future.