Amazon shuts down Freevee for good. The online commerce giant until now offered a free streaming service called Freevee, it was useful for all those who wanted to watch TV, feel like they belonged to a platform, but did not have the need to pay a fee to any. Well, it is over, Freevee says goodbye because its content will be poured into Prime Video.
Free streaming
Until now you could watch some of the most iconic series at no cost (and without using platforms that are not legal). But now the platform has already closed and forces users to the Prime Video website.
Thus ended the free streaming options with large-scale advertising, although Amazon promises that the content will be available for free on Prime Video, meaning you will not have to subscribe to continue watching your favorite series… Or so they say for now.
Series like Jury Duty, Judy Justice or Bosch: Legacy will still be available without paying a subscription.
From IMDb TV to Freevee
The service was born in 2019 as an extension of IMDb, the most extensive movie and series website that was already owned by Amazon. At first it was called IMDb TV, but in 2022 it adopted the name Freevee to compete with other free platforms like Pluto TV, Tubi or Roku Channel.
Its catalog included movies, classic series, original productions and some titles shared with Prime Video. All under an advertising-based model, which made it an attractive option for those who wanted to watch legal content without spending a fortune.
At its best it managed to gather 65 million active users per month, placing itself as one of the most relevant projects of free streaming!
Why Amazon is shutting it down
Because they do not make money with it. Amazon had been reviewing its profitability for months, and now this decision fits into the new strategy of concentrating all its offer under Prime Video to simplify the experience (and the brand’s expenses).
It is true that there are too many streaming platforms right now, and salaries are getting lower, so users must decide in which one they want to register in a “bombardment” of advertising about platforms. Maintaining a separate service implied marketing and maintenance costs that Amazon has preferred to avoid, now you know that everything from Amazon is in the same link.
What changes for users
The content remains free: everything Freevee offered will be on Prime Video, and will be accessible without subscription.
Instead of opening another app, now everything will be on the same platform (centralization). However, the question remains whether Amazon will keep this free content in the long run.
A signal for the sector
The closure of Freevee reflects the difficulty of consolidating the FAST model (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV) against subscription giants like Netflix or Disney+. But there are still free services, and we are going to tell you which ones are:
- Pluto TV (Paramount, direct channels and low-demand content)
- Tubi (Fox, it is very popular and has more than 50,000 free titles, you will not get bored!)
- Roku Channel (combines video channels, low-demand content and original series)
- Plex (it is free but adds advertising)
- Crackle (Owned by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, it is one of the pioneers of the sector)
Freevee disappears as a platform, but its series and movies survive within Prime Video, for users who do not want to go into Prime, there are other platforms with which you can still feel that you can watch everything!
But will Amazon keep the free content on Prime Video or will it gradually integrate it into its full subscription model? For now, Freevee remains an experiment and its competitors will share its place in the market.