Ditching streaming has saved me £500 and made me a happier person

Hitting the cancel button has also allowed me to reconnect with physical media.

Amazon effectively increased prices by 37 per cent to maintain the status quo. Picture: John Devlin

Well, that’s that Amazon. After more than six years as a loyal subscriber to the internet behemoth’s Prime TV and movie streaming service I’ve bid farewell.

The departure has been stoked by the recent decision to start including “limited” advertisements during its streaming output, while offering a new ad-free option, providing you are willing to cough up an extra £2.99 a month, on top of the regular £7.99 monthly payment - in effect a 37 per cent increase to maintain the status quo.

It’s a case of the straw wot broke the camel’s back as far as I’m concerned, after a previous price increase, and brings a curtain down on my whole streaming experience. I’d already cancelled rival service Netflix after price hikes, some all-too generic box-set content and any movies that I did enjoy being removed before getting the opportunity to re-watch.

I doubt very much that the streaming bubble is going to burst because of my actions, even if the customer churn caused by recent changes does gather momentum. Streaming is convenient, often accessible across multiple devices and provides sufficient couch-slumping enjoyment for the masses. But there is next to zero user control and certainly zero ownership.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it ain’t for me and there is another route movie and music lovers like me can go down. Cancelling Prime, Netflix (the pricey 4K service, in my case) and a music streaming subscription with Qobuz (a fancy, sweeter sounding alternative to Spotify) is going to save me just over £500 a year - a substantial figure that makes the annual BBC licence fee for a largely ad-free experience look pretty decent value.

It’s also a useful sum to have available to spend on DVDs, music CDs and even the odd bit of vinyl. Old-school physical media that I have absolute control over, that doesn’t rely on endless updates or a stable internet connection and which can be enjoyed with little more than the pressing of a play button, or dropping of a needle, time and again. So, thanks Mr Bezos. By ending my streaming journey, I feel a little more liberated, and more than a little better off.

Scott Reid is a business journalist at The Scotsman