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A great number of shows and series are available "freely" to subscribers of services like Amazon Prime, etc.

Among these shows, many seem to have been produced exclusively for this platform, and even to have been produced very recently. I have the impression that producing this amount of high quality content must cost incredible amounts of money, that I do not feel the fees demanded by the service can support. Which parts am I missing that can explain the economic existence of such a service?

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closed as off-topic by Tetsujin, Metro Boomin, Meat Trademark, Charles, BCdotWEB Mar 1 '18 at 14:42

  • This question does not appear to be about movies or tv within the scope defined in the help center.
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    I guess the $99 I spend a year on Prime doesn't count as revenue? Plus the movie rental / purchase revenue. Now I'm not saying that its a profitable business, and Prime revenue is intertwined with the free-delivery perks etc but $99 a year is not far off the $180 a year that HBO Now costs. HBO has a richer stream of recent movies and very expensive productions. – iandotkelly♦ Feb 28 '18 at 16:30
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    I don't have time immediately to write an answer - but your question made me look around, and indications are that it isn't profitable and is likely to be a loss leader. – iandotkelly♦ Feb 28 '18 at 16:41
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's not about 'Movies & TV' it's about a single content provider's financial model. – Tetsujin Feb 28 '18 at 18:07
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    Shouldn't there be articles about Amazon Videos in online financial magazines that discuss their business model? fool.com/investing/2017/02/22/… fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/25/… google.com/… – M. A. Golding Feb 28 '18 at 18:09
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    I don't know - I'm on the fence. Questions about the business side of production and distribution of movies would seem to be on topic. The changing business models cased by 'video on demand' like Netflix, Prime and the fact that the streamers have started to become producers of content too is quite interesting. – iandotkelly♦ Feb 28 '18 at 19:23

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