Amazon quietly removed Prime Video’s watch party feature and few of us even noticed

5 months ago 158

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

TL;DR

Amazon Prime introduced a Watch Party feature in 2020, letting users remotely watch movies and shows together. Now it appears it’s gone.
The feature started to phase out at least a few months ago, though it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it happened as Amazon hasn’t officially said anything about it.
If you really care about Watch Party, alternatives like Teleparty allow you to do the same thing just through a third-party service.

During the pandemic, many streaming services introduced Watch Party features, allowing people to watch the latest movie together even when they are far apart geographically. This was a brilliant addition at the time, as many of us were suffering from social isolation. Years later, it seems the feature has quietly disappeared for Amazon Prime users.

To be clear, Amazon Watch Party hasn’t been available for a while. Pinning down the exact timeline is difficult, but it has been nearly five months, at least based on Reddit comments.

From what we gather, Amazon didn’t drop the feature all at once but phased it out slowly. That or it just took a long time for many to notice. After all, Watch Party is one of those features that’s nice to have but most of us aren’t likely to use it often outside of events like lockdowns. It’s not surprising that this change wouldn’t be that noticeable for many. It is a bit odd Amazon didn’t address the removal at all, but considering its support pages for the feature are gone, it’s clear the company has moved on.

Even though this isn’t exactly a hot feature in 2024, the removal of Watch Party is still a little disappointing for those who have loved ones far away or are in a long-distance relationship, as this gave Prime users a way to feel more connected to one another despite the distance. It’s uncertain why Amazon ditched Watch Party, though the most likely reason is the feature probably wasn’t used enough to justify any costs and resources dedicated to keeping it running.

If you really want to watch a show or movie with someone you care about remotely, you have an alternative. Teleparty, previously known as Netflix Party, works very similarly to Prime’s solution but is independent. This means it supports more than one streaming service with support for Netflix, YouTube, Disney Plus, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime. Of course, this is a Chrome plugin, so you’ll have to use a device capable of running Chrome plugins to use this one. It’s also potentially less secure than if this feature were still offered directly from Amazon.