Last year, Amazon launched the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition that could default to displaying owners’ favorite pictures — as long as they paid an extra fee. Now it looks like that plan has been abandoned, with the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition and its accompanying $2 / month PhotosPlus subscription nearly erased from Amazon’s website.
One customer received a message saying the service has been canceled and that Amazon will no longer offer the subscription starting September 23rd.
The PhotosPlus subscription is what owners need to make photos “the primary content you see” on the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition with a slideshow that rotates every 30 seconds. It also offers the ability to show photos “indefinitely,” as other Echo Show displays will replace your photo slideshow with promotions and ads after three hours.
But now that Amazon’s doing away with the subscription, people who paid more for the $159.99 Echo Show 8 Photos Edition won’t get to display their photos more prominently, and the device will essentially become a standard Echo Show 8. Even though Amazon is discontinuing this feature, the company says PhotosPlus users can still access the 25GB of photo and video storage it offered through the subscription.
The Verge reached out to Amazon for more information on why it’s ending the subscription but didn’t immediately hear back.