Amazon Amp is getting unplugged less than 2 years after being launched

"We've made the difficult decision to close Amp," Amazon explained in a statement sent to the media. Although the product did not experience any global breakthrough or heyday (since it was only ever launched in the USA), the tech giant praised the learnings that came with it and said to bring them on board as they ‘build new fan experiences at scale in Amazon Music’.

Amazon Amp was first launched in March 2022 as one of the many apps and platforms which tried to replicate the success of Clubhouse, a live audio platform that got extremely popular during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Unlike Clubhouse that allowed anyone to launch a live chat room on any topic, Amazon Amp was directed towards live radio broadcasts, letting hosts access millions of licensed songs to later stream them while running their shows.

In neither case did these apps achieve long-term success. Yes, Clubhouse is indeed still functioning and has about 10 million active weekly users, but its popularity has dropped considerably ever since the pandemic started to recede. Last month, Clubhouse also announced that it was re-inventing itself as a group messaging app.

Live audio services in general are seemingly shutting down or pivoting after users started to lose interest en masse. Spotify, too, decided to unplug its live audio app Spotify Live earlier this year. Now, Amazon Amp is the most recent one to join the club of apps that turned out infamously. While the app remains to be available for download and is still airing live shows, it will certainly get unplugged in the near future.