Amazon Prime is a remarkable success but also dystopian. It has made convenience and speed the norm, habituating consumers to buy more products. Prime’s flywheel effect - where more customers lead to more data and scale which attracts more customers - has fueled Amazon’s dominance. Prime subscribers spend twice as much and Amazon’s value has multiplied 97 times since 2005. While canceling Prime may not hurt Amazon, it can benefit local businesses by gaining a new customer. However, Prime has rewired how people think about what is possible to obtain and how fast, making a Prime-free life unimaginable for many.
I look at it from an energy standpoint. If there’s an Amazon truck driving down my block every day, sometimes twice, and I need a thing, may as well put that thing on the truck. The alternative is me driving around, which is wasteful.
There are other stores on the internet…
I can think of at least one other truck going to everyone’s house once a day too.
