- The author canceled their Amazon Prime subscription on a whim and realized they didn’t really need it.
- Leaving Prime meant slower shipping but the author was happy to wait and still found the selection and delivery speed satisfactory.
- Many people love Prime for its fast shipping and convenience, but some readers expressed ambivalence and considered canceling.
Archive link: https://archive.ph/3M27c
Free shipping, but at that point you should question why you are buying so much from amazon in the first place
I effing hate amazon and what it stands for. Yet, it’s one of the very rare companies here (krautland) that actually give a damn about support and reliability.
Got a prob? It’s solved saturday night.
Got a prob with {most other german companies}? You can call us mo-fr between 11:00 and 12:00 but only when it’s not fullmoon. Also your estimated queue time is 2hrs. And wait till you hear our mind-dissolving on-hold-“music”…
When amazon says “it’s in stock and can be with you tomorrow if u order within 2hrs from now” then it is like this.
You get the gist…
So, on topic: i only buy prime when i plan to order a lot of stuff the coming month. For occasional orders i don’t need prime. Most of the time i can just use another free trial instead of actually paying.
It’s the Walmart problem. People buy from Amazon because they can’t afford some necessities at MSRP when going to a local store.
Some of the stuff I can get in bulk on Amazon are as much as 50% cheaper than getting those same things in bulk from a restaurant supply (which is cheaper than buying them at a grocery store). And that’s before Subscribe&Save’s 15% off. Coffee (for example) costs would drive me into the poor house if I didn’t get my beans from Amazon… and I end up getting higher quality beans than my grocery store at that lower price.
Do I NEED coffee to live? No. But it’s not exactly a luxury in the modern world, and beans are much cheaper than going to Dunkin. There are things I buy that I need; there are things that I buy that I want. And as much as I hate it, most of them are not available locally or are FAR more expensive locally. I never go to Amazon first, but I very often find myself landing at Amazon last.
And yes, that doesn’t justify Prime on its own. But because I have Prime, I get those things that I couldn’t find cheaper elsewhere the very next day. Prime will never be necessary when there’s free shipping options, but boy have they packed it out with more features than (for example) Walmart’s subscription model.
Here’s what I get with Prime that I appreciate:
- Free games every month, some of which are pretty awesome
- that fast shipping
- A fairly average TV service with a few of the best exclusives out there (imo THE best but I’m a WoT-head).
- Tons of included books and I live in a family of readers
I mean, a lot of it I could get on the High Seas as it were, but it’s the law of convenience. They make it easy and there’s a value prop there for me.
If I JUST wanted free shipping, Prime would be a complete waste of money to me. But I’d still end up giving Amazon my damn paycheck because the alternatives are just not there where I live.
Interesting. For me it’s the other way round 😂 The games are on their app (nope, thanks) or epic (no thanks). The digital goodies are only nice if you game any of those. The tv stuff is the worst I’ve seen back when i actually paid for my series/movies. Rarely nothing there and the interesting stuff still asked for money.
Books i can’t judge… I have a tolino full of epubs 😁
The games are on their app (nope, thanks) or epic (no thanks).
Their app is surpisingly fair. No inherent DRM, just click “download” and it downloads. Epic… well, I have 100+ games I got for free, so I have it anyway. I probably have a $1000 collection of “free” games on Epic at this point.
The tv stuff is the worst I’ve seen back when i actually paid for my series/movies
With all the subscription services, I think that’s the rule. If you like what they have, you love it. If not, you go elsewhere. At least Prime is cheaper than some of them, but at the end of the day it’s about the stuff you enjoy.
For me, it’s WoT, Reacher, Good Omens on top, along with a few of their FreeVee partnership shows. But I have to respect they also have The Boys, which I’ve been meaning to get into.
I mean, to me they beat Apple+ and Hulu, lose to Disney+ and Netflix. At $11/mo, I get all those things along with the expedited shipping and the books. Convenient, but also not overpriced.
It’s not really how much you buy, but how conveniently. I also thought it was silly to pay Prime, until pandemic. Then I discovered it’s silly to goto stores.
I go to the grocery once a week, and very rarely goto other stores. Al those trips to Walmart and target and kohls and those horror that are malls, just gone. I save all that time and all that driving. I want free shipping on my shampoo, for example, because it saves me a trip to the store. If I had to wait until I had $35 worth of stuff to get free shipping, I’d probably end up with anther trip to a store for emergency items: my time, my car costs.
Granted I also get things like shampoo in larger sizes than my local store Carries, so arguably more efficient in many ways. In some ways, it’s like Costco: why waste a trip to get a bar of soap or two, when i can get a 16 pack and just not worry about it?
Yeah, it was a bad example and my comment was a bit contradictory, I actually do get larger quantities that I can’t easily get at a physical store. It’s not that I like it so much, as that I want to get it with minimal thinking and I don’t want to have to worry about it again as long as possible.
The point is both that I save an emergency trip to the store and can buy in more bulk than the store provides.
Prime is worth it for overnight delivery, regardless of the value I buy - no need to wait until a list piles up not to buy in more quantity than I’m comfortable investing in
