Lemdro.id

5 points

8 months ago

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.

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Dyskolos@lemmy.zip

2 points

8 months ago

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 😁

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1 point

8 months ago

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.

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Dyskolos@lemmy.zip

1 point

8 months ago

Ok tbh i never tried the amazon app. But i doubt it just downloads and that’s it. No tracking? No phoning home? No play-statistics? Hmm

Yeah sure, we all got epic accounts filled with freebies. But i never heard of anyone actually using the app instead of maybe even playing one of those freebies and then quitting the app again 😁

Ok, they might indeed be the cheapest, thanks to the massive added value. Maybe it was a local thing? I tried watching like 3 things. And one i could rent, the others pay extra and i was like “wtf? This is prime? Fuckit”

And i didn’t mean to question your choice. It seems to be the best deal for you.

It just sucks that you’d need like 5 services and still can’t watch EVERYTHING. And in case of netflix (i assume that’s valid for the others too) we e. G. Only get 30% of what the muricans can watch. Same price. Or use a vpn.

I really tried being legit, but I’m back to *arr and emby. Not 10 bucks a month for 99% of everything. Did i mention netflix didn’t even work on any of my droids because of rooting? Fuck this.

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1 point

8 months ago

But i doubt it just downloads and that’s it. No tracking? No phoning home? No play-statistics? Hmm

I can’t be positive. I’ve never run any network traces on it. But it doesn’t have any of the hallmarks of service DRMs. No “connecting” popup or login prompt. I’ve played Amazon-downloaded games offline. If there’s a hidden DRM, it’s more-or-less obscured.

Let’s be honest, though. Amazon gives the games away for free in an app that will never be used to sell products; and they do it as a bullet-point for Prime and to nudge people towards Luna. It’s obviously the games they get for free that they give away. I see no reason for them to do more work than they have to, plugging in a DRM.

But i never heard of anyone actually using the app instead of maybe even playing one of those freebies and then quitting the app again 😁

It’s hard to remember what games I got through Amazon vs Epic, but I clearly remember a few times I was excited about an Amazon Games offering added an Epic game.

In Amazon Games natively, my happy games are Autonauts, Terraformers, Close to the Sun (recently), and a few of those short adventure games I completed that nobody wants to spend $20 on but everyone loves to play.

I tried watching like 3 things. And one i could rent, the others pay extra and i was like “wtf? This is prime? Fuckit”

Their rent thing sucks, but I *never *see rentals in front of me when I use Prime Video on my TV. I named 3 of their big exclusives, but there’s plenty more either exclusive or just licensed. It’s never the most awesome shows of any service, but I could still find a few hours per day of video if I tried.

It just sucks that you’d need like 5 services and still can’t watch EVERYTHING

Yeah, I’m with you 5000% on that. That’s where Gabe Newall is right. I’d probably be willing to drop drop $100/mo or more on a service if it had EVERYTHING on-demand, convenient, with no DRM of any kind. And I’d never once think to download-and-unsub or distribute or anything.

…as for your experience, I say wave that damn Jolly Roger. Gimme convenience or give me death. I pay because things are convenient for me. If it wasn’t, I probably wouldn’t be paying either.

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Dyskolos@lemmy.zip

1 point

8 months ago

Okay, guess my prejudice about the amazon app was a but premature grounded on misanthropic bitterness 😊 I retract that statement and stand corrected.

Oh autonauts. This i even bought on steam before it went for free. Still don’t regret. Still can’t recall a game i actually played on epic. Though i gotta admit i bought a looooot of games on steam.

Hm. Maybe i picked a bad bunch or had bad luck that one time i tried prime. It just never occurred as a prime (no pun intended) reason to pay… Errr… Prime.

I totally hear you on the convenience-point. Warez were never convenient. Just “free”. Yet, with a tiny amount of “work” (given you’re not a tech-illiterate) the sailing-seas-way is a child’s play nowadays. I enter the name of the series/movie, wait for the download (full speed 24/7)and simply watch it on emby with all comfort there is. From phone, tablet, laptop, desktop… My maintenance-time is below an hour per year (and i even love tinkering). All for below 19 bucks in the quality i prefer.

Dishing out 100 bucks would need a lot of benefits to convince me. Though i get you. Trading money for tinkering-time. All depends on our preference and skill and nerdiness 😂

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1 point

8 months ago

a game i actually played on epic.

Here’s a few of mine (not sure if any come from Amazon): Control (this was awesome!), shapez (almost bought it, then it was in my inbox), loop hero, Guardians of the Galaxy (Christmas free games), Outer Worlds (ditto), Evil WIthin 1 and 2, most of the fallout games, Death Stranding, Gloomhaven… I’m only on page 5 of 20 lol. Only 1 out of 5 of their free games are any good, but between big giveaways and the like, that’s still ~15 good free games a year lol. So needless to say, Epic is always installed on my computer.

It just never occurred as a prime (no pun intended) reason to pay… Errr… Prime

Perhaps THE problem with Prime right now is that none of their services except maybe TV is worth $11/mo on its own. Their free games aren’t Humble Monthly, but HM is just games. Their TV isn’t Netflix, but it’s $4/mo cheaper. You can get free shipping without Prime now (that wasn’t true before), but next day is phenomenal. As for books, there’s not really any replacement I know of. It’s not perfect (has this annoying thing about having books 2 on in some series, without book 1), but if you read a book a month, it pays for itself.

Warez were never convenient. Just “free”. Yet, with a tiny amount of “work”

For sure. It’s always been a baseline of convenience. I remember the old days of curating my mp3 collection every 6 months, removing dupes and fixing organizational shifting. But if I do that stuff for apps, I have to maintain freaking sandbox environments for each app, make sure my computer is backed up in case I have to wipe it, make sure nothing auto-logins so a remote attack doesn’t happen, etc. About 1 in 2 cracked apps show up as a virus and you can never know whether it’s a false positive, so you have to use a computer condom and then STILL get tested.

Dishing out 100 bucks would need a lot of benefits to convince me. Though i get you. Trading money for tinkering-time. All depends on our preference and skill and nerdiness 😂

I’m in an ok place right now. And Amazon is still the cheapest place to buy anything, for me. If I spend over $1000/yr there on everything, a lot more if you count the holidays, then Prime has already justified itself. And slower or not, Amazon with Prime is STILL the fastest Christmas shipper.

Anecdote… We bought Ring cameras from the Ring site for a family member in November. By mid-December, they still hadn’t shipped because Christmas orders were so backlogged. So we bought them again on Amazon and they were on our doorstep 2 days later, just a couple days before Christmas. Was it next day? No. Was it worth it? YEAH.

Then we had to fight with Ring for 2 weeks because they wouldn’t cancel the order. We got the Cameras the 2nd week of January and my wife was on the phone with them 6 or 7 times before they finally approved a return. Amazon has this thing called “Free Returns” on most items. You can literally write in “I was drunk shopping” for your return reason and nobody bats an eyelash.

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