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Comment by stanmancan | Hacker News Reader

Prime is an odd one though since nobody subscribes to Prime Video specifically, it’s a value add included with their Prime membership. Is it fair to compare that number to Netflix or Apple TV when they’re both stand alone products?

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I know this is just for the US but just to clarify. The Prime Video included in your Prime subscription is only available in a few countries (US, DE, GB,...) all other countries have primevideo.com which is a stand-alone video only subscription.

I'm in India and we use primevideo.com. It does come as part of the Amazon Prime subscription.

That may be because Amazon Prime doesn't make sense in some countries. Example: Free two day delivery doesn't make sense if you can expect free/cheap next-day delivery from local webshops.

Other Amazon Prime benefits requires that Amazon have a local presence in your country or area, so it makes sense that it's limited to countries where Amazon at least have distribution centers.

It also makes sense because primevideo.com looks like it was built from scratch and isn’t integrated in the “normal” Amazon.tld that’s not available in a lot of countries. It was very buggy in the beginning and incrementally got improved, they probably couldn’t move that fast if it was integrated into the main site too.

Just to add to your comment, Amazon Prime also doesn't make sense in countries with a fairly poor Amazon presence / high shipping costs. E.g. Canada.

I'm in Canada (lower mainland) and have Prime. The free same/next day shipping makes it worth it for us. We don't order a ton, but probably 15-20 times per year is enough to justify it.

> Prime is an odd one though since nobody subscribes to Prime Video specifically

Speak for yourself. I live outside the US, and can't get any Amazon Prime or free delivery.

I subscribe to Amazon Prime Video for The Grand Tour and other Amazon exclusive video-content.

Yes, it's a small catalogue, but 4K Prime costs me 1/3 of what 1080p Netflix costs, so I'm OK with that.

Fair enough, I was actually unaware that you could subscribe to prime separately, but it makes sense. Either way, the GP did mention specifically "100 million US subscribers", in which case those are all people who get it for free with their Prime subscription, compared to Netflix who are people subscribing specifically for the content.

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