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Comment by rickspencer3 | Hacker News Reader

We're finally going to not renew our Amazon Prime after many years.

We don't have that much need for "free" shipping on cheap Chinese products, and the convenience of the Amazon marketplace is now counter-balanced by the inconvenience of sorting out the fake goods and fake reviews. We are choosing sellers' own marketplaces when we can these days, and just dealing with longer and paid shipping.

Additionally, we are finding that Amazon Prime Video doesn't have so much that we want to watch anymore either, and we are paying for multiple streaming services anyway.

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Welcome to the other side. I haven't renewed Amazon Prime in quite a while. It's not that bad because you can still shop on Amazon with free shipping as long as you hit the minimum amount. I may keep things in the cart and sometimes it becomes a reminder for me to grab those items at the local shop. The only time I get an 'itch' to get back on Prime when I'm at Whole Foods. Other than that, goodbye free shipping!

My wife pointed out that the shipping is not, in fact, free, because we pay $100 (or whatever it is now) for Prime.

Do you know if you can still use Subscribe and Save without a Prime membership? We use that service quite a bit.

You can (I do)

Interesting. I'm wondering if I'd be able to drop the Amazon Prime then as well. Outside of Subscribe and Save, all of our purchases could be bunched until we hit the minimum order $. We hardly ever watch Amazon Prime video, we used to use the Photo storage but now pay for Google Photos (or Google One... whatever they call it now). Not sure what other benefits it provides?

I’d be the wrong person to ask because I didn’t find enough value in it after the trial expired :)

I am thinking about canceling as well but I am a nomad and need to be able to have things shipped to Amazon lockers. Do they still allow that without a Prime subscription?

They do. I use pickup lockers without Prime all the time.

You can still get free shipping with orders over $25. I cancelled prime years ago. I try to avoid Amazon as much as I can but I still use them sometimes like when someone gets me a giftcard that I can't regift.

Might I recommend Monoprice.com for the cables docks adapters displays speakers etc that you need cheap and reliable?

Lot’s of their stuff is made in Taiwan, which I consider a plus.

Thanks! I just cancelled Prime too for similar reasons as the GP, and I have found excellent alternative sources for most things but fiddly bits like cables eluded me. (My online replacements are: books => alibris, cds/vinyl => discogs, photography => b&h, music gear => sweetwater/cl. I'm happy to report that each service is superior to Amazon in every way, even if it's slightly inconvenient to multiplex like this.)

> we are paying for multiple streaming services anyway.

I just cancelled my membership, for all of the reasons you cite. I had been letting my membership ride only because of their streaming video, but recently, they've started yet another dark pattern.

I rarely finish a movie in one sitting. Three times in the past month or so, I've started watching something for free, and then come back to find that it was no longer free when I wanted to finish it. Like, the next day.

Most recently, this was Freakonomics. It was free when I started it, then I hit the wrong button on my Apple TV remote (THAT'S real hard, amirite?), and when I went to restart it, it had become for-cost. I mean, seriously?

I can live without their exclusives, and the standard defense around here that they're not, actually, a monopoly for online shopping is certainly true, so I'm done.

I have also canceled after nearly 15 years of being a customer. I cannot trust what they’ll ship me will be a legit product and not a knockoff.

Great! This is how giant, greedy corporations die.

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