Is the $139 Amazon Prime Subscription Still Worth It? | Hacker News Reader

Is the $139 Amazon Prime Subscription Still Worth It?

wsj.com

33 pointsmudil28 comments

When I canceled Prime a couple of years ago, I thought our family would really miss it. In practice, we have barely noticed. I don't trust Amazon any more for electronics; the books I ordered more recently were badly packaged and often dog-eared; and we now spend less time idly browsing Amazon for purchases we don't need, which is good all round.

Everyone has different needs, but I'd encourage more people to try canceling it. The world would not be harmed from a little less Amazon shopping.

Nope. After they announced they were going to charge me extra to not have ads in Prime Video I canceled. I have had Prime since it launched.

They don’t have good prices for items anymore and I can wait a day or two extra instead of paying the ever increasing prime price.

Even ignoring Prime, Amazon's value proposition has only continued to drop over time, particularly as it continues to be overrun with junk brands (you know the ones- their names are always gibbrish and in all caps) that you can get just as easily on one of the Chinese upstart e-tailer sites for much cheaper albeit with longer shipping times.

Add in the issue of knockoff products being comingled with genuine and I'm not sure quick shipping times are enough to make it worth it.

I think it depends on your spend.

If you have an Amazon Prime Visa credit card, you get 5% cashback on purchases if you have Amazon Prime, and 3% cashback if you don't.

If you regularly buy a few high-ticket items a year on amazon, that 2% difference will cover the price of prime.

About a $7,000 break even.

Interesting — what sort of big-ticket items do people buy on Amazon that would add up to $7k? I don't buy computers or TVs there (prices are better elsewhere IME), and I can't think of anything else I buy that is in the several-thousand-dollar range. Honestly TVs wouldn't even do it, since I buy them infrequently and spend hundreds (not thousands) on them.

We do buy a lot of smaller items, and it's possible we spend $7k in total on an annual basis. But I'm curious what sort of regular big-ticket purchases might make this add up.

There's also the higher discount at Whole Foods, but honestly I've found their pricing to be so high in recent months that I don't go there at all. Bread, eggs, and milk were 40% more than at Trader Joes. They do have great deals occasionally, but the vast majority of our grocery purchases are staples that are typically quite expensive there.

I’m sure it varies from person to person- but I typically buy my Apple products there since they aren’t typically discounted elsewhere anyway.

In the last year, I also picked up a treadmill, and new NAS device, and some camera equipment.

My total spend for the year was somewhat embarrassingly high, but well over 7K.

There are non-Amazon cards that will also give 5% at Amazon, but also at other online retailers. For example if you have at least $100k in BofA accounts their "Customized Cash Rewards" card gives you 5.25% in your chosen category [1].

At first that doesn't seem like a good deal. Who keeps $100k in their checking and savings accounts? But BofA owns Merrill and they include Merrill accounts in the total.

[1] Categories are online shopping, gas & EV charging, dining, drug stores, home improvement & furnishing, and travel. You can change categories once in each calendar month.

Seems like every order I get is 4-5 days shipping regardless of prime or saver shipping. Don't see the point in paying anymore tbh. It definitely was 2 days before COVID, ever since it's never gotten back.

Does anyone know why this post isn't anywhere near the front page? It was posted 1 hour ago, has 11 points, and 11 comments. It's not a dupe, and it's from a reputable/popular source.

According to the recently submitted Stories Removed from the HN Front Page [1], this did make it to the front page, but then plummeted off.

Why would anyone flag a submission like this? I wish it were possible to 'vouch' for a post that has been flagged but is not currently dead.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39230513

We can only guess, so here's mine: It's a paywalled article- maybe that annoyed people enough to flag it.

WSJ? Not in my experience.

Can confirm it's paywalled.

I think GP was indicating that WSJ links do not generally get flagged. I can certainly confirm this as well.

The HN policy is that it's OK to post links to sites that are available via workarounds, and typically someone ends up posting a workaround link to these articles.

Yes, it seems a bit dubious. Some jokey negative comments are seriously downvoted too. I doubt Amazon has any actual fans.

it's paywalled, probably has one of those anti eu blockers. can't see more than title and first line.

People flag posts like this for several reasons 1) Someone doesn't like the WSJ and/or flags every "paywalled" source because they think everything should be free 2) Someone doesn't like _you_ and downvotes/flags everything you post or 3) Someone petty person tried to submit it, saw that someone else submitted it and "flagged" it for revenge

My Prime membership ends in June--what are people using instead for their shopping go-to? Walmart? AliExpress? Other?

I don't get how this was so important on shopping on Amazon otherwise - in 10+ years of ordering I never felt the need for Prime, for small items I just waited a bit to get over the free shipping limit.

AliExpress really improved in recent years. For any off-brand item Amazon was always mostly resale of Ali items already (at 3x price), but shipping times and refund policies improved a lot (they added a 10$+ ordering tier).

i use walmart+ for subscribe and save. it's a better experience since i have everything i need in lists and just hit the re-order button when the time comes. things take longer to arrive but that's fine.

for everything else, i shop directly at the vendor, if possible

Target.com works pretty well. I also get a lot of things on HomeDepot.com and I now order "cheap chinese gadgets" on AliExpress. It's amazing how quickly things come from China (usually 2 weeks here in California.)

I hear my US friends bitching about Prime service degradation. Meanwhile it's still ~35 USD/YR in Canada and next day delivery has been increasingly reliable. I haven't compared cataglue on prime videos, maybe we have access to less content. But still hard deal to beat.

Are you a student? Price is showing as 99 CAD/yr otherwise.

Oh wow yeah. I only have the student option listed. That what I've been paying for years. Knock on wood.

I will know it is worth it and I am going to sign up as soon as it gets a little more complicated to do so and canceling becomes a one click action.

i canceled my prime last year. it took effect a few days ago. these days, i order from them so infrequently, i am okay with paying extra for it to get to me sooner.

(the tipping point for me was getting tackled by huge American Thursday Night Football banner ads with no way of turning them off. I hate football.)

https://archive.ph/FwnIT

i got everything i need i cancelled it like a couple of months ago

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