RIP: Amazon Prime Benefits Sharing Ends on Oct 1, 2025 | Hacker News Reader

RIP: Amazon Prime Benefits Sharing Ends on Oct 1, 2025

amazon.com

31 pointsmetadat20 comments

This is an editorialized title.

From the HN guidelines:

> please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.

On topic, it seems like Prime Benefits Sharing is being replaced by Amazon Family. I don’t understand why or what the differences are.

Because Prime sharing was allowed with people outside your household. Prime Family is not.

The change means lots of people are losing access they once had and will have to pay if they want to continue using Prime.

It's a significant change from the previous feature.

Amazon Family also requires sharing payment methods as a way to verify people are at the same household. With a trusted person (actually at the same address or not) that may not be a big deal but for a lot of people that's a showstopper.

Also the invitees allowed up to four other Amazon accounts to benefit. Amazon Family only allows 1 other adult...

Who used this?

I have one account, and it's logged in on almost every device in the family, including TV. We all just use the same thing. All of us aren't even in the same city

Next they'll crack down on folks logged on in more than one location.

Netflix does this, and when my wife and our kid visit my in-laws over the summer the device in one of the two locations loses access a few days before they return. This year I stopped watching Netflix (and logged one of our TVs out) halfway through their trip so as to be sure kiddo would be able to watch Spidey-whatever on the flight home. I'm genuinely not trying to game their system, and would rather pay for access than not, but shenanigans like that are at some point going to send me back to the high seas.

Yeah netflix sucks for that. Hopefully prime doesn't do the same.

I used this. I have my own account, but I get the benefits of a family member. That family member no longer lives with me and we're not close enough to share a billing method.

I was surprised to have benefitted from it for quite so long. It's been nice.

It didn't include Amazon Prime Video, so I might get it long enough to watch whatever it is I'd been wanting to see there. (I wanted to catch the last season of Mrs. Maisel. I've heard good things about Man in the High Castle. And I ought to at least try out Rings of Power. But I'm not sure there's anything else.)

The big problem is this is an underhanded way to force people to register their family structure with Amazon. No doubt this is so they can make the right recommendations for you, or worse, use it for advertisement targeting. But who wants to give up that kind of sensitive info to a faceless megacorp?

A deletion occurs in the family structure? Be prepared to get targeted with lots of products for the depressed.

No, Amazon won't let me register my family structure with them. They define it as two adults.

A lot of people are phrasing this as no more sharing with different addresses. But is also restricts a family living at the same address.

Fairly misleading title.

You can still share with other members of your household. (one other adult and up to 4 children)

Except people were previously more likely to have used this to share with people outside their home.

The effect is lots of people losing access they once had before. Whatever the technicalities of the change, it's likely going to be a major one for most people that share accounts.

Then they should stop buying it.

It's really that simple. They wont. More subscribers will come, Amazon will increase in market share and the enshitification will continue.

> Then they should stop buying it.

> It's really that simple. They wont. More subscribers will come, Amazon will increase in market share and the enshitification will continue.

It isn't that simple. Amazon was allowed to get too big, and do too much stuff. There needs to be more competition.

What part of Amazon prime benefits? I've never heard of such a nebulous subscription product.

I had this benefit with my family for the past 20 years. What a bummer! Amazon is really eeking out every dime they can, pedal to the metal.

How can they tell if someone is a teen in their household vs someone else?

Title is: Amazon Family is replacing the Prime Invitee Program

Didn't even knew that existed. Is this a US thing?

For me, the ship to the high seas has sailed long ago. The enshittification of all these services where you pay for something that you don't physically own was predictable.

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