Amazon Prime Was Too Good to Be True After All | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Prime Was Too Good to Be True After All

wired.com

12 pointsDLay13 comments

My family signed up for Amazon Prime fairly early on. We all knew that, given Amazon's reputation as a loss-leader, one day the price would rise. It certainly wasn't sustainable--in addition to two day shipping on almost everything, it gave you access to Amazon's Netflix clone. But for us, it worked as Amazon wanted. We ended up buying much more from Amazon than we otherwise would have because of Prime.

We ended up buying much more from Amazon than we otherwise would have because of Prime.

I will say that while we don't buy more total stuff than we would have bought, we do find ourselves buying from Amazon instead of other vendors because of a combination of Prime, liberal return policy, and price.

Unfortunately I live in a state for which Amazon collects tax for online shopping now. Between that, rising shipping costs, increased minimum to get free shipping and terrible and unpredictable shipping times, I rarely shop at Amazon anymore.

When it was effectively tax-free and I had Amazon Prime, I was buying a tremendous stream of merchandise from them. Now it's just a trickle.

Prime members...were inclined to spend more based on the "faintly irrational human impulse to maximize the benefits of a membership club one has already joined."

For some of us, the choice was completely rational. After noticing that at least a half-dozen times per year we were upgrading to 2 day shipping (which is about $15 each time), it made sense to get Prime. It is even sweeter since we could cancel Netflix at the same time and save $96 a year there as well (though the selection is more limited on Amazon).

$96 a year for Netflix? You must have had the 8-discs at a time option, how did having Prime allow you to cancel Netflix then?

Streaming-only Netflix is $7.99/mo in the US

It was $8/month for Netflix...I don't remember how many discs we had out at a time, but it was either 1 or 3. When they raised their prices, we stuck with the streaming-only option, which was also $8/month, so $96 a year. Instead of paying $96 a year for Netflix, we pay $79 a year for Amazon Prime, which has about 2/3 of what we watched on Netflix, but it's worth it.

Ah, a year. I missed that.

In case it wasn't clear: I'm an idiot:(

If I believed in deleting posts, I would:-\

What's especially annoying is the "Your package has been handed over to your local Postal Service by the carrier for delivery" which essentially turns 2-day shipping into 3 or 4.

Since Prime never had videos that I wanted to watch, and their 2 day shipping isn't 2 day anymore, there isn't much point in me continuing it.

Just curious...do you live in a rural area? I live in Los Angeles, and I always get my packages within 2 days, about half the time the next day. In December, orders I placed on Friday arrived on Saturday UPS or Sunday USPS.

No, I live in a (semi)major city of ~300,000.

It use to be that way. I'd order something and it'd be at my door in the morning. Now it's a 3 or 4 day ship.

Prime launched in 2005 for $79/year. ~$15 of the proposed increase can be attributed to inflation.

A disappointing link-bait title from Wired. Another $20-$40/year for such a fantastic service is far from "too good to be true." Especially considering I've had this service for years.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com