Worse
marco.org
marco.org
Apart from the free catalogs, which are comparable between the two services, Amazon also has an enormous paid streaming catalog. Like most nerds, the value of an hour of my time is such that even thinking about the price of paid streaming content is a waste of time, so Amazon's paid streaming catalog is a great win for me; 9 times out of 10, whatever I want to watch, I can get through Amazon.
Amazon also does a better job of maintaining my library of past purchases and my wishlist than either of Netflix or iTunes.
I didn't buy Prime to get the videos, but the videos aren't s small feature. Amazon executes streaming content as well as anyone else, and if you haven't checked them out (because you use Netflix, for instance) you should.
Also: I don't think streaming media is at all out of place in Amazon's core offering. They started with books. Then digital media, just like Borders did. Then "everything else", which is what people seem to think of Amazon as now --- the Walmart of the Web. But: then Kindle (consolidating their reach into content), then streaming media, then publishing.
It doesn't seem at all weird to me that the Internet's largest retailer of paid content would have a streaming media service; online content delivery would otherwise obsolete one of their original offerings.
Libraries are constantly in flux but here's a comparison of imdb top 250 tv shows across services:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AqP8TDyPzj3NdDRl...
Methodology, etc.:
http://lifehacker.com/tv-streaming-head-to-head-netflix-vs-h...
Spoilers: Netflix dominates Amazon by a wide margin. I'd love to see the same data for movies if anyone has it.
This is all to say that it is extremely difficult to compare libraries and in my case Amazon has introduced me to more new and interesting TV than Netflix and Netflix has the edge when it comes to movies.
I concede your point, though: Prime alone vs. Netflix, Netflix wins. It may be that I don't notice this because of the shows I watch.
http://davidjohnstone.net/blog/2013/07/netflix-amazon-and-hu...
Streaming:
Netflix: 559 Seasons
Hulu Plus: 213 Season
Amazon Prime: 252 Seasons
Amazon: 1052
iTunes: 1039
Google: 663
Spending a couple bucks a week on Amazon Instant for the season passes to shows I watch has more than paid for itself in terms of time. Additionally, I can download them for offline viewing on my Kindle Fire - instead of dicking around with ripping dvds or finding some software to convert from one video format to another.
that sounds so arrogant and self important. You just wasted time writing a long meaningless comment on hn and that's somehow worth your time.
BTW, I suspect that HN is recreation for many of us, and not work.
I understand full well what people mean conversationally when they say that their time is worth $x/hr, but it's worth unpacking the notion: what has worth is the value you create* by the work you perform during that time. If you spend an hour watching a movie, you are (presumably) not performing that work, and not creating that value.
To go from "I get paid $x/hr when I'm working" to "My time (even when I'm not working) is worth $x/hr" is to reason that because you sometimes create a lot of value with the time you spend working an hour of your life is more valuable than an hour of someone else's. From there it's a short semantic step to "this is beneath me because I make a lot of money."
In your particular case, I presume the spirit of your remark was more along the lines of "I make enough money that it's no hardship to spend what is for me a little bit of money to stream a movie, and if you work in tech you probably do too."
That that's the case is because you've (presumptively) earned a lot of money, but not because your leisure time is inherently more valuable than, say, someone who earns minimum wage, or someone who performs uncompensated domestic work.
*This of course leaves aside the valid critiques of markets-in-practice as measures of value.
I'm of course less than excited about this in general since it makes me feel like Netflix can trust my computer better than I can, and I'd like to be able to say that no one can trust my computer more than me.
>I didn't buy Prime to get the videos, but the videos aren't s small feature
>I don't think streaming media is at all out of place in Amazon's core offering.
When you put these statements together, it illustrates the problem: bundling. Worse, involuntary bundling.
You take a service that people love, which is more oriented around physical goods, then you smash in a service that many of those people may not want, but you charge everyone for the whole ball of wax anyway.
It may not be so out of place for Amazon to offer streaming media, but there is nothing particularly synergistic about discount shipping and streaming media. Loving one does not mean you'll care for the other (or wouldn't at least want the option to choose another service).
If they wanted to offer a discount for their streaming service to Prime members or optional upgrade, that's one thing. But, forcing it on existing members, then eventually raising prices is not very customer-friendly. In fact, it's somewhat hostile.
And, that's another key part of this: Amazon has long been known as very customer-focused. Of course, Prime itself at one time felt customer-centric. But, moves like this feel very much like Amazon is becoming more Amazon-centric.
I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised. They've been laying the foundation for some time at the expense of their bottom line. Perhaps this is just the beginning of the end of that phase.
In a similar vein I wish Spotify had way more of a presence on set-top boxes in general. It's on Roku but nothing else, and it makes no sense to me. I'm intentionally not counting clients built into receivers or smart TVs, since those UIs are almost always awful to the point where I'd rather AirPlay the audio from a computer than run the built-in app on a TV or receiver. I could understand it not being on Apple TV, but I'd think that at a bare minimum, there would be a Spotify app for all the major game consoles.
https://support.spotify.com/us/learn-more/faq/#!/article/TiV...
I just cut my TiVo. Unusable slow junk for $200 + $15 / month.
It is much better on the Premiere and Roamio than on the Series 3 and earlier...
Anyway, that was just one annoyance out of many. TiVo is garbage, slightly better smelling garbage than the cable providers give you, but still garbage, and at a higher price. No thanks; my HTPC is outperforming any DVR I have ever had.
The complaint I have is that I'm a secondary member on the prime account. (wife is #1 in many ways... prime account is one of them.) I don't get the option to play any of the 'prime' stuff being a secondary member.
I find to get AirPlay working reliably, you really need to have one of the devices wired.
Maybe you are using a congested channel on 2.5ghz?
Also worth mentioning like everyone else, make sure you aren't mirroring, but only sending the stream to the ATV.
I think if you read your question this way and look at how Apple historically has done business, you will find your answer without the need for further examination.
Why, is your time so worthless that you can freely spend it watching an hour of streaming content?
Here? What a load of horseshit. Netflix doesn't exist, isn't relevant. Amazon's forced 'offer' (Disclaimer: Cancelled Prime some days ago) is utterly useless. I have not a single device that I could use to access the content (unless .. you want me to use a computer/laptop) and the content is heavily biased towards braindead localized offerings: Most stuff is dubbed here.
So yes, I totally believe that some people might like that service: I'd say that it's faults are too big to make sense for the broader public (lack of devices, lack of interesting content). They _could_ blow me away. Offering access to OV titles/series, providing means to access the media without buying Apple devices or some random 'supported platforms' - like they did for mp3.
Amazon doesn't seem to care though and therefor that particular service sucks balls in my world. Consider this a counter-argument (and I didn't expect to agree with Marco tbh..).
I honestly don't use either much... I pay for both, as well as cable, but I honestly find it easier to download/watch what I want than to deal with any of them. I keep saying, I'd pay $100/month for an online service that lets be watch what shows I want, when I want without commercials. Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, etc just don't cut it for me. And the new DVR system from my cable co is the worst of all.
Ignoring selection, Amazon does a _much_ worse job at actually streaming content then Netflix. I subscribe to both (for now, I likely will not renew Prime) and sometimes switch between them in the same evening. Without exception, Amazon will show more compression artifacts, be slower to start, and generally lower quality then Netflix. Add to that the fact that Netflix has apps for almost everything and they are generally well maintained and attractive, whereas Amazon barely supports the Roku with a clunky interface, forget about from IOS or Chromecast.
Device integration is the killer feature in pay-per-view streaming. The catalogs are all interchangeable. I don't know of any device (aside from maybe a Kindle) where buying from Amazon will yield a better experience than buying from {Google,Apple}.
I use an Apple TV. I'm a Netflix subscriber and use iTunes like you use Amazon (for the paid streaming catalog). I think Marco is in the same situation - and why I would rather pay less for Amazon Prime than to have video included.
2. Netflix works on my Apple TV as well as the PS3.
3. Both Netflix and Amazon have a small amount of content that the other doesn't.
I'm not at a point in my life where optimizing the amount of money I pay for content seems like a good use of my time. If I had to choose one or the other, I'd choose Amazon.
Here on Windows 8, their Silverlight player doesn't even start properly - it plays the first second or so, freezes, then jumps back to the first second again, repeatedly. The only workaround I've found is manually seeking to the first minute of the video.
And of course I have no alternative player. With Netflix I get a choice of (working) Silverlight and Metro, and most importantly it also works on all five of my Android devices. Amazon demonstrably do not execute it half as well from my perspective.
That's rare, I'm more often content with Netflix's catalog.
Amazon streaming doesn't send HD content to my Mac Mini connected to my TV. Standard Def is a joke, and there's no way I want to use my BD player's interface to find movies.
And, at least the last time I used it, it works on Linux. Netflix doesn't, so I don't stream Netflix.
Imagine if the front page were full with these kind of titles. We might as well change the titles to random numbers.
The last post by this guy that I remember, and the second to last one to do well on the frontpage (perhaps explaining the current behavior), was titled "Off". Can you get any more vague?
In that post all he said about anything being off was "The presenting executives seemed a bit off, too."
My prediction is that before long he'll have a post at the top of Hacker News titled "And" where he ends it with "And that's what I think."
When I submit, I sometimes use the subtitle instead of the main title, or submit something like (in this case): "Worse: Business models and lock-in among Internet giants" which won't get reverted until it's already on the front page with a reasonable number of votes.
UPDATE: Then again, judging from the comments here, maybe he was guessing (correctly) the point that nobody was going to address.
I think you've answered your own question. A lot of people will think it's a stupid title but be curious enough to click through.
The article author can hardly be blamed for the HN policy of using article titles even when they aren't descriptive.
But I guess more importantly (and this is a lesson) the title was ambiguous enough to not let me know that I wouldn't be interested in it.
So for example if it said "Ruby" I would have been less likely to click because that's not of any interest to me.
So my curiosity was piqued by the title. That and definitely the karma made me take a look. And the fact that I couldn't rule out interest.
This also ties into the concept of "don't oversell".
One of the things I learned as a kid was to stop selling once you have made a sale. Because if you said more after making the sale (and in some cases before) you could lose the sale.
Salesman: "and the warranty on the refrigerator is fairly price as well" Buyer: "oh wait I need a warranty hadn't thought of that, cancel the order then".
I would laugh so hard at that.
"There’s nowhere to go. Amazon has either destroyed or bought every competitor that has ever come close to its retail business."
Without this, nothing else matters. If there are alternatives, then you keep using Amazon and Prime only if they're worth it. If Amazon ruins them, go somewhere else.
Personally, I think it's completely wrong. I buy on Amazon because it's extremely convenient and because I can be pretty sure that they're going to offer a good price, likely the cheapest price available.
However, any time I make a purchase that's more than $30 or so, I shop around. There is no shortage of other places to buy anything I've looked for. They usually have higher prices or worse service than Amazon and so I skip them. Occasionally they're better, and then I buy from them.
There's no lock-in, there's no monopoly, there's nothing that makes people stick with Amazon besides better prices, better service, and inertia.
If you don't like it, go somewhere else. It pains me to say this because that phrase is so overused, but it applies to Amazon well.
Zappos has fantastic customer service, great selection of shoes, and good prices. They've been owned by Amazon since 2009.
AbeBooks is a fantastic used (or new) book marketplace. Amazon bought them in 2008.
Audible is the largest retailer of audiobooks. Amazon bought them in 2008. Try buying an audiobook anywhere else.
Amie Street provided independent music downloads will a revolutionary demand-based pricing system. Amazon bought them in 2010 to shut them down.
Woot was a pretty nifty daily deal site. They were bought by Amazon in 2010, and have really lost their original focus since.
If I want to buy just about anything online, I'm stuck buying it from Amazon. If it happens to be something that Walmart or Target stocks, I could order it from them instead. They charge $5+ for shipping even the smallest items though.
Now, said competitor may just end up being bought by Amazon again, true. But until then, they will be a viable "other" choice.
The same goes for every other service bought and modified by Amazon. You're complaining about them, so there's at least a demand of 1 for a replacement service :)
To shop around means:
* figuring out if the site is trustworthy * trying to work out how much delivery would cost * registering for a new account * adding payment info * worrying about returns policy, lost deliveries and so on
That's a pretty big hurdle in most cases, if you end up saving only a couple of bucks. better prices, better service and inertia are pretty huge.
It feels a little like saying "there's nothing that makes people stick to Apple besides better UI, better software and the fact that all your digital media is already there" (ok, maybe it's not the perfect example, but pretty close).
That's a radically different situation, though. If Amazon makes their experience vastly worse, then everybody will leave. If there were no alternatives, then we'd be stuck. But we're not stuck, we're just using them because they're the best.
The one hiccup was that the first thing they tried to send me on a Sunday got lost, but they handled it with great customer service and next-day shipped me a replacement during the week. And since then the few things I've had scheduled for Sunday have been fine, too.
I'm in a big city, though. Maybe it's gotten worse for people in less densely populated areas that aren't so near their warehouses?
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The videos service is a mess UI-wise compared to its competitors, but considering how much free shipping I take advantage of I can't complain. But Marco certainly a point that the bundling (and branding, and messaging, and discoverability) is pretty bad. It works serviceably on my Kindle Fire and Samsung TV, but is a clear step down from the competitors in terms of interface, app availability, polish, etc.
I know that's how Amazon phrases it but this is the fallacy the OP is arguing against.
So that means it's all 'free' despite costing $100 just as a Tesla Model S is free after you've paid the $70,000 fee, and a Mac Pro is also free after you've paid the $2,999.
Perfectly reasonable.
I wouldn't have been able to make the purchase without having previously paid for a Costco membership, so the "true" cost of the toilet paper is more than $7.99. That said, would anyone reasonably contend with the statement "I got this toilet paper for $7.99"?
Similarly, those videos are free _for members_, in the sense that they can be used at no further cost.
Equally if I set up a Mac Pro club where I charge $3500 annual membership, and you get a free Mac Pro, nobody would be fooled into calling that Mac Pro 'free'.
Amazon Prime is a flat membership fee, after which you receive a number of unmetered benefits. Some of those benefits include products that would normally cost money being available for no additional cost. The use of the word "free" to describe offers like that is unremarkable.
Nothing you get from prime is actually 'free'. Unmetered is honest, 'included' would be honest. 'Free' is not.
Another example would be broadband with no cap. We call that 'unmetered' not 'free', for a reason.
Are people not understanding the concept of membership? There are _countless_ examples of membership, both online and off, in which perks of said membership are touted as "free".
Golf clubs offer free food/drinks/carts. Costco as mentioned offers free unlimited-discounts/samples/eye-testing. etc...
"Free" has at this point become an idiomatic expression, which, when used in the context of a membership perk, effectively means
"You've paid for unlimited use of this perk and it's no additional charge over the cost of your membership"
In all of my time using Amazon I've never felt the intention to mislead me into thinking I would have these videos free if I hadn't paid for Prime... In all of their advertisements/video-descriptions it is explicitly mentioned somewhere on the page that this video is "prime"... The 'free video' section is even labelled "Prime Instant Video".
Whether you're getting free drinks at the Golf Club or watching free videos in Amazon Prime, it would take a mental invalid to not realize the inherent cost of that 'free' item, and the fact that you already paid for access to it.
I suggest you do some actual research into behavioral economics.
"Shipping is 'free' [for Amazon Prime members]."
That is a factual statement, even under a very strict definition of the word "free". And I think it corresponds to the original poster's intent. Obviously, it costs money to become an Amazon Prime member, but for such members the shipping is, indeed, free.
For those of us (I'm guessing the majority) who already buy Amazon Prime simply for the benefit of unlimited 2-day shipping, any additional features come at no cost.
I agree it's not the same as a pure definition of 'free', but for many of us it's effectively the same.
I really like Schneier's commentary on how large companies are migrating toward a feudal system[1]. His perspective is from security, but the central point is universal.
Planet Money (an NPR show) created a t-shirt for fans and broke down the cost of each shirt. The biggest line item was shipping the finished shirts to customers.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/12/13/250747279/episode-...
Out of the total cost of $12.42, it cost $2.26 to ship. It cost $1.04 to accept payments. Compare these costs with the actual cost of the product: $0.60 for the cotton, $0.40 to spin the cotton into yarn, $1.00 for sewing.
It seems unlikely that Amazon as it exists today will ever rival Walmart in volume and price since they avoid these last-mile delivery costs.
Amazon should take on FedEx and UPS and try to disrupt the industry one key city at a time. They've already started delivering groceries in Seattle, so perhaps that's the first step to Amazon Delivery Service.
This is, of course, very much to Wal-Mart's advantage. Americans really hate to think about the cost of their cars and really love to drive them, so the perception will generally avoid factoring in the costs of driving to and from the store into the final prices.
However, make a big enough difference and people will notice. If Amazon can offer a price that's lower than Wal-Mart's and deliver it for much less than it costs to drive to the store, people will notice.
I don't see why they couldn't, eventually. Warehouse logistics are much easier when you don't have to deal with customers wandering around. Transport is subject to economies of scale like anything else, and it should be possible to make it much cheaper to use one truck to deliver to 100 houses than it costs to have 100 people individually drive back and forth.
In short, I think I'm agreeing with you that delivery is where Amazon should concentrate if they want to compete in this area.
I honestly think that is in flux. Wal-mart's recent inane suggestion that some customers do delivery for others is an example that they're aware of the problem. Their recent downturn in sales is another. The inflection point is coming.
Amazon (Amazon Fresh) and Google (Shopping Express) are skating to where the puck is going to be - optimized delivery services as a booster to existing retail storefronts.
I am rarely home during the day (I work) and I don't like having expensive items sitting on my porch in the weather where anyone can swipe it.
I'd rather stop by a 24-hour (drive through) facility where I can swipe my credit card and get my package when I am ready. It's more convenient for me and it saves last-mile shipping costs.
I sort of have this already. I'm in a newly built neighborhood, and the mailboxes are all in groups. There's a bunch of big boxes each containing 12-15 small mailboxes, one per house. Each big box also contains one or two larger mailboxes for packages. When I get a package that doesn't fit in the small letter box, the mailman puts it in one of the package boxes, then puts the key in my mailbox. Some clever mechanical design makes it so that the key can't be removed from the package lock once inserted, and so it stays there to be recovered and reused by the mailman.
There are two problems with this approach:
1. The package box is still fairly small, so bigger items have to go the more traditional route.
2. Much more importantly, since it's with the mailboxes, only the USPS can use them. UPS, FedEx, and others are stuck with the more traditional approach.
Still, it's a start. With the massive increase in packages being delivered perhaps it will become more common.
I, for one, is happy Prime customer. We got it accidentally with some promotion and renewing ever since, I couldn't justify getting it, turns out it totally worth it because of convenience.
My only complaint is inconvenience with deliveries over weekend. Quite often I need something on weekend and right now I have to order it by Wednesday night to get it (to be fair, recently they started to do some deliveries on Saturday). It's very frustrating when I recall something I need to use on the weekend on Friday and there is no way to get it on Sunday. Jeff Bezos, solve last mile and deliver 7 days a week already!
This is will be integrated with amazon's warehouse robots.
You may not agree with Arment's take on Amazon Instant Video -- personally, I'm a Prime customer but haven't been interested in Amazon's video service because it seemed to mostly overlap with Netflix and because until fairly recently getting it on my TV was more of a pain than I was willing to put up with, because I have an Apple TV and Amazon and Apple wouldn't cross the street to piss on each other if they were on fire. But Google Maps is no longer used for iOS's native map program in large part because Google wanted access to iOS customers Apple didn't want to give, and because of that iOS native maps are worse (and Google lost tens of millions of map users). Google is making all their services a little worse by trying to tie everything up with Google+. Amazon's refusal to support EPUB makes my Kindle a little worse. And so on and so on.
HN readers seem to engage in a lot of debate over whether Google and Amazon are "better" than Apple when it comes to ecosystem lock-in. But all of those services only work with approved devices using approved players with approved content. What you're arguing about is the size of the cage you're in.
You are in no way required to have Amazon Prime to use Amazon. If it doesn't make sense to you, then cancel it. Amazon is still happy to have you as a customer without it.
It feels like people are complaining they bought a car, asked for the sunroof option, and now are loudly complaining that cars shouldn't have sunroofs.
I don't know what his problem with Amazon is, but he's way off base in my opinion.
His problem with Amazon is that they aren't Apple.
In all fairness, he does call out Apple (a little bit), but I do think that the issues with Amazon or Google are nothing compared to the lock-down you get with Apple (or used to with Microsoft).
"Its shipping deals always felt unsustainable, so in the absence of other changes, I’d feel that the extra $20 per year was justified."
So what exactly is the problem being decried? Amazon increases the cost of a "free shipping" plan that was previously seemed unsustainable.
Oh, and Amazon bundles free videos with Prime as it wants to get into the media delivery business ruled by Netflix and make it cheaper. It already doss this with books but now wants to enter the game to challenge Google's Play and Apple's iTunes Store. This is MORE competition in the mobile OS + media delivery space. Let Amazon enter it. It already has one of the most sophisticated infrastructures in the world, with AWS - which by the way is its biggest revenue center.
If you want to be concerned about anything, be concerned about the effect these economies of scale will have on the American worker. With self driving cars from google and packing robots from Amazon and giant data centers from Apple, who will need record stores, bookstores, newspapers, cab drivers, oh wait..
The problem is that the price is being jacked up despite the other changes! He said it was reasonable without the other changes, but the other changes happened. These "other changes" are the variable (and often significantly higher) overnight shipping costs and the add-on program making it harder for you to buy a large amount of smaller items they used to offer (and yes, the add-on program means they offer items they didn't before, but that's irrelevant to this point).
They're not free, they're part of the $99 fee. I don't watch TV and I don't want to be charged extra so they can give me "free" TV I didn't ask for.
If $99 isn't worth the shipping options you get from Prime, and you aren't interested in the video service, there's always the option of not using Prime and paying for shipping as you use it.
> Amazon announced this week that it’s increasing the price of Amazon Prime from $80 to $100 per year, its first price change since its introduction in 2005.
> This has not been a popular decision, to put it lightly, but most Prime customers — which I’ve been since 2005 — aren’t really going anywhere. There’s nowhere to go. Amazon has either destroyed or bought every competitor that has ever come close to its retail business.
This sounds redundant. There is complaining about lack of competition, yet you still keep using the service (and are part of destroying that competition by using Amazon).
The addon program has added items which would have never been on the site previously, so that is a win, I'm sure other items which just can't be shipped by themselves cost effectively have been removed, but times change. Streaming videos are also an addition that are a win for those who use it. Also your bill is going up from $6.66 a month (the cost of one beer) to $8.33 (the cost of 1.5 beers) a month for streaming video and 2 day shipping on tons of items, I don't see a ton to complain about. I'm surprise the price hasn't been jacked up years ago just due to increasing shipping costs across the board.
"Apple’s Maps is still worse and has fewer features than Google Maps"
"Many of Apple’s other applications and services have suffered as well as they’ve spread themselves too thinly and competed on more fronts."
This isn't correct. I have items in my purchase history that were not Add-On items and now are. Maybe some new items are here because of add-on, but it's also true that existing items used to be purchasable by themselves and now are only available as add-ons.
"This item is available because of the Add-on program The Add-on program allows Amazon to offer thousands of low-priced items that would be cost-prohibitive to ship on their own."
These tiny items wouldn't be stocked at all if they didn't offer them via add-on, somewhere in their literature they've said these items are only stocked because of this program.
They want to lock everyone into everything. Just like everyone else. And we’re all worse off for it.
Thats the core of the problem. Current monetisation models are based on lock in and annoying ads, and no decent alternative models seem to be on the horizon.
I'm an Amazon Prime customer who has experienced no lockin, so I'm not sure what Marco is going on about.
As someone not using Amazon prime, this is one of the great thing about services and leasing stuff vs owning it. I know some of you swear to owning everything, but in this new brave world of platform lock-in, owning things becomes a prison in a much more literal way than the Buddhists ever imagined.
Had I bought stuff from the Apple iStore, I would be stuck with DRMed media I wouldn't be able to consume on any other devices than those made by Apple. If I've first invested in this system, leaving it means my media will lose may stop being playable, turning worthless, and existing devices may not work correctly with other music download-services, etc.
This vertical integration becomes a set of vertical pilars surrounding you on all sides. Leaving one thing means leaving it all behind. It has a very high cost. Very few people will do that unless they are presented with something truly incredible as a reward. And things like that comes along very rarely.
If I on the contrary used Spotify to consume music I would have nothing to lose if I stopped subscribing to their service. Leaving for a better service is completely free of cost and would only present me benefits.
But.
It's still worth it here IMO. In fact, Prime here in the UK is about a million lightyears ahead of the US because of the size of the country :)
Free next day shipping is really brilliant for a heavy Amazon buyer like me.
I was actually a Lovefilm user from before the Amazon buyout. I fondly remember the day they were primarily a physical rental service - the warehouse was not far from me and the postal service fantastic. Their catalogue was huge.
Their online service has always been mediocre; about the same as Netflix, Sky and BT.
But the combination of on-demand video and free next day is still worth it to me.
After some research, IMO the combination of Sky (satellite TV with on-demand offering) and Amazon Prime (free next day delivery + on-demand video) is the best combination of price & coverage. I can get 99.9% of the things I want for reasonable price.
Looking at the US service, it doesn't even compare :(
I get way more than $100 worth of simplicity from being a member of prime.
My only complaint: create an instant video app for android already.
Incidentally, Netflix has started using HTML5 instead of Silverlight/Flash, but only on Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 8.1, since HTML5 DRM extensions are available on that platform: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/159960-netflix-switches...
Additionally, as is mentioned, they also support Flash on desktops, which most people already have installed. However, the Flash streaming is not as great -- it most-likely uses RTSP, an older stateful streaming protocol, versus their Silverlight client likely uses Smoothstreaming (or similar), a HTTP-based adaptive streaming format.
First, you have free services that are using various forms of the walled garden model to generate revenue. That's hardly surprising, new, and really anything worth complaining about. If you don't like it, go use that highly successful paid service that doesn't have the ad revenue. Oh wait...
Then there is the thread about bundling all of Amazon's services through Prime. Prime is clearly a play to leverage all of Amazon's services in to one big compelling service. Since Amazon still provides their services at competitive rates without Prime, I'm not sure how anyone can gripe about this.
Finally, there is the issue of Prime's price going up. I don't think it has anything to do with bundling other services, and everything to do with the program a) being successful (and you see this in competitors adopting similar services) and b) suffering from increased costs everywhere else. Guess what? No matter how much software, and the reverse inflation that comes with it, eats the world, the rest of the world still suffers from the usual challenges of increasing costs. In 2005, when Prime was launched, the price of first class mail has increased 32.4%, which is actually more than the 25% increase in Prime. Maybe there is no sinister agenda....
I have also been a prime subscriber since 2005 and it has paid for itself many times over in shipping costs alone. I have had bunk beds, computers, televisions all shipped second day for free. Rarely have I had issues, I would continue to pay for the service even if it was twice what it is now.
And I do use the streaming service quite regularly. I have not had cable for quite some time so I use streaming services for close to 50% of my at home entertainment. Of that, I think the amazon library is one of the better available.
At any rate, I have been and will hopefully continue to be a happy prime subscriber for at least another year.
Seriously, all of these companies compete for their customers. They're going to try and optimize their offerings to keep their customers. Sometimes they'll do a good job - like iMessage meaning no texting costs and locking people into the platform. Sometimes they'll do a sucky job, like Google + accounts. Half the time they'll be doing both simultaneously (iMessage and Maps) Those that irritate their customers over the long run will.......surprise surprise.....drive them to the better competitor platform.
Both ways uphill in a snowstorm.
Every other retailer I've dealt with online will do stupid shit like allow me to pay for 2 day shipping and then send the package out 3 days after I order it.
Nail completely consistent and predictable shipping and I might buy stuff from you, otherwise you're at best 4th in line behind Amazon, Newegg and every brick and mortar store within 20 miles.
You have bought 100000 items, and only 1 didn't arrive on time? Really?
But modern companies are masters at figuring just how much they can annoy their customers without pushing too many of them to leave. The point of the article is that, for us customers, things get "worse".
Which is rubbish when I'm just looking to see what's available to watch.
I don't think there is a way to "search" only for Prime videos. But if you are only wanting to browse, I am 90% sure that is covered. (Currently letting the kids watch stuff, so can't verify the section name.)
> Google, the geek world’s undeserved, unquestioned darling for well over a decade, has made all of its core products worse by forcefully shoving Google+ into them.
This sentiment is so frustrating to me. Yes, Google introduced an identity service so they no longer needed to tie everything to one of your Gmail accounts. This means you can now link your Gmail accounts together, this development is fantastic.
Along with it comes bundled a really good social network application. Which, hello everyone, don't use it if you don't want it. Allowing everyone with Google accounts to talk to each other in a social medium and aggregate content relevant to their interests. Youtube integration was arguably a detriment to Google+ because it caused an influx of terrible content from late Google+ adopters.
Youtube is a social product, Google+ was a newer much more powerful social product. Google had two social products so it merged them together. Inarguably (at least I don't see how you could argue) improving Youtube.
What is an example of Google+ making anything worse?
When will tech bloggers embrace Google's introduction of their identity service, they badly needed one and Google+ is amazing by any standard.
So, that's worse.
There's nowhere to go because people like you gave their money to Amazon. Congratulations! Shall I cry you a river now?
Email Bezos. He takes this sort of thing very seriously, assuming you can present a rational argument. He won't reply directly, but he will see it. Jeff@
To make up for it, I've given an abundance of upvotes on some of your other comments elsewhere.
My apologies.
Amazon instant video is ok once you start watching, but their software is pretty bad and much much worse than netflix. Both amazon and netflix have to spread their software on many devices (such as computers, tablets, tv's and dozens of settop streaming devices) but it seems to me on every single device i have tried the amazon software is really annoying.
I think a big part of the problem is that they are trying to sell both free instant video and their paid service.
In my experience, many items are well over $3.99. "Local express delivery" and/or one-day shipping has always been $7.99 or higher in NYC. Prime's 'extra' features for even faster shipping are abysmal compared to what it used to be.
From all the forum comments/responses I've seen, Prime customers seem just fine with it. Maybe we read different news websites?
It's too bad Marco hasn't watched any videos on Amazon. They have some pretty good original shows. Betas is a funny caricature of the startup life we all live. It's cheesy, but relatively accurate and at times pretty funny. Alpha House is fantastic. It's like a comedy version of House of Cards.
It is? I tried watching the first episode and I couldn't even make it through the whole thing. That shows was the most cringe-worthy thing I've seen in a very long time.
It's not my favorite TV show by any means, but I definitely enjoyed it.
I think the main point which Marco is trying to make it is the inflexibility I as a consumer should have over choosing what I want and pricing the products accordingly. In some ways, it is similar to the wireless carriers post paid plans (until T-Mobile and AT&T recently changed this) where you paid the same monthly bill whether you get your phone or use a contract one. Consumers do not have option to opt out and pay for the entire bundle - thus also getting a far inferior product (Amazon Instant Videos) with a far superior one (2 day shipping).
After this Prime price change and the fact that California purchases are taxed, I will not be renewing my Prime account. I have noticed that for most of my electronic/tech product shopping, I don't use Amazon anyways as I always have found things cheaper on competing sites (Adorama, Newegg, eBay or Apple). For the rest, I am fine with 4 day shipping instead of 2 day and, as Marco mentioned, for increasing number of Amazon products are now classified as Add-on products which is not cool as well..
$80 in 2005 = $100 in 2014
Pretty sure it's darn near if not right on the money.
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=79&year1=2005&y...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/student/signup/info?ie=UTF8&refcust...
I disagree, as someone who has been a huge customer.
Why? Amazon prices suck, and have gotten increasingly less competitive over the years. The huge 3rd party vendor market on Amazon makes it very difficult to identify product that you want to. It on many cases as well.
The whole premise of Amazon Prime was to push the uncertainty of shipping time out of online shopping out of the purchase equation. That experience is both being watered down and made more expensive. If they don't deliver on the premise/promise, there are literally thousands of competitors for just about any product.
IMO, Amazon needs to stop patting themselves on the back and focus on the customer experience.
I bought prime subscription anyway; not for shipping but for Amazon Instant Video. I won't be renewing it because Amazon Instant Video has been disappointing so far. There isn't enough content on Amazon Prime. Worse part, their Xbox app plays video in 360p resolution.
I had similar experience with Netflix as well. Even after paying for several on-demand Video services, I have to use Torrents. Torrents offer the most convenience, it has the largest content library, best video quality and no stupid DRM & restrictions.
It's a bit of a frustrating trend to see companies bundling new technologies like this, often at the expense of their loyal customers. I am an Amazon Prime subscriber, and will continue to be one, but I would love it if Amazon Instant video were a separate subscription that I could choose to pay for on its own merits.
It costs some more, but honestly I'm not talking about buying a car or a house so its 'petty cash' purchases we're talking about.
And I get my dignity back. No more struggling to satisfy some program requirements; no getting 2nd-rate tickets because of the 'miles' I think I need. I just buy what I want, and I pay for it.
SO no not a 'member' of anything. This is a 1st-world solution I know. But if you can afford it, well I recommend it.
That's seems extremely speculative.
dat. every company mankind has produced. every ruler, too. Meh.
With the price increase, I'm not sure if I'll stay a Prime member or not though. I do use Prime Video, but I'm not sure I use it enough to justify this price.
Amazon is calling the product "prime", but it is actually a way to save money. Hence, this is no premium product and there is no actual perception as a premium product by customers.
Raising prices for an actual premium product wouldn't be an issue, but it seems actual product aspects and not naming counts.
Of course, I actually use the heck out of the video service... As noted in the top thread, it really is quite nice.
With a fraction of the inventory, no "addon items", no access to Prime Instant Video or Kindle Lending Library, there's absolutely no reason for Amazon.ca customers to subscribe to Prime, even at $79.
Adding Prime has removed much of the friction from the process. I don't have to group items together to get free shipping. Yet I also find I'm not making impulse purchases, so it works out well.
Mental space is precious, so removing the planning from amazon purchasing has helped, even if I spend a bit more money.
Freeing myself from that bit of mental gymnastics might be worth it.
Aside: On Amazon.ca, the cheapest (free) shipping method has always outperformed the promise for express shipping. If they say 5-8 days, it's there in 2-3. My record was ordering a product on a Saturday afternoon, selecting free shipping, and getting it Monday morning. I was dumbfounded that was even possible.
I like Amazon video quite a bit actually.
All that said I have no amazon stock and I am a prime user, so I feel your pain.
For the most part, it's a natural result of a process driven by the demands of growth and managed by psychopaths.
Apple wanted to make maps better but couldn't do so with Google as the supplier without making unacceptable privacy compromises.
The current state is temporarily worse, but only because their supplier was uncooperative.
Apple Maps could have been much better if Apple had cared to make it so. They didn't, and that's on them, not anyone else.
Seriously, if it's so easy for you to righteously deride them, you presumably have some credible suggestions about how they could make it better if only they wanted to.
Frankly, the claim that Apple Maps was the best possible mapping product Apple could have made requires far more support than the claim that Apple could have done better.
The claim that Apple could have done better absolutely requires qualification otherwise it's just more empty bashing. Without qualification it is a claim that can be made against anyone about anything. Knowing that someone could have done better requires understanding the options available to them.
OSM is also good. Better than what Apple got, anyway.
Of course, my experience was that a blank sheet of paper would be better than Apple Maps when it was introduced. While a blank sheet of paper contains no information, it also won't steer you wrong, and that means it comes out ahead.
What kind of qualification are you looking for?
Given your general intelligence, it's actually hard for me to believe that you can't see that Microsoft would have leverage when negotiating to be the replacement for Google maps, and the terms might have been unacceptable.
It's also quite reasonable that having been dependent on one hostile supplier for maps, Apple would need want to control it's own destiny with the replacement otherwise it would just be repeating the same mistake that they made with Google.
Your comments about the blank sheet of paper make it unclear that you are offering a serious opinion here.
I was looking for some actual insight or information about how Apple could have made maps better, but it doesn't seem like you have any to support your claim.
It sounds like it just boils down to 'I wish they'd used OSM'.
My experience with Apple Maps was that it steered me wrong more than it steered me right. That made it literally worse than nothing. If you think that implies that I don't have a serious opinion, well, I can't affect what you think.
I honestly don't see why you need anything beyond "they should have gone with anyone, anyone besides TomTom, who has the worst maps in the industry". It would have required some sort of compromise on their part? Well duh. Obviously they went with TomTom because TomTom's position at the bottom of the heap gave Apple lots of power. Apple clearly prioritized power in the relationship over quality of the resulting product. That's their right. But that doesn't make the resulting product better.
I agree with you that Apple prioritized power over the near-term quality of the resulting product. That was the point I made in the first place.
In order to be able to make maps better at their own pace, they must have control over it otherwise they would just be held hostage again. The alternative is not compromise; it's defeat.
This is why simply presenting a list of other vendors doesn't change the equation. Control is a hard technical requirement.
You seem to be basically saying, Apple Maps sucks but it's OK because Apple decided that was the best way to proceed.
Which is obvious (why would they have proceeded in a way that they didn't think was the best?) and thus completely uninteresting.
I'm saying that a short term reduction in performance was necessary in order for Apple to obtain the control they need to make maps better in future rather than being hamstrung by this key service being owned by a competitor.
I don't agree with his opinion in his case, but he always has interesting insight.
As an Amazon customer, I just want them to be the best they can be. I don't give a shit about competing in the retail space.
1. these companies actually do provide valuable services that we are better off for
2. an overwhelmingly negative blog post addresses the problem but not the solution, so it's not being constructive