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Comment by iak8god | Hacker News Reader

As longtime Prime member and a resident of a metro area that doesn't make the cut (and is almost certainly not in the next round), I can't help feeling like I'm subsidizing this service for those who live in the right place.

In fact, every time Amazon adds a new benefit for Prime members that I can't use or don't want, it reminds me that I must be overpaying for Prime if I'm only using the two day shipping.

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Despite being a Prime member for years the only thing I've used it for is the two-day shipping but I don't mind the existence of the other perks because just in real dollar terms Prime still saves me a boatload of money versus shipping costs I'd have to pay for similar quick (and in a way more importantly: consistently arriving on the correct day) shipping when buying on other sites.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm in San Diego so this new thing does actually benefit me... and I'm pretty excited about it. Sorry.

> in real dollar terms Prime still saves me a boatload of money

Me too, which is why I keep it. But I do wish they'd offer a Prime Lite with just the shipping.

"In fact, every time Amazon adds a new benefit for Prime members that I can't use or don't want, it reminds me that I must be overpaying for Prime if I'm only using the two day shipping."

That might be your loss aversion demon talking into your ear.

Meh, that seems a bit like complaining the guy who lives next to the post office gets his mail earlier. Amazon already had to build distribution centers near major markets - might as well deliver faster if it's possible anyways.

One of those distribution centers is on the outskirts of Reno/Sparks, yet Reno is not included in this for whatever reason.

Not enough people to make it worth hiring the fleet of delivery people.

Over 225,000 people (which is destined to grow as the job market continues to expand; Tesla's Gigafactory is one of several potential sources of employment within the next half-decade), and they already hire a boatload of Reno residents for the distribution center there; hiring a handful of delivery people and picking up a few more delivery trucks would be a drop in the bucket for them.

Oh well. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before drone deliveries become the norm.

I'm no accountant, but I imagine they can classify various Prime customers into buckets based on what services they use and see that the average usage of any one bucket of customers matches up with the cost of Amazon Prime. If a customer were to use ALL the features then Amazon loses, but if that became the new average then they'd raise the price.

The cleverness of this idea is that each Amazon Prime customer perceives the overall value of the service as higher for the potential to use those extra features, even if s/he doesn't use them much if at all.

You aren't paying the full price of same day delivery, when you order something same day, even as a Prime subscriber, they recommend a tip of at least $5.

That doesn't match my experience at all. The Prime same-day delivery here on the SF Peninsula almost always comes via OnTrac. They drop stuff off and run, and don't wait for or expect a tip.

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