It is not uncommon for a corporation to have areas of the business that are not profitable if those parts of the business are considered loss leaders. In this case Amazon has been trying to build up a larger Prime user base (220+ million globally now) as it helps drive other more profitable parts of the business such as online Amazon sales.

“Consumer Intelligence Research Partners reports that Prime members shop about 25 times annually on the site, versus non-Prime members' mere 14 purchases.”

This increase is understandable, ad revenue was actually a bigger business than subscriptions last year, but annoying as there is nothing of value for a consumer behind it and yes many of us are cynical that these additional profits would bring much broader benefit.

This has been interesting to read. This is my first comment in Lemmy that has actually generated any meaningful debate.

Thanks internet stranger for actually putting an opinion forward. We don’t have to always agree but it is fun to engage with other real people.