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Prime is adding ads to their streaming service
(sh.itjust.works)
I think I might cancel. I'm not watching ads and I'm not going to pay the extra $3/mo to opt out. I don't know if I'd end up paying more than the subscription cost in shipping though....
But it's not complely free shipping. It's $140/year free shipping. So depending on how often you need something tomorrow, you could come out ahead even without Prime. That's what I'm weighing now. Streaming is close to a solved problem, it's the shipping I'm on the fence about.
This is also a fair point, but it only takes a handful of one-day deliveries to “cover” the cost of prime with what most places are charging for fast shipping. And then that’s not including the many products I’ve never found a decent alternative seller for.
I haven't had Prime for years but still shop on Amazon a bit. You get free shipping on orders over... $25 or $35? So group a few non urgent things and you're good to go. I pay for quicker shipping maybe once or twice a year, and pay for shipping in other sites maybe a half dozen times a year.
I quit Prime a while ago. Since then, most of the time I pay for next day, they miss the window and I get a refund for the full shipping fee. Yeah, it means I got my stuff a day "late" but I ended up with free 2 day shipping.
You bring up good point. But, for example, I tried another company for pieces and parts for several projects. The only other US alternative to Amazon for such things is NewEgg. Where items cost nearly quadruple what they are on Amazon. Not including the shipping times (24 hours instead of 5-7 days).
I guess what I'm getting at, is Amazon is the largest monopoly in history, IMO. There's no way for anyone to compete. Even the $140 a year is pennies in the grand scheme of things. If you require items that can't be acquired locally...
You can still get free Amazon shipping without Prime, and they generally beat the week or so that they say they'll do for me.
That's the thing. The more expensive Prime gets the more people who do pay for it feel locked in.
People end up feeling like they need to do more and more shopping on Amazon in order to justify that steep yearly subscription cost. Dumping Amazon completely is more effort than simply shifting more of your shopping over to Amazon. This causes people to get more and more locked in and comfortable with using Amazon for the vast majority of their online shopping.
The other side of that coin is once you do drop Amazon Prime you realize that Amazon isn't irreplaceable. It's fairly easy to avoid them if you are willing to compromise a little.
I never pay for faster shipping for other online retailers. That was one reason why I stopped paying for Prime years ago and that was the only perk I was really using.
And I frequently find that items with Prime shipping cost a bit more. At least on the amazon.ca site I use.