if you’re forced to make your order $35 to get free shipping, you’re likely buying stuff you don’t want/need just to get to that amount.

Nnnnooo. I'm pretty sure I need toilet paper. My order was $33 for the main stuff I needed to buy and then I threw in toilet paper to push the order over $35. I needed that anyway.

Also, you could ask your spouse if anything else is needed around the house. Also, also, you could just wait until you need something else and batch the orders into 1 order over $35, instead of ordering a bunch of single $5 items.

If you really need something urgently, then it's perfectly fine to pay for shipping. But this probably doesn't happen very often.

It's really not that hard. You should try it. Cancel Prime for 3 months. If you hate living without it after 3 months, then you can resubscribe. There's no penalties.