
The making of Amazon Prime, the internet's most devastating membership program - rm2889
https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/3/18511544/amazon-prime-oral-history-jeff-bezos-one-day-shipping
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omega3
As an active subscriber, I find Prime very frustrating, the plethora of
different benefits on offer sounds amazing. However, in practice Video doesn't
have the shows and movies I want to watch, Reading doesn't have the books I
want to read, Music doesn't have the music I want to listen to and shopping
still takes two days to arrive (to one of the biggest cities in the UK). It
seems every time I want to watch a movie or a tv show or read a new book I go
through a ritual of checking if it's by a stroke of luck available on Prime
and only to end up disappointed.

It looks to me like they went with something very similar to the 24h gym model
- all these benefits which you don't end up using.

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ensignavenger
This is exactly why I am no longer a Prime subscriber. I rarely order from
Amazon anymore because they deliberately delay shipping because I am not on
Prime, and I can order from ebay or Walmart and get my stuff within 2-3 days
usually, for the same price or less. Prime has a few shows I might watch, but
it filtering what I can and can't watch free with Prime is impossible (or at
least was the last time I had it). Netflix has a lot more interesting content
to me, and I don't have to worry about ads for paid content in my search
results.

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colejohnson66
It’s not so much that they delay shipping, it’s that they can deprioritize
your order because you didn’t pay for shipping (through upgrading the shipping
method or using prime)

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ensignavenger
Either way, I can get my stuff faster and just as cheap or cheaper from their
competitors.

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oldjokes
They just stratified online shopping. Everything is becoming more and more
stratified, from airline cabins to online content to education.

I'd argue that copying this trend and tweaking the spreadsheets to extract
money in a more fine grained manner while just cutting every dime on the lower
tier is not exactly innovation. Holding this up on a pedestal as the great
moment of triumph and creativity in tech is not really on the mark.

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sveng
Not sure if you actually read this article. It’s excellent, especially its
narrative stitched together with first-person, you-are-there, accounts.

Rather timely also since Amazon announced this week that it’s working on one
day deliveries for Prime customers.

And those in the know will tell you that same-day (even 2-4 hours!) deliveries
are on the roadmap for Prime customers in major metro areas.

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corobo
Is that a new announcement? If I order before (I think) 8pm I'll almost
definitely get the order next day. In the UK if that helps any, Midlands

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armadsen
New for the entire US (some areas/cities already had it). Not sure about this
article, but another article about the announcement that I read mentions that
the UK has already had free one day delivery for a while.

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corobo
Ah gotcha. Yeah it'd make sense that the US has had a harder time rolling it
out, being that the entirety of the UK can fit into many of the states!

I'm not used to us getting things before the US I guess :)

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rygxqpbsngav
In a way, The prime videos alone now is worth the price. Get access to wide
range of movies and exclusive TV shows for 79£ (coming to 6.7£ per month -
less than netflix). + Prime reads, magazines, prime music etc. One day and
same day shipping is already a side benefit.

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axaxs
Prime videos has by far the worst UX of any streaming service. I rarely even
open it because of how frustrating it is to use.

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orev
Prime really was a stroke of genius. The free shipping was just the lure. Once
you’ve signed up, you’re now invested in using Amazon first for everything
“because I’m paying for the membership”. Then they started adding video and
the other benefits, and it became such a great value even if you don’t use
most of the benefits.

~~~
chubot
Isn't that exactly what Costco and Sam's Club did?

My dad was a member back in the 80's (and still is). Every time we wanted
something, we would wait until he could get it at Costco -- which was further
away than Walmart and K-mart -- "because I'm paying for the membership".

Amazon Prime is of course a lot more addictive because of the one-click, not-
leaving-your-house thing. But the idea of retail memberships has been around
for a long time. I think that psychology was well understood in the retail
industry.

~~~
orev
Not exactly, no. With membership stores you need to be a member BEFORE you can
shop there, which means you need to really sit down and make a decision if you
want to sign up. It’s a very high cognitive cost of entry. With Amazon, you’re
ALREADY shopping there, so you “might as well” add Prime for the shipping
benefit. It’s a very low cognitive cost and it’s not until after you’ve joined
do you realize the effect of the membership is to make you always go there
first, because that’s not why you signed up.

Some may think that is a subtle difference, but I think it’s huge and the
effect is clear.

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billfruit
Amazon Prime is such a great value in India, where netflix costs like 12$ a
month, Prime comes for 12$ a year. And Netflix does not have that big of a
catalogue in India, Prime having an almost similar sized catalogue.

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jdofaz
I let my membership expire, I often find items cheaper at local stores that
offer in store pickup.

So far whenever I’ve wanted something from amazon I’ve been able to qualify
for the free super saver shipping.

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sys_64738
I think the trick for Amazon is that people just want a one stop shop for all
online stuff. No more messing with different, random e-tailers who might or
might not have a good reputation. I can't remember the last time I ever looked
at reseller-ratings.com

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johnwalkr
Amazon Prime in Japan is such a great value. It's about $40/year (was $30
until recently) and almost everything I want has next day, if not 2 hour
delivery. Prime now (2 hour delivery) started 2 years ago here. The
combination of dense neighborhoods and non-car culture in Tokyo means that the
delivery companies have enough distribution centers that last-mile delivery is
often done by bicycle or foot. It must have been a good place to trial 2 hour
delivery with this infrastructure in place. That being said, it's via a
different app which feels like a way to hide the premium price, rather than as
a natural extension of the normal prime service. The video selection is also
pretty good, but the UI and platform lag far behind Netflix. But, it and the
other benefits are just a bonus. I'd be interested to know if for other
people/regions, video content is the main value with free shipping being the
value adder.

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sevensor
Back in 2005 or so, I had a friend who was working at Amazon. When he told me
he was ordering things like toothpaste, I could hardly believe it. His
apartment was in easy walking distance of a drugstore, and I thought him
ordering toothpaste from an online bookseller instead was insane. Little did I
know he was living in the future.

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Funes-
Yes, in a horrid future we find ourselves in right now. And it's just getting
started.

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mfatica
what's horrid about it exactly?

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craftyguy
The additional resources to send your toothpaste many miles by plane, truck,
etc in additional packaging because you don't want to travel to the local
grocery store to buy it.

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Veen
The toothpaste still has to travel from A to B, and it's probably _more_
efficient for a single truck to deliver 200 items than for 200 people to get
in their cars and go to the supermarket.

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choward
I'm pretty sure nobody goes to the store just to get toothpaste.

