
I Cancelled My Amazon Prime - laurex
https://qz.com/1664791/for-amazon-prime-day-consider-cancelling-your-prime-account/
======
atonse
We canceled Prime about 3 months ago. It's been quite tough (relatively
speaking) having to re-train ourselves. You realize exactly how dominant
Amazon is. Every other retailer either takes 5-7 business days or charges you
the earth. Home Depot messes up your order about 10% of the time. Things come
in 3-4 days from Amazon instead of two days now. Not too bad.

We got a free ShopRunner subscription through Amex and I was excited about
that but they seem to be mostly for clothing.

But the biggest annoyance is that we no longer go straight to Amazon to buy
something, we actually have to shop around, google for things, etc. And Google
Shopping isn't as useful as it used to be. A good shopping aggregator would go
a long way in helping.

Edit: We were frequent users of the shipping, by the way, and never used
streaming. Unlike others that use mostly streaming and not shipping.

~~~
naravara
My biggest frustration is how many orders I make get email replies telling me
the item is not in stock. I think a lot of retailers just aren't very good at
syncing their inventory to their storefronts. You would think everything would
operate off a centralized inventory database, but there pretty clearly are
multiple systems that don't check in with each other nearly often enough given
how often this happens.

~~~
atonse
Yup basically if we're talking about building a distributed sort-of vendor-
neutral fulfillment system and storefront, that's basically what Amazon is. :)

So there's pretty much nobody that can catch up to this level of dominance,
not even the second place players. Which is a clear sign that Amazon should be
broken up by the government.

~~~
naravara
This happens even with WalMart, BestBuy, and Target though. So it doesn't even
need to be vendor neutral. Even within a single vendor they're screwing it up.

~~~
atonse
Yeah because they are all traditional retailers and have that brick and mortar
mentality. They have to pay the "but we have all these properties already"
strategy tax every time.

------
blakesterz
>> I never got used to the emails Amazon sent a day or two after I viewed but
didn’t purchase a product. “Hello Ali,” Amazon would say, like we were
friends. “Are you looking for something in our Charger & Adaptors store? If
so, you might be interested in these items.”

That's weird, I've never gotten one of those emails from Amazon, and I look
for stuff ALL the time on Amazon without buying. Did I opt-out of this and
forgot, or do they only send these out for certain searches? I do get these
once in a while from other sites and HATE those emails, but I'm sure I never
get them from Amazon.

~~~
asark
I get 'em constantly. Sure you didn't filter-rule them away years ago and
forget about it?

~~~
blakesterz
Nope, just double checked.

~~~
asark
Huh. Wonder what the difference is. Just checked, they seem to hit me with
about 1/day, choosing something "relevant" (to what I've been looking at) when
possible.

------
hendzen
I have found myself often ordering from Target.com recently. They also have 2
day shipping on most items and unlike Amazon when I order a brand name item
from them I actually can expect to get a genuine product. Their supply chain
seems to be much more reliable in that regard.

~~~
neonhomer
Plus if you get a Target Red Card you get 5% every purchase.

~~~
ceejayoz
Amazon has a similar offering.

~~~
basch
only on credit? if youre not a credit card person you can still use a redcard.
and despite their cartwheel coupon games, it is nice being able to combine
your card, gift cards, cash withdraw settings, and coupons into a single
barcode to scan at the register.

I wish target let me add everything to the cart as I shopped and check out
like Sams.

~~~
ceejayoz
Interesting, I had no idea Target had a debit-only option.

------
ocdtrekkie
I solely get Prime when I can abuse it, or more specifically, not really pay
for it.

For instance, when they used to give a hefty $12 discount on new games... I'd
buy a month of Prime for what was $11 at the time. So the Prime cost me
effectively nothing, and I'd only have it months new games I wanted to buy
came out.

I did actually just grab Prime today... because there's a "buy $25 get $5"
gift credit offer... and a week of Prime costs $1.99. So I made three bucks on
it.

~~~
mkohlmyr
You only "made three bucks" if you were going to spend the $25 either way. So
did you save $3 or did you make an unnecessary purchase because you were
offered a $3 discount?

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I am pretty much always going to eventually spend Amazon credit. I didn't buy
something because I now had Amazon credit that I wouldn't have otherwise.

I intentionally shop a lot of places that aren't Amazon, and given the same
price somewhere else, I will always pick "somewhere else". But I'm still
pretty regularly at Amazon just due to either price or selection.

------
sytelus
Author declares there was not enough value and that’s why he cancelled. No
analysis on how much he depended on Amazon, at what point it might become
worth, his entertainment consumption etc. Usual information-free opinion
pieces with linkbaity title that HN crown often upvotes without reading ending
up on front page.

~~~
libria
*she, but yes it's nothing more than a well-timed personal anecdote to generate clicks. All the comments here are also anecdotal. It's a shame our readerbase is that susceptible to shallow clickbait.

------
stanski
I had a trial membership for 3 months and it was nice to get a couple of
orders super quick but far from worth the annual cost.

Spotify beats them in music, Netflix beats them in videos and if _really_ need
an item on the same day, I can just go to the store. It's also cheaper to pay
for shipping once in a while rather than pay for an annual subscription. There
is of course something about paying for shipping which makes you feel like a
great injustice...

~~~
notus
Netflix does not beat them in videos. Netflix's library has moved towards very
specific titles and original programming done by Netflix. Amazon has still
retained a lot of movies in addition to their original programming plus they
have plenty of options you can pay for which Netflix doesn't even offer.
Amazon Prime has around 18k titles to Netflix's 4k titles.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Netflix does not beat them in videos.

Whether or not they beat them in videos is very much a matter of subjective
preference for the videos one has that the other does not; if someone says
they do in explanation of a personal decision, you need unusually personal
information to argue that they are incorrect.

> Amazon Prime has around 18k titles to Netflix's 4k titles.

As most people won't watch a significant fraction of either, the counts are
mostly irrelevant in deciding which wins for any individual; what matters most
is who has more of the usually very small number of titles for which the
individual has a strong preference; everything else ends up being mostly noise
in the menus, more likely to be a cost (unless masked by personalization) than
a benefit.

~~~
asark
I almost never use Amazon's streaming because they mix in paid crap with free-
with-prime crap so it's hard to browse. Also their UI tends to perform poorly
on any given platform, compared with Netflix (I suspect more use of Web
frontend tech in Amazon's apps).

I'd been meaning to cancel, actually, and this reminded me to. Looks like they
already got me for a year a couple months ago, but I've got a reminder set to
cancel next time. It's really, really not worth it.

------
makerofspoons
Another good reason to drop Prime is the amount of waste it promotes:
[https://depts.washington.edu/sctlctr/news-events/in-the-
news...](https://depts.washington.edu/sctlctr/news-events/in-the-news/hidden-
environmental-cost-amazon-prime’s-free-fast-shipping)

~~~
testvox
I think it really depends, I use amazon prime as my primary shopping method,
without it I would definitely need a vehicle.

> Experts say that e-commerce could actually, if optimized, be beneficial for
> the environment. Getting into your personal vehicle and going to the store
> isn’t very efficient, but consolidating multiple shoppers’ deliveries into
> one vehicle can be. Anne Goodchild, director of the University of
> Washington’s Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Center, told BuzzFeed
> News, “Broadly speaking, delivery services have the potential to
> dramatically reduce miles traveled.”

------
kerng
I also cancelled Prime a while ago. Wasn't really worth it and after Amazon
bought Whole Foods, the tracking and data linking desire just became too
obvious to me.

Now a year later, I am positive I made the right decision- and it's okay to
wait for an item a few days for delivery. Really makes no difference in grand
scheme of things.

~~~
MrMember
I canceled mine last year sometime, whenever it was they announced the most
recent price increase. I thought I would miss it but I haven't really. I don't
mind waiting a bit longer for the standard free shipping. In the rare occasion
I need something fast I just pay for the two day shipping, which ends up being
significantly cheaper than paying for Prime.

------
m0nty
I might have kept my subscription if "next day delivery" wasn't all-too-often
"day after next day and maybe even the day after that, depends if it's a
weekday or not." I don't miss it.

~~~
loceng
Similarly I'll get something I order in a day or two even when it is the 5-7
business day option - it's in their interest to make everything as efficient
as possible and not be holding onto inventory.

~~~
war1025
Living near a warehouse or on a major shipping artery means things show up
very quickly basically no matter what. The post office / shipping companies
don't stall orders just for the heck of it. If it takes two days to go from
here to there, even though you paid for slow shipping, you'll get it in two
days.

~~~
dorchadas
Sometimes I wonder. I've definitely noticed packages sitting in the local post
office for a day or two to simply get past that 2 day limit. There's even been
times where I was able to call the post office and go pick it up, because they
didn't send it out for delivery despite arriving the day before. Could be
innocent, but it always struck me as suspicious.

------
larrik
> There’s no way to turn off this auto-renewal short of cancelling your
> account

I've turned off Prime plenty of times with no trouble at all. I'm not sure
what he means.

I've also contacted their support after an accidental auto-renewal and they
completely refunded it (I hadn't used any of its benefits, either, though).

I think their subscription model is hard to beat, frankly.

~~~
asark
I just tried and your options are "cancel now", "remind me 3 days before it
renews", or "switch to monthly next time it's about to renew". I didn't see a
way to say "keep what I've already paid for, but never charge me again".

[EDIT] incidentally if someone finds that option, please let me know because
I'll go select it right now. I've got a reminder (of my own—like I'll notice a
reminder email from Amazon, haha) set to cancel in ~10 months but if I could
click something now and not have to worry about it that'd be better.

~~~
bloat
"keep what I've already paid for, but never charge me again" == "cancel now"

This is the same on every subscription service I've cancelled recently, they
let you carry on reading / watching / whatever until the end of the month.

~~~
asark
The associated copy is identical to what it might be if canceling cut you off
immediately. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the marketeers would lie,
since that's their job ("well we didn't outright say it'd be immediate" yeah
sure but you did more than just imply it, too, and even implying is a lie if
you intend to mislead, which you 100% for sure do).

[EDIT] the first link you click to start the process is "End membership and
benefits", for instance, and it just keeps that tone up for the rest of it.
"By cancelling, you will no longer be eligible for your unclaimed Prime
exclusive offers. Click here to see your offers." The cancel button reads "End
my benefits", at the bottom of a list of all the stuff that comes with Prime.
That's just _saying_ you're losing all the stuff right now. If, when I hit
this button, that doesn't happen, they were lying, period.

[UPDATE] can confirm, they're a bunch of lying liars.

------
someexgamedev
I recommend cancelling prime for a small window of time and reevaluating, if
you can manage. Partly to see how thirsty Amazon is for you to sign back up
for prime. You could fill a textbook with the dark patterns. The article
mentions one of them, needing to confirm your cancellation three different
times. Imagine a conversation with a real human that goes like this:

Me: I would like to cancel prime.

Amazon: Do you want to cancel prime? Yes or no.

Me. Yes.

Amazon: Look at all these great prime perks. Say either "Nevermind" or
"Cancel, I don't want these amazing benefits"

Me: Cancel.

Amazon:

Me:

Amazon:

Me: Cancel, I don't want these amazing benefits.

Amazon: Are you sure you want to cancel? What if instead of paying $199 for
the year you pay $20 monthly?

~~~
andjd
You don't have to imagine it, just try to change your cable/internet provider.

------
tomclive
Annual membership is around £59.99 here if bought at the right time.

I don't like the company but for me Prime is good value. My children get to
watch Dora, Paw Patrol and there's some decent grown up TV too. Twitch Prime
is also included.

If I need to buy anything I can it delivered Same or Next Day.

Cancelling does involve the typical dark patterns you'd expect from them but
it's not difficult to cancel in a minute or two.

------
deeteecee
I haven't had issues cancelling Amazon prime and it was pretty straightforward
for me. For me, I cancel every few months and then come crawling back.

------
ilikehurdles
I don't get my money's worth out of prime shipping, especially as the price
has gone up and the items I used to buy I now go to the manufacturer for
because of the prevalence of counterfeits, faked reviews, and knock-offs on
Amazon. I don't care about the music streaming, video streaming, whatever
Fresh is, Twitch Prime, or Pantry one bit. That said, their whole foods
discounts are worth it for me.

------
TheHypnotist
I order frequently enough, have the card, and shop at whole foods. It would
cost me money to get rid of it at this point.

------
quotha
You don't need it, I cancelled my membership (which I had for at least 5-6
years) a few months ago, since i was not using the benefits enough. I shop
there much much less now, but I ordered something the other day for 40$ and it
still came in 2-3 days with free shipping.

~~~
Sahhaese
There's a significant difference between "next day" and "2-3 days", and the
valuable different is not getting it sooner, it's knowing exactly which day
you'll get it.

~~~
quotha
I was rarely offered next day shipping for free, and often got my items in 3
days instead of the promised 2 days.

~~~
Sahhaese
Oh, Prime in the UK comes with free next day delivery on everything.

~~~
DanBC
Except there are plenty of people with prime who want next day but get two to
three days because of the piss-poor couriers Amazon chooses to use.

------
eyeareque
I cancelled mine and switched to eBay. Shipping is “fast and free” and comes
in 3-4 days on a lot of items. Much cheaper than 120/year, also I never used
amazon video or music, or anything else they offer, so it made sense.

It also appears that prime items are marked up higher, often.

~~~
entropea
I cancelled prime and moved to eBay, Aliexpress (albeit slow) cuts out the
Amazon middle-man since most stuff on Amazon is now just Alibaba/Aliexpress
items, local big retailers price match Amazon and a few bigger sites online,
local small business to support...local small business, and just go directly
to the manufacturer which turns out often to be cheaper than Amazon wants for
the item.

~~~
solarkraft
Same here. Although still utter crap, I find the search of AliExpress to be
better than Amazon's.

------
floatingatoll
I wish that there was a tool that calculated whether Prime was worth it in the
past year and month, using my playback and purchasing history to determine
whether the $10-13/month is delivering value. If I use Prime Day deliveries
(which offer no financial reward compared to Prime 1-2 Day) then I could save
a lot of money not using it, and if I haven’t watched any Prime media content
this year, the tool would be able to show me that too.

Amazon surely has this tool internally, and just as surely would resent anyone
else developing it to show consumers how many of them are paying for a service
they don’t need.

------
codyb
Cancelled last May, so about a year and a quarter ago when I was abroad.
Haven’t looked back and don’t miss it at all.

I get Amazon gift cards through work occasionally so I just choose slower
shipping for the orders I make.

Everything else I order goes through B&H, or REI primarily.

Most of the time I need to shop, I just go to a store. Gets me out of the
house, get to walk around NYC and people watch, gets me a little exercise and
fresh air.

Works for me! Never liked the anti-union and warehouse labor stories I read
about Amazon.

Do enjoy putzing around with AWS though (although I use Digital Ocean for my
personal VPS’s.)

~~~
thaumasiotes
> Cancelled last May, so about a year and a quarter ago when I was abroad.
> Haven’t looked back and don’t miss it at all.

Huh, I thought the value significantly improved while I was abroad, for
sending gifts with fast shipping.

~~~
codyb
It may in other countries, but not Portugal. There's a lot of things that
don't reach Portugal like Netflix and HBO Go as well.

------
zubspace
I'm so disappointed by Prime. The main reason I signed up for the trial were
movies and TV shows. But it seems like 90% of the content is not available in
my country (Switzerland) without buying or without proxying the stream through
another country. Gosh Amazon, first you make me thoroughly excited and in the
next moment you utterly disappoint me. Why couldn't you tell me beforehand?

I'd never buy 5 seasons of a TV show while knowing, that some neighbour in
another country get them for a few bucks each month...

~~~
ALittleLight
Isn't this a reason to be disappointed with whatever regulation prohibits
Amazon from offering videos with prime in your country, rather than with
Amazon? Surely Amazon would show you Prime video if they could.

~~~
zubspace
Yeah sure. What bothers me though is that they know the country I live in and
still give me the unlimited movies bait before signing up for Prime. You get
so hyped and then they let you down.

No harm done though. At least there's a trial.

------
danielrpa
Cancelled mine one year ago and I think my life improved without Amazon.
Amazon doesn't only sell you goods, but a lifestyle: non-stop shopping with no
obstacles for satisfying your most fleeting material desires.

Ultimately, I preferred to reject the convenience that Amazon is encouraging
for a lifestyle of reduced consumption. While, in theory, one can have Amazon
Prime and consume very little, it's hardly worth it in this case.

------
izzydata
I dropped Amazon Prime about a year ago and every single time I go to buy
something they offer me a free week trial. I start a trial, buy what I want
with free 2 day shipping and then cancel before I get charged.

Something else I noticed is that whenever I order something with 5-8 shipping
and is a relatively common item it arrives within 2 days anyway. It's like
they no longer have the logistics to delay shipping of some items.

~~~
asark
It has occurred to me that one could probably get a whole year of video
streaming services by just getting a month trial, cancelling, then doing it
again with the next service. By the end of the year some of them might even be
spamming you with offers of another trial month.

~~~
izzydata
For awhile you were able to start an Audible trial, get your free token, quit
and then start another free trial endlessly for infinite free audiobooks. I
got 30 free audiobooks this way and they didn't even take them away after they
fixed this.

Something that might still be there is whenever you quit a trial or payed
service they will 100% of the time ask you to stay and offer it for 50% off.
You can simply get the same service for half the price forever.

------
DiseasedBadger
I live 20 minutes from: the nearest supermarket, and, a prime distribution
center. ~3 min ago I just dropped 170$ on a whole foods order.

To each their own, I guess.

~~~
entropea
Wow 20 minutes away. That's impossible to get to. I feel your 2019 pain.

~~~
DiseasedBadger
Heeheehee wow. Who are you so injured on behalf of? Multiple comments are
talking about scamming Amazon out of 3$.

Whose in pain? Why can't I want those 40min (+shopping time) and just be happy
I have found a way to keep them?

------
eeeeeeeeeeeee
Although I agree that more people should cancel Prime, this author isn’t the
target market exactly because they live in a city. I also live in a city and
can easily get by without Prime. I can walk to everything I need.

Prime makes the most sense if you’re in suburbs and/or have kids. It’s a huge
time saver for those people.

~~~
tayleeganj
Nah prime is great even if ur in NYC. I lived there and used it all the time.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
That’s not what I meant. Of course it’s better, but not as much of a necessity
when you live in a city.

------
gzu
I have a “prime month” every now and again, just joining then quitting at
month end. I subscribe because I want quick shipping on an item then end up
ordering a few other things. Full year prime doesn’t make sense unless you’re
ordering everything off amazon.

They even recently had a free week trial where I joined then canceled

------
Fins
Ohh, the audacity!

I've cancelled Amazon altogether couple years ago (which is an even more
ridiculous process than cancelling Prime) and can't say I even noticed it.
Apart from not getting any fakes in those two years.

------
yoz-y
Lately I have been using prime membership for Video more than shopping.

------
gingabriska
I can only say Amazon India now sucks, the products aren't growing.

Neither you can buy screws, threaded rod, 2 part epoxy, MDF boards, there.

Not sure what Amazon India is selling exactly

------
ravedave5
For me the yearly cost covers the amount I'd spend on shipping for xmas gifts
alone. I HATE xmas shopping and so being able to do it all there is great.

------
tayleeganj
You can cancel your auto renewal.

