
Complaints as Amazon Raises Cost of Prime - uladzislau
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/14/technology/amazon-is-raising-prime-membership-fee.html?hpw&rref=technology
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imroot
My biggest gripe with Amazon isn't the rising cost of prime, but, it's with
the fact that my long-standing amazon account (seriously, I've had this
account since 1999) is now being throttled. When I'm using my prime account,
and select two day shipping, most items don't leave Amazon's warehouse until
two or three days later, meaning I'm getting my "Free Two day shipping" items
nearly a week later.

I love Amazon.com -- I use it for a lot of things (to the tune of almost 8K in
the last six months), but, watching my account get throttled like this makes
me not only want to step away from amazon prime, but, from amazon in general
-- if you can't be honest with me that you're going to throttle my
account/shipping speeds, please let me know. I'll gladly upgrade to next day
shipping, but that doesn't mean shit if you're going to sit on my order at the
warehouse side for two or three days.

~~~
abat
I've had the opposite experience. I've started to get things faster with the
new 7 days a week delivery partnership with USPS. The one downside is that
USPS's tracking is terrible compared to UPS's.

~~~
imroot
With USPS, if I don't get my package delivered between Monday and Friday, I
won't get it -- the carrier who delivers on Saturday is afraid of my dogs and
just marks my packages as "Business Closed," and Sunday delivery is only for
the metro areas -- so, it's effectively Monday-Friday delivery only for me.

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BadCookie
My family has both Prime and a Netflix subscription. Lately I've been finding
that there is a lot of overlap between the two for streaming content. The
price increase from Amazon is just the nudge we need to think harder about
which subscription services are worth keeping ... and the most likely result
is that we'll be cutting Netflix. I wonder how many others will come to the
same conclusion.

~~~
meritt
I wasn't aware anyone actually factored Amazon's streaming service into the
valuation of Prime.

~~~
alttab
It's actually getting good. I'm 50/50 on that and Netflix. Netflix is more
like hbo... go for the exclusives.

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buttsex
Here's a way [0] to lock in another year at $79.

[0] [http://slickdeals.net/f/6784580-heads-up-amazon-prime-
price-...](http://slickdeals.net/f/6784580-heads-up-amazon-prime-price-
increases-to-99-49-for-students-on-4-17-buy-a-gift-membership-to-lock-in-
another-year-at-reduced-rate?p=66743626#post66743626)

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lnanek2
Wish they would unbundle the stupid video stuff I don't want. ;/

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natch
I've been considering canceling since most things I order come with "free
shipping for orders over $25." This makes canceling a no-brainer, unless I'm
missing something. Even if my price is grandfathered (not sure if it is, after
renewal time) it's still $79 more than free.

~~~
Nogwater
Isn't it the difference between 2-day shipping (and sometimes faster) vs. slow
shipping (typically 3-5 days for me)?

~~~
wallywax
And $3.99/item 1-day shipping, which I find comes in handy quite often.

~~~
jamiesonbecker
I just tried to get something delivered 1-day yesterday and it was $7.99.
Bulky item, though, maybe it's higher for that.

------
psaintla
The people quoted in this article are ridiculous. You either buy enough from
Amazon to make Prime worth it or you don't.

~~~
wwweston
Well, on an immediate level.

On a less direct level, I'm not sure the economics of using a heavily
subsidized shipping service to the increasing exclusion of local retailers
while they get you hooked on the concept and then incrementally raise the
price over time are completely legible.

~~~
valar_m
What do you mean by "heavily subsidized shipping service"?

~~~
bdcravens
The idea being that most Prime members use more than $79/year in shipping
costs, that Amazon is subsidizing the difference to gain market share.

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keithg
Maybe it's not about the shipping. Lots of people are "cutting the cord" of
their cable or satellite providers in favor of online video content. Amazon
sees the opportunity to get more from those customers with little price push
back because $99/year is still cheaper than $99+/month for cable or satellite.

~~~
jggonz
Minor anti-Comcast rant:

I have an important event coming up on April 29th: The Comcast 2 year contract
expires. I can't wait till I get to make that phone call and cancel the
service. Amazon has such a superior product to anything out there right now.
Amazon Prime + Roku and Netflix + Roku/Chromecasts have been a much better
experience and cheaper.

------
zobzu
I'd be happy to have prime for shipping only. I don't care for any other
service. It's not like if prime videos were any good. They're not.

Also here's the problems with prime shipping:

\- 2 days shipping is often 4 days (maybe 30% of the time or more)

\- price on prime item is HIGHER than the same item non-prime. The main diff
is that the non-prime takes generally 6 days + (which means more than a full
week since those are business days), but the price is about the same (except
you paid $79 - now $99 more for Prime on top)

So basically what i get with prime is slightly faster shipping for approx the
same price as normal. I'm not planning on renewing. In fact I already
cancelled auto-renew.

Not related to prime but it also often happen that other online shops have
lower prices than Amazon, making your prime a little more useless ;-)

~~~
thaumasiotes
> 2 days shipping is often 4 days (maybe 30% of the time or more)

I see a lot of other people making this complaint. For me, Amazon displays a
guaranteed _arrival date_ , not a guaranteed shipping duration. What's going
on here?

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harrystone
I'm almost $100 ahead on shipping this year already and it's only March.

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tofof
Can someone explain the final paragraph to me? I don't see how losing $800
million while gaining $150 million is a net positive, which is what the
article implies. Similarly, I don't follow how $800M can be (mere) 1% while
$150M "would be a lot". In what way did NYT fail math - bad calculation of one
of the two, or not being able to subtract in the correct order?

~~~
lnanek2
The $800 million would only happen if one quarter of the prime users left,
that isn't certain, just an if. It doesn't make sense to add and subtract
them. The $150 million is certain due to price increases unless people leave.
If you were the business deciding things you'd actually have to multiply the
800 by the probability of it happening to get the expected value, for example,
and of course there's the factor that people leaving cut into the
effectiveness of the price raise as well. I think they did it simplest just by
stating the two numbers separately.

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Dylan16807
So prime launched in 2005. Adjusted for inflation the original price is
$94.62, which makes this closer to a $5 increase in real cost.

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fnayr
Just canceled auto renew and got my brother to do the same. Too many items
weren't eligible for two day anyway.

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PhasmaFelis
Since submitters won't bloody stop submitting paywalled articles, has anyone
yet made a simple, reliable Chrome plugin to bypass the NYT's paywall?

~~~
jrockway
I just typed in my credit card number, and paid for the paid content.

Crazy, I know.

~~~
Dylan16807
Pretend for a moment the paywall isn't super leaky. You think it's reasonable
to submit an article to HN that only 1% of people can read?

~~~
jrockway
I don't think it's unreasonable. Content costs money to write. You can pay for
it with your eyeballs, or you can pay for it with your wallet. (In the case of
the Times, you have to do both. Sigh.)

~~~
Dylan16807
That's a strange reply. I didn't mention anything about paying, I asked about
submitting to HN. Paying for content is great but I think it's rude to aim for
the front page with a source that excludes a vast majority, even if they were
preternaturally prone to signing up.

