
Amazon Prime Was Too Good to Be True After All - DLay
http://www.wired.com/business/2014/02/amazon-prime-good-true/
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canremember
My family signed up for Amazon Prime fairly early on. We all knew that, given
Amazon's reputation as a loss-leader, one day the price would rise. It
certainly wasn't sustainable--in addition to two day shipping on almost
everything, it gave you access to Amazon's Netflix clone. But for us, it
worked as Amazon wanted. We ended up buying much more from Amazon than we
otherwise would have because of Prime.

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byoung2
_We ended up buying much more from Amazon than we otherwise would have because
of Prime._

I will say that while we don't buy more total stuff than we would have bought,
we do find ourselves buying from Amazon instead of other vendors because of a
combination of Prime, liberal return policy, and price.

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300bps
Unfortunately I live in a state for which Amazon collects tax for online
shopping now. Between that, rising shipping costs, increased minimum to get
free shipping and terrible and unpredictable shipping times, I rarely shop at
Amazon anymore.

When it was effectively tax-free and I had Amazon Prime, I was buying a
tremendous stream of merchandise from them. Now it's just a trickle.

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byoung2
_Prime members...were inclined to spend more based on the "faintly irrational
human impulse to maximize the benefits of a membership club one has already
joined."_

For some of us, the choice was completely rational. After noticing that at
least a half-dozen times per year we were upgrading to 2 day shipping (which
is about $15 each time), it made sense to get Prime. It is even sweeter since
we could cancel Netflix at the same time and save $96 a year there as well
(though the selection is more limited on Amazon).

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jimktrains2
$96 a year for Netflix? You must have had the 8-discs at a time option, how
did having Prime allow you to cancel Netflix then?

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byoung2
It was $8/month for Netflix...I don't remember how many discs we had out at a
time, but it was either 1 or 3. When they raised their prices, we stuck with
the streaming-only option, which was also $8/month, so $96 a year. Instead of
paying $96 a year for Netflix, we pay $79 a year for Amazon Prime, which has
about 2/3 of what we watched on Netflix, but it's worth it.

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jimktrains2
Ah, a year. I missed that.

In case it wasn't clear: I'm an idiot:(

If I believed in deleting posts, I would:-\

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jimktrains2
What's especially annoying is the "Your package has been handed over to your
local Postal Service by the carrier for delivery" which essentially turns
2-day shipping into 3 or 4.

Since Prime never had videos that I wanted to watch, and their 2 day shipping
isn't 2 day anymore, there isn't much point in me continuing it.

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byoung2
Just curious...do you live in a rural area? I live in Los Angeles, and I
always get my packages within 2 days, about half the time the next day. In
December, orders I placed on Friday arrived on Saturday UPS or Sunday USPS.

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jimktrains2
No, I live in a (semi)major city of ~300,000.

It use to be that way. I'd order something and it'd be at my door in the
morning. Now it's a 3 or 4 day ship.

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dustcoin
Prime launched in 2005 for $79/year. ~$15 of the proposed increase can be
attributed to inflation.

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jonheller
A disappointing link-bait title from Wired. Another $20-$40/year for such a
fantastic service is far from "too good to be true." Especially considering
I've had this service for years.

