I worked on Prime for a long time many years ago, and it’s sad that dark patterns have taken over. We built a lot of behind the scenes stuff to automate self-service free and pro-rated refunds during cancellation (if you didn’t use any benefits you’d get a full refund, a few benefits got you a prorated refund, and if you used it a bunch already, we’d turn off auto-renew and let the contract run to the end). If you signed up and didn’t use any benefits, you wouldn’t be auto-renewed. The group was extremely customer centric.
We also had metrics around delivery times, which seems to have gone out the window as well.
I would hazard a guess that the people on your former team at Prime were "managed out" after strongly opposing the dark patterns that product teams and execs demanded they implement. Would be cool to hear from others with actual knowledge of the situation on the specifics of how this state of affairs came to be.
An aside:
I am strongly considering canceling my Prime membership. I don't need 2 day delivery on anything that I order from them. In addition, Prime memberships have increased in price, and I don't use any of the other benefits that Prime offers. Throw in the fact that 1) prices for everything have increased to the point where it's often easier and cheaper for me to go to my local big box store that starts with W or C, and buy the same thing and get it same-day, and 2) there are so many knockoff and bogus sellers on Amazon now, and Amazon does not do a great job at enforcing their policies and removing them.
Also a boonies-Prime-er that had to cancel Prime because I gave up on it again. Even with Prime apparently my orders don't ship for 3-4 days, and only then do they ship Next Day Air and show up on day 5 after the order.
When I complained to Amazon Executive CS about it their answer was that I "selected Standard Shipping" even though I was given no other choices for shipping that would expedite it...
In SF and a heavy Amazon user: 2 day shipping has gone out the window. Rarely things arrive on their expected date and Amazon now seems to "hand things off" sometimes.
Just last week got a message saying an item was handed off to the local post office and I would have to come pick it up(!) I Was going to complain but the next day it was delivered anyway, by someone. They have consistently degraded their delivery to save a nickel.
Maybe. When the two day was actually still working, I would mostly get them via UPS, but sometimes FedEx. That's still the case now (mostly UPS), they just come after more delay.
Amazon Prime video recently dropped the "show me what's free to me" link. Now they show tons of options that are free with ads, free with trial subscription, etc.
Within the first year of Prime Video they started sticking trailers for Amazon properties before Prime content. I complained at an org all hands meeting that this seems to contradict the “ad free” claim, but was blown off. That kind of slippery slope crap is how unscrupulous business people move a product from loves to reviled, imho.
Maybe they're only A/B testing the dark patterns, because this is exactly how it worked for me recently. I turn Prime on & off every so often. Last time (~a month ago) I forgot to cancel before the auto-renew, it very easily gave me a full refund on the month I didn't mean to buy.
We also had metrics around delivery times, which seems to have gone out the window as well.