Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Monthly Amazon Prime membership fees are about to increase

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 170 posts

Re: Monthly Amazon Prime membership fees are about to increase

#131

Post by esturk »

untog wrote: post #2

Amazon has done what many others dream of: I basically forget that I'm paying for Prime every year. And I perceive that it gives me enough value that I don't mind, but I've never actually checked how many orders I place each year vs. the delivery cost for them if I didn't have Prime. By comparison, Google sends me an e-mail every month reminding me how much I'm paying for Google Play Music. I don't mind it, but I won…

That's actually egregious. I was trialing the Amazon cloud service and it rolled over to a 60$ charge without any notification. And when it renewed a 2nd year, it also didn't send a notification.

The Google method of sending a yearly notification is the idiomatic and proper way of selling a service. The Amazon way is the scumbag way because that's how they charge you without you knowing.

Re: Monthly Amazon Prime membership fees are about to increase

#132

Post by natecavanaugh »

maldusiecle wrote: post #113
vm wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What?? Amazon Prime is a killer value! Netflix is $11/month and Spotify is $10/month. Sure, those services are definitely better than Prime Video and Music, but I still use Amazon's offerings a similar amount so the $13/month bundle feels like a great value at 40% lower cost. And this doesn't even count the services I don't use like free Kindle books or Twitch game discounts. Not to mention the faster delivery times.…

This is actually my biggest problem with Prime: it feels like a bunch of substandard services, most of which I don't need, bundled together. If I'm not going to use free Kindle books or Twitch discounts (and I'm not), their value to me is $0. If Amazon Music doesn't have the songs I want to hear, and I have to keep paying for Spotify for those, then its value to me is $0. Prime's value is mostly free shipping, and it…

I used to feel this exact way, and I do still think there are more than a few of their services that are pretty paltry.

But with Prime video, not only do they have highly praised original content, they fill in gaps that Netflix and Hulu have, with content from the HBO catalog, as well as TV shows that Netflix doesn't carry.

Add to that, the shipping for me, while not perfect, any time I've done free same day shipping, it's there.

My only request would be that I would gladly trade some of my benefits (Amazon music for example, along with others) in exchange for some type of access to audible.com content.

It would be nice if you could configure these services a la carte, but I doubt that's in Amazon's financial interest.

Re: Monthly Amazon Prime membership fees are about to increase

#133

Post by praneshp »

yeahbutbut wrote: post #121
praneshp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my house is no longer filled with endless cardboard boxes. You can throw in in the trash, you know :) Cancelling Prime is probably good for the same reason I shouldn't have gotten a Moviepass. I now have one less thing blocking me from watching a mediocre movie.

>> my house is no longer filled with endless cardboard boxes. > You can throw in in the trash, you know :) I prefer to build forts for my cats out of my leftover boxes.

I used to do that a few years ago for the neighbor's cats.

Re: Monthly Amazon Prime membership fees are about to increase

#134

Post by libeclipse »

lutorm wrote: post #47
AlexB138 wrote: post #11

From many conversations, and my personal experience, the reliability of prime for two day deliveries has gone way down. It's generally a day or two before the item even ships in my region. Amazon is also failing to handle rampant knock-offs mixed in with legitimate products. It seems pretty brazen to increase the cost of Prime in light of those issues, even if it is only the monthly subscription. I'm sure it won't ac…

In Hawaii, Prime isn't two day, it's "free shipping within sorta 5-7 business days, for most of the stuff marked Prime". And even that has gotten unreliable. When there's a range of delivery dates specified, it often seems designed to show up on the very last day of that range. A significant fraction of the time they haven't even shipped the thing by the first day of the delivery estimate. There are also an increasin…

Damn. In the UK it's free next-day.

Re: Monthly Amazon Prime membership fees are about to increase

#135

Post by nunez »

AlexB138 wrote: post #11

From many conversations, and my personal experience, the reliability of prime for two day deliveries has gone way down. It's generally a day or two before the item even ships in my region. Amazon is also failing to handle rampant knock-offs mixed in with legitimate products. It seems pretty brazen to increase the cost of Prime in light of those issues, even if it is only the monthly subscription. I'm sure it won't ac…

We live less than 5 miles away from a major distribution center; same day is offered for just about everything, with everything else reliably arriving 1-2 days post order.

However, 2-day shipping is the only option available for most other places. I can see how Prime isn't as good of a deal for places like that.

Re: Monthly Amazon Prime membership fees are about to increase

#137

Post by nunez »

KerrickStaley wrote: post #124

Is Prime still worth it? Many items on Amazon Prime are more expensive than buying at local retailers, and competitors like Walmart, Costco, and Jet (now part of Walmart) offer cheap, fast shipping, often with lower prices. I'm planning on cancelling my Prime subscription when it goes up for renewal since I rarely use it (it would actually be cheaper to pay for 2-day shipping every time).

Same-day arrival is a godsend for me, which is why I keep paying for it. I don't care about their Music or Video options, though it's handy to have with Echos around the apartment.

Re: Monthly Amazon Prime membership fees are about to increase

#138

Post by reificator »

AlexB138 wrote: post #11

From many conversations, and my personal experience, the reliability of prime for two day deliveries has gone way down. It's generally a day or two before the item even ships in my region. Amazon is also failing to handle rampant knock-offs mixed in with legitimate products. It seems pretty brazen to increase the cost of Prime in light of those issues, even if it is only the monthly subscription. I'm sure it won't ac…

Denver Metro here, I don't think Amazon have missed a two day window in at least a year. I've only had two misses in over three years of having a Prime sub.

Re: Monthly Amazon Prime membership fees are about to increase

#139

Post by alexcroox »

natecavanaugh wrote: post #132
maldusiecle wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually my biggest problem with Prime: it feels like a bunch of substandard services, most of which I don't need, bundled together. If I'm not going to use free Kindle books or Twitch discounts (and I'm not), their value to me is $0. If Amazon Music doesn't have the songs I want to hear, and I have to keep paying for Spotify for those, then its value to me is $0. Prime's value is mostly free shipping, and it…

I used to feel this exact way, and I do still think there are more than a few of their services that are pretty paltry. But with Prime video, not only do they have highly praised original content, they fill in gaps that Netflix and Hulu have, with content from the HBO catalog, as well as TV shows that Netflix doesn't carry. Add to that, the shipping for me, while not perfect, any time I've done free same day shipping…

I use Netflix all the time, every time I check Amazon video the landing page looks the same, no new shows or movies. In fact my video landing page has looked the same for a good 2 months now. I'm not sure if they haven't added anything new or they just suck at promoting the new additions...

Re: Monthly Amazon Prime membership fees are about to increase

#140

Post by lxchase »

wbond wrote: post #27

Walmart, Jet.com and Target offer free 2 day shipping if you order $35, $35, or $25 respectively. It so happens in my area, all three use Fedex ground, which tends to be more reliable than UPS. Additionally, most items that cost less than $6-8 each tend to be significantly cheaper at Walmart or Target, or you can by a single item rather than a 3-pack, which is a common Amazon strategy. If you buy a decent number of h…

I agree with this. In the past few months, I've found walmart.com to be cheaper than amazon.com for manytdepartments/products (certainly not always true). However, the point is it might be worth it to comparison shop at the cost of an additional minute.
Post reply on HN