After almost 20 years as a Prime subscriber I unsubscribed about a week ago. It was the ads, I put up with a lot of nonsense over the years but the ads were the final insult.
I'm not paying full streaming service prices for a service with ads.
I was a long time subscriber as well, but canceled right before Christmas 2022. I missed it for about a week and then I realized most things I "needed immediately" from Amazon I could either 1) drive across town to purchase from brick and mortar or 2) actually just wait for it.
The end result has been me buying less things I don't need, and buying the things I do need from local retailers (and of course big box stores), or ordering them from other online retailers since the shipping is comparable to Amazon.
2 years in and I don't miss it at all, will never go back. I do want to watch the Fallout series though.
Adverts are inevitable, these companies cannot help themselves. The temptation to double dip... A subscription from stupid saps and money from advertising. Soon the ads will creep into the other subscription tiers.
I've been screaming this into the void for years and always get shot down. It's almost like people like to be abused. I saw how bozo destroyed business after business in the early years and have been avoiding it fairly well, I will go without my special not necessary "toy" until I find it local, which is getting harder and harder sadly as the convenience is killing local business
always get shot down. It’s almost like people like to be abused.
I still can't tell of these people are that poorly educated or are they just bad faith actors. Online it easy to assume bad faith actor but when you meet this people in real life... it is just sad seeing an adult man thinking like that.
The usual reason given is convenience "I can get it all in 1 place, instead of driving/bussing around town looking for the local option". I am looking for a usb mic with a short wire to attach to my vr headset so I can stop killing peoples ears with hard P and similar. My local computer store doesn't carry any mics like I need only the desktop professional ones, nor any nearby local stores either. My only real option is to either go to Best Buy or Bozo. sigh
kinda of a clown world where the little guy now is Best Buy lol This is an example where market conditions has been set, you can't really vote your way out with money :/
Walmart only thing keeping Amazon retail in check.
Um, you do realize you're paying for the 2-day shipping with the subscription, right? It's not free, it's just part of your subscription.
I honestly just wait the extra couple days and make sure my orders are $35 or more to get free shipping. I usually keep a few non-essentials that I'll need eventually ready to go so I can just add them on when needed (e.g. extra water filters is a common one).
But do you actually need it? How often is 2 days fine, but 5 days unacceptable? Are there local stores you could use instead to fill those needs?
Yeah, 2-day shipping is nice, and we had prime for years largely for that, but prime has steadily gotten more expensive and we eventually stopped seeing value. We cut it a couple years ago, and we've seen our spending shift to local stores, though we still use Amazon a fair amount. But at $15/month or $140/year ($11.67/month), we just weren't ordering enough to make that worthwhile. Overnighting something occasionally is cheaper than subscribing to prime.
I've ended up shifting a lot of stuff back to brick and mortar just because Amazon can't be trusted on anything that isn't a brand you already know. I was looking for gym shorts with the sewn in compression shorts and all of it was just the exact same image under many stupid brands. Just a quick glance the same image is being used by Leidowei, Surenow, NELEUS, Ultra Performance, Aolesy, JWJ, Born Tough, Pudolla. Like how can you trust any of those? Went to Dicks and just bought their in store brand (DSG) and they've been working out great. Plus I can actually inspect them and try them on before buying. Unless you're buying a known brand/commodity, Amazon is just filled with drop shippers and you can't trust their reviews at all.
I found that Target had most of the low quality crap we were buying on Amazon anyway, and I could get something of better quality also locally. I would spend a ton of time doing research to avoid the worst of drop-shipped crap on Amazon.
Now I only really buy name brand stuff at Amazon that I can't find locally. We do maybe one order/month, if that, and I could probably eliminate Amazon entirely if needed.
Yeah I've actually been happy with the clothes I've gotten from Target too. Their All In Motion line or whatever it is has been nice for quarterzips for golfing. Found 32 degrees stuff at Costco and their website has all the basics I need (Polos/Casual slacks/underwear/socks) for cheap and its comfortable.
To me it's worth it. I order a ton of Amazon, unfortunately it's usually the best option to find niche items for my hobbies that can't be found locally.
That's too bad, because Amazon is really hit or miss.
I don't know what hobbies you have, but my wife and I have better options than Amazon. My wife is into watercolors and fountain pens, so she buys from specialty shops. I'm into computers and MTG, so I'm a better fit for Amazon, but I usually buy from Newegg and local game shops. We both like board games, which he generally get from local game shops.
We do need to buy a fair amount from Amazon though to fill in the gaps, but it's rarely urgent, so it can wait a week if needed.
I'm sure she's capable of understanding that on her own. If you'd like to cut it, I recommend pulling some numbers:
how much stuff you ordered (esp. how many were under the $35 or whatever order limit)
how often you actually needed something faster than standard shipping (usually 3-5 days)
how much you paid for the service
With that, you could make a case for dropping it. You could also agree that if there are problems, you can always sign up again. Then it's on you to anticipate things you'll need and order in advance. I am proactive about keeping stuff on hand, so it's not an issue for us. That's how I convinced my wife we don't need it, and we haven't had it for a couple years now
That said, get a free Amazon Prime trial every 6 months or so, so we often sign up around Christmas, then cancel.
I’ve made the case. The indoctrination by Amazon is strong though, and they feel they need it. Plus we’ve got a stubborn one over here and new ideas are bad ideas unless they are their ideas. There’s a lag but logic is logic and it sets in eventually… I’mma just let the in-laws work on them they’re much more annoying😉
Same, and even that is getting worse. I feel like I have to fight with the search algorithm to actually find what I want for the best price. Most of the time, I could order something better from another retailer for a better price and still get free shipping. They don't even do free returns anymore.
Yep, you have to filter for free shipping. You also have to filter for fast shipping, or you might get some "Two day shipping (ships in two weeks)" bullshit. And then you have to mentally filter out the "sponsored" results which may not be what you're looking for at all. Searching for a hard to find hat size? Top result is perfect, has free same day shipping, and is a reasonable price. Oops, except when you click on it, you have to pick a different size, which isn't available in that color, costs more, snd ships out of Mongolia.
If you live near a regional transportation hub it probably won’t make a difference on your delivery times. We dropped prime when our “1 day” deliveries kept turning in 3 day deliveries and never saw a difference.
And honestly a lot of the stuff I used to get on there isn’t even cheaper on Amazon anymore. Half the time if I check the manufacturer website they’re having a sale or have no shipping costs or cover returns longer, something like that. YMMV, you know your situation and needs better than me.
For me its kinda worth it. I can can next day or same day delivery, which is kinda nice when Im an impatient ass. Also I share it with my family, so we all make use of it.
If it were just me, definitely would not be worth it.
This doesn't work for me. Regional hub is 20 miles from me. Two day shipping is now just "free shipping over $35 and takes a week to arrive.
I agree with your other points though. Amazon isn't the cheapest option anymore. My local Walmart is actually better. I know Walmart is still a shit company but still...better in terms of getting what I need.
Electronics too (like LEDs, microcontrollers, and sensors not phones and TVs). Often brands have a store on both Ali and Amazon but Ali is cheaper with longer shipping times of basically a week to a week and a half.
I'm about 6 years completely Amazon-free. A key component of the switch was realizing a lot of the random stuff I'd buy (mostly cycling equipment) is cheaper on eBay with faster shipping. The irony is that the seller is likely the same one on Amazon and the items would be delivered by Amazon Fulfillment Services.
I’ve been going back to eBay more recently as well! If anything I feel more confident that what I get on eBay is going to actually match the listing, since AFAIK they don’t do the same insane “jumble all items with the same ID code together in a bin and hope all the sellers were honest about it being real” system Amazon uses.
The only reason I don't is that I can buy a bunch of stuff from Amazon and get it in one or two boxes, instead of a bunch of stuff from all over the country in a bunch of boxes. It's about saving a little bit of carbon emissions.
Does it make a significant difference? Absolutely not. But it makes me feel better. (Also Amazon packages are more often reusable. The boxes and paper packing are better than eBay bubble envelopes and bubble wrap encased in packing tape.)
I canceled Prime as soon as they announced they were adding ads and I let them know that was the reason. Fuck them. We moved to streaming because it wasn't cable, now these fuck heads are trying to turn streaming into cable. Capitalism is the fucking worst.
Yeah, I've got a full *arr setup so far - just need to iron out a few kinks before I can consider it "done". Mainly just dealing with my server computer being incredibly slow with - I assume - transcoding.
Sadly, my current server is an old all-in-one, so adding a GPU will be difficult. My plan is to make due for now until I can get some proper hardware.
The current plan is - rather than bringing the hardware up to spec - I'll try bringing the spec down to the hardware, by pre-encoding everything to something like H264. (While keeping originals, since I have the space.)
Thank you for the response and the resource, though! I'll definitely check it out!
When my server crashes.. I'm going tiny.
Beelink S12 Pro Mini PC, Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake- N100(up to 3.4GHz), 16GB DDR4 RAM 500GB PCIe SSD, Desktop Computer Support 4K Dual Display/USB3.2/WiFi 6/BT5.2/Gigabit Ethernet for Home/Office https://a.co/d/gZYihvd
And a 3.2 enclosure
Mediasonic USB 3.2 4 Bay 3.5” SATA Hard Drive Enclosure – USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps Type C | USB-C (HF7-SU31C) Support 18TB HDD https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078YQHWYW
Yeah one of these days we'll crack the code and get it right. In the meantime, how many homeless people are there in the richest country in the history of the world?
Did it this last cycle. Didn't renew, don't miss it. In fact the announcement of adding more ads into the video service I didn't want, but had to pay for to get prime lead to me just leaving.
I've done the same with Netflix for years and previously had the 4 streams 4k plan up until they implemented their bullshit password sharing rules. Now I have the $6.99 plan and only keep it because my MIL babysits for us and likes to watch all the K dramas on there.
I don’t pay for prime for the video though, I do it because 10 members of my family like the 2 day shipping lol the video is just icing that we honestly rarely use. Just “The Boys” and “Clarksons Farm” really
I'm surprised they think this is useful... if I've paused a video it's because I'm answering the phone or front door, making a coffee, going for a shit etc... I'm almost never going to see these ads 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah, theres a very good reason I dont use Spotify anymore. Not any music streaming services at all. Only good ol' reliable mp3s. Their idea of "service" is to silently remove songs from my playlists as their licenses expire, and then top it by replacing "Hotel California" with the WORST cover song I've ever heard.
Imagine if Sony stopped selling on Steam, and Steam in response silently replaced my "Days Gone" game with "The Day Before"? I would have been so pissed. But with music it seems that is totally okay.
I miss having my library fully in mp3. I started using Deezer just for convenience, and I kept only the mp3 I have for rare songs and versions. Now every time Deezer kills a song in my playlists, I regret my decision, and I'm too lazy to rebuild my mp3 library. At least Deezer keeps the name of the song greyed out in the playlist, and if it finds another instance of the same song it's easy to replace it.
“We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem,”
“If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.”
I do pirate games that I buy on Steam - just to have a backup copy in case something happens to my account. I want to truly own my media. Nonetheless, this is the only place I have paid for media since we ditched the DVD player)
Many Steam games are DRM-free, they're just not advertised that way. Try copying the game files elsewhere and shutting down Steam, for most older games, they'll still just work.
