Price of Amazon Prime May Jump To $119 a Year

colinneagle writes "Amazon CFO Tom Szkutak hinted during the company's earnings conference call [Thursday] that we might see an increase to the company's popular Amazon Prime service. As it stands now, Amazon Prime costs $79 per year and offers users free shipping on millions of items, free book borrowing for select Kindle titles, and last but not least, free streaming to the company's video on-demand service. Going forward, Amazon may increase that pricepoint to either $99 or $119. That's a rather significant price increase, but it's important to keep in mind that the price of Amazon Prime has remained the same ever since Amazon first started the program nine years ago." How many products do you use that haven't increased in price for that long?

Comments

how many products?

[gl4ss]

hmm lets see.

isp is cheaper now than 9 years ago.
the tv I got at back home I could not have afforded 9 years ago.
my mobile subscriptions are cheaper than 9 years ago. I can order stuff from china cheaper than 9 years ago(transportation costs).

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

you really make no sense. are you aware?

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

No I a sleep.

Re:how many products?

[jones_supa]

What about cost of living?

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

I spend way too much on living. I'd save lots of money if only I could shake my food addiction. I tried going cold turkey but then I developed an overwhelming craving for cold turkey.

Re:how many products?

[Trepidity]

Depends on where you live and what your costs are. Real-estate prices are down in some places and up in others. Oil prices are up considerably from the '90s, though roughly flat for the past few years. Natural-gas prices are up in Europe, but way down in the U.S. due to the shale-gas boom. Food prices are relatively stable overall, though specific food items have gone up or down. Amortized cost of car ownership has gone down, due to a mixture of cheaper initial-sales prices and longer average lifespans. Amortized cost of ownership of a family computer suitable for basic email/web has gone way down, due to advances in technology. Airfare has gone down in Europe (due to competition from low-cost airlines), but up in the U.S. and internationally (due to increased oil prices, plus maybe related to airline consolidation). Etc., etc.

So, if you live in Pittsburgh, use a lot of natural-gas for heating, drive a basic car relatively short distances, and have a home computer, your overall cost of living has probably declined over the past 20 years. On the other hand, if you live in Boston, take frequent roadtrips or plane trips, and heat you apartment with fuel oil, your cost of living has probably increased over the past 20 years.

Of all these, rent/housing costs are typically the dominating factor in most CoL equations.

Re:how many products?

[gl4ss]

no, the price of 55" fullhd tv's came down... as have prices for usable refrigators, washing machines and other household shit. not everything goes up in price yearly even if the article summary implies that.

in regards of amazon prime.. has shipping gotten more expensive or are people ordering more stuff?

Re:how many products?

[MickLinux]

Generally speaking, we are in deflation, not inflation. So as the commenter correctly points out, a lot of things are decreasing in price.

Here's the problem: our wages are also decreasing.

Here's another problem: a lot of things -- especially thing which we are *legally required* to buy from one source-- are increasing in price. So housing, electricity, union leadership, health insurance, the cost of government, public schools, taxes, bailouts... all are crashing through the roof.

Basically, if the purveyor thinks he has a captive market, he's grabbing everything he can.

But, that being the case, the appropriate question is not as the original headline, "how many things haven't increased in price in that long", it is instead, "how many things, when they increased in price 25- to 50-%, did you have the option to not buy, and still continued to buy?"

Typically speaking, when something went up in price 25- or 50- percent, I stopped buying it. That is, my purchases went to something like 5% of what they had been before. Often, I stopped buying it completely, because I had the incentive to find better alternatives. Once I had the better alternatives, I was done.

Here's a better question: in today's era of retail cannibalization, how will Amazon's market share hold up if they increase prices?

Re:how many products?

[Pharmboy]

Plus the products we sell are the same price they were 10 years ago. We've offset cost increases by increases in productivity, and our margin has actually gone up. I have prime, I would drop it if it goes up. I also have Netflix, which kicks Amazon's ass when it comes to video interface. Amazon is constantly trying to up sell you, making it much harder to find and enjoy videos than Netflix. Right now, I have Prime only for the shipping savings.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

I completely disagree. If you go by government "official" numbers you are correct. However, it ignores the price of energy/fuel and food. Are you paying anywhere close to what you were for a gallon of gas from 9 years ago, or are you paying 3x the costs. Is your weekly grocery bill anywhere close to what it used to be, or price for eating out.

Computer type stuff, or electronic in general is down, but EVERYTHING else is up, way up. If your at the bottom of the wage scale it is now impossible to pay your bills and the government cuts out the parts you can't afford to keep inflation down. They do this because Social Security increases are based on the inflation numbers and if those were real they couldn't afford the yearly increases to match the costs of living. Its just one of a number of tricks they are playing to keep SS from imploding on itself without having to do the eventual raising taxes and officially cutting of benefits or raising retirement age.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

Half of those are fixed, one-time purchases, so I'm not sure those should count.

The other half counts though.

Re:how many products?

[Threni]

Your tv from 9 years ago lasted 9 years. One you buy this year won't.

Re:how many products?

[nightcats]

oh c'mon give Jeff a break, it's hard to sell newspapers.

Re:how many products?

[tepples]

Why not tie retirement age to life expectancy?

Re:how many products?

[knightghost]

It seems that only food and energy have gotten more expensive.

Saying that "the price hasn't increased for 9 years" is misdirection. It was too expensive 9 years ago. Today... doable when you factor in it's also a Netflix replacement.

Re:how many products?

[Connie_Lingus]

wouldn't a better punch line be...

"i tried going cold turkey, but then I developed an overwhelming craving for hot turkey."?

Re:how many products?

[Lumpy]

Nothing is decreasing in price. Please name ONE thing that is still the same quality as before but is lower in price.

HDTV's are garbage quality compared to what was out 10 years ago, yes UTTER garbage. They used to be repairable by swapping out separate boards, today they are throw-away items because they are made as cheap as possible. Electronics in general are utter crap quality compared to 10-20 years ago. THAT is why it's cheaper.

You are paying less for a lesser product.

Re:how many products?

[Lumpy]

You only buy one car ever in your life? I own 3 of them right now, and have owned 20 in my lifetime. And I'm on house #3 looking to move to House #4 in 4-5 years.

I think you college kids really need to learn reality, "fixed one time purchases" That is a complete HOOT!

Re:how many products?

[Lumpy]

Mostly because Newspapers only hire no talent hacks to write for them that have no education at all in what they are reporting.

newspapers killed themselves, they deserve the horrible lingering death they are enjoying.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's pretty good too but I think the first one is funnier.

Re:how many products?

[TheGratefulNet]

Please name ONE thing that is still the same quality as before but is lower in price.

m job ... ;(

have not had a raise in a long long LONG time. essentially I went backwards about 10 yrs ago and never caught back up again with the cost of living. my software and hardware skills are as good (or better) than 10 yrs ago but I'm paid LESS, overall.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think them college kids are learnin how to make a car last more than a few years.

Re:how many products?

[dunkelfalke]

Well, bicycle components, for example (the better ones).
A decent aluminium bike frame is way cheaper, than 10 years ago, and at the same time better, because the technology is mature. Same goes for hydraulic disc brakes.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

this is OT but the Guardian is what one used to call newspaper and it not only exists but also provides good service.

UK government would be pleased if the guardian disappeared. Their competitors in UK market would be too

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, I'm ENTIRELY MISSING the value add prop for this advert blurb...

2d shipping's not that big of a deal any longer, e.g. I've been getting 2d, more or less shipping from non-prime, i.e. non-amazon fulfilled sellers already for some time now as well as from other etailers. Essentially if they're not on the west coast and use USPS I pretty much get my stuff in 2d, and if they're w/in a few states distance 1d meanwhile w/Amazon UPS was the only one moving things along at a good clip, while fedex was playing "smart"post games(you know where they bring your package w/in 20m of your location and then ship it 40m in the wrong direction and THEN deliver it multiple times), and their other carrier, prestige, is just a godawful joke.

Borrowing titles: WOW! I can get ONE, YES ONE(no NOT TWO, NOT Three, but ONE), borrowed book per month. Yeah, yesirree that's alotta value right there!

IOW they want us to subsidize their godawful foray into TV show creation, THAT'S the bottomline and it's just NOT worth it.

Let's face it, the only real plus to prime is SOME of the video streaming, however many of those disappear more often than not, so that's a dubious "value" again.

Oh, and if you're ordering anything that you might say want to know more than basic specs of, forget amazon, they haven't got a clue as to WTF the specs are, so needless to say unless they have IDENTICAL PART numbers and everything I'll order from newegg, tigerdirect, microcenter, etc. that actually know WTF they're selling and actually have stock. e.g. has amazon actually shipped any of those new AMD APUs yet? (I wanted to experiment w/one but didn't want to wait a month or so to actually receive one, and Amazon's expected delivery date was mid-February at the earliest IIRC ROFLMAO.)

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

9 years.. no, but 8 years...

Gasoline price isn't a great reference unless you smooth it out. It's highly variable because both consumption and production are fairly inelastic over short periods - it takes months to bring a new well online, , and it also takes more than a few weeks of high prices before you are willing or able to change your commute (which could involve changing your job in extreme cases..) or decide to purchase a more efficient vehicle.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

Metals are one of the specific markets that have benefited from global markets. Most of the metal used in construction and consumer goods is now from China. While technically correct (that the price has gone down), this is neither due to inflation or deflation.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Generally speaking, we are in deflation, not inflation

This is not correct. You might as well say, generally speaking, we've solved our energy problems (see I can turn on this light on demand). You're looking at the wrong metrics to come to such a wildly inaccurate conclusion.

Re:how many products?

[CastrTroy]

This is probably one of the best examples. Bicycle prices have come way down. For $1000 you can get a bike that is better than what the pros were using 15 years ago. For a little more you can get a competitive racing quality bike. You can spend a lot more, but it won't help you that much. However, I find that quality on the low end has tanked. Most department store bikes used to be decent quality, and now they are mostly complete garbage. And they are almost exclusively designed to look impressive (suspension and fat tubes) but are completely terrible for actually riding.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

You only buy one car ever in your life? I own 3 of them right now, and have owned 20 in my lifetime.

But that's luxury. Cars easily last 15 years, more if you care for them well. I've owned 3 cars in my entire life, including the one I drive now (a 1997 Audi), and I'm 50 yo.

I know people driving mid 1980's cars as their primary vehicles that still work fine.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am making almost $45K more in the last 2 years at the same company. It depends on what specifically in IT you are doing and how many people are around in the area that can do it vs how much a company would have to pay a consultant to do it.

Storage, virtualization, and DR are very big right now in the medium/large companies and someone who knows all of these can get good money.

Re:how many products?

[Shining Celebi]

Why not tie retirement age to life expectancy?

FWIW, life expectancy at 25 has barely budged in the past 50 years, especially among the lower-income brackets.

Re:how many products?

[MickLinux]

Okay, first of all, deflation is a money supply issue, and when. Sou realize that money supply includes credit -- and that credit is the largest part of the economy, then you'll find that yes, we are in deflation here in the US.

Now, what about PRICE inflation / deflation?

Well, as robotics, improved methods, and tech make manufacturing faster, cheaper, and easier, that causes deflation. Likewise, as power over little folks forces their wages down, that makes things cheaper. More slaves (you, me) means cheaper goods.

On the other side of the coin, we are not just at peak oil, we are at peak everything. So as raw materials become harder to come by, that causes price increases.

Incidentally, that may have been how Greenspan or Paulson (I forget which) triggered the bursting of the housing bubble. Until then, they had kept the CPI at a constant price inflation of about 5% singe the '50s. early 2000s, they changed policy in response to the bursting of the tech bubble, to keep the CPI constant at 0% increase. But if things are harder to get, that meas that wages have to fall. But people had taken mortgages on the assumptionof 5% CPI price INFLATION. So when their wages fell, they couldn't keep up. That forced housing prices down, which then triggered massive losses from the investment flippers, who themselves were massively overleveraged, which caused Fannie Mae to go plfft, which triggered the hedge fund leveraged derivitive bets into losses, which caused TARP and the jobless recovery...

Re:how many products?

[dgatwood]

The thing is, 99% of the time, I don't care about getting things quickly, but I joined Prime last summer because I needed to buy a bunch of things for a trip to Europe, and I wanted to make sure stuff arrived in time. I initially planned to cancel it after a year, but I've tried the Prime Instant Video, and now I'm debating.

Either way, if it goes over the price of Netflix ($96 annually), I can't imagine choosing to stay with Prime over Netflix. The two-day shipping benefit is only significant if you would ordinarily have paid for two-day shipping. Otherwise, it's just not a very enticing perk unless you know you're going to need to buy a lot of gear in a short period of time. And that doesn't lead to continuous customer revenue. It leads to people buying it for just long enough to get the job done, then dropping it, which raises the cost for Amazon, which means they'll raise the price, and then even fewer people will buy it when it isn't absolutely necessary.

What really matters is the streaming service. And in that regard, Amazon's offering doesn't compare too favorably. Netflix has more content, and fewer encoding problems. There was one episode of Buffy where the video was jerky on every device I own, and I've watched a few TV shows where Amazon incorrectly encoded 16:9 content as letterboxed 4:3 content, so I get four black bars on my TV. That was excusable ten years ago. Now, it's just negligent.

And the Netflix iOS app actually works over cellular connections, unlike Prime, which deliberately refuses to work. That means if I were using Netflix, I could watch stuff on my phone while away from home as part of my unlimited data package. With Amazon, I have use my laptop, where I have a tethering data limit of about three hours of video.

So I've been debating whether to continue Prime even at $79 or jump to Netflix for only a few dollars more. Raise the price to $119, and they'll make my decision a lot easier.

Re:how many products?

[MightyYar]

Yeah, we reluctantly buy Prime as a complement to Netflix (our cable is limited basic only). With the price increase, we'll have to decide if it is worth it. Hulu is $96/year, so that becomes a contender for filling out the Netflix "recent TV show gap".

Re:how many products?

[dotancohen]

Nothing is decreasing in price. Please name ONE thing that is still the same quality as before but is lower in price.

Amazon Web Services.

Every few months I get an email that some aspect is lowering in price. Last week it was EBS: the price of storage just dropped from 10 cent/GiB/month to 5 cent/GiB/month. That, with always more and more features. The latest feature that has become widespread that I'm excited about is Virtual Private Cloud, where one can set up their entire virtual network infrastructure. VPC is free with EC2, which itself has a price decrease a few months ago.

Myself and my employer are _very_ happy AWS customers.

Re:how many products?

[nurb432]

My gold ring costs more. My car costs more. ( WAY more ) A new house costs more. ( older homes, are less only due to the market collapse that has not recovered yet, over time its increasing )

Seems that in general durable goods increase over time, while IT goods decrease.

Re:how many products?

[benzapp]

Read up on Modern Monetary Theory if you haven't already. Bill Mitchell's blog is by far the best.

I almost NEVER read anyone on slashdot or mainstream sites that understands bank credit. Nearly everyone thinks of money as some sort of commodity, even though it's never really been that way, and definitely is nothing like that now.

Cheers to you.

Re:how many products?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Yeah, right now at $79 I just keep letting my Prime membership auto-renew because a) I'm lazy, and b) it does save me a little at Christmastime. But their video catalog is pretty limited - much of what I've tried to watch is TV shows where, it turns out, they've only included a few episodes you can access without paying more. And their Kindle Lending Library is likewise pretty limited - it's "all the Harry Potter books plus hundreds of authors you'll never want to read".

Really, even at $79 it's hard to justify. There's not a whole lot I *must* get in two days...

I'll probably just not renew this time around - free ground shipping is good enough. And, if they further limit that, I'll probably start frequenting other online stores. Pretty much everyone is on the web now; I just currently default to Amazon because of the "free" shipping.

Re:how many products?

[hendrips]

RAM would be a great example. It costs less than a tenth of what it did 10 years ago for the same capacity, and the DDR3 - soon to be DDR4 - standard is objectively better than the original DDR from 10 years ago. Of course, computer buyers don't end up saving any money, because now computers come with 8 GB standard instead of 512 MB.

That actually illustrates a good point - the CPI (how the US measures inflation) is just, in aggregate, the amount of items that consumers buy times the price of those items. So it is possible for the CPI to increase even if aggregate prices decrease, if consumption increases as well. Our cost of living wouldn't be nearly so high if we were all willing to accept the same standard of living we had in 1960. However, we tend to increase our consumption over time without noticing.

Cars are another good example of this phenomenon. I think if you asked most Americans whether their car consumption has changed over the last 40 years, they would largely say no, because they still buy 1 new midsize economy sedan (or whatever their preference is) every 10 years, just like always. But their consumption has increased, because compared to today's cars, those older models were inefficient, uncomfortable death traps. So on average, Americans may be paying more than ever for cars, but they're also buying more car than ever.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

no.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. Messing up Buffy is unforgivable. Bastards!

Re:how many products?

[atriusofbricia]

Yeah, right now at $79 I just keep letting my Prime membership auto-renew because a) I'm lazy, and b) it does save me a little at Christmastime. But their video catalog is pretty limited - much of what I've tried to watch is TV shows where, it turns out, they've only included a few episodes you can access without paying more. And their Kindle Lending Library is likewise pretty limited - it's "all the Harry Potter books plus hundreds of authors you'll never want to read".

Really, even at $79 it's hard to justify. There's not a whole lot I *must* get in two days...

I'll probably just not renew this time around - free ground shipping is good enough. And, if they further limit that, I'll probably start frequenting other online stores. Pretty much everyone is on the web now; I just currently default to Amazon because of the "free" shipping.

Either you don't buy much in the way of electronics, or you live in a place with lots of options. I do buy a fair bit and live in a place where the best computer store is Best Buy. Sure, I could wait days and days for something to show up (and still pay for even that likely) or with Prime I can order as late as Thursday and have it no later than Saturday.

Given the alternative for someone in my position is to wait up to a week for something to show up, or buy it locally at highly inflated prices and just take whatever the local stores feel like carrying it's a pretty simple thing.

Newegg wants to charge 23 bucks to ship anything over night. Prime will do it for 3.99 and you only have to do that a handful of times for Prime to pay for itself.

Of course, YMMV.

Re:how many products?

[smaddox]

The problem with Bill Mitchell's approach to monetary theory (Chartalism), is that it is focuses on public debt when it's the inevitable deleveraging of private debt that cause recessions and depressions. Given, it may be a workable approach, but it's not very direct. Steve Keen, on the other hand, focuses directly on the role of private debt in the macroeconomy. He's currently working on a dynamic model fully capable accurately simulating booms, recessions and depressions in all their glory, and he already has some very instructive models. You can check out his blog here, his "manifesto" here, and his research papers here.

Re:how many products?

[Jason Levine]

I'd add that Amazon stubbornly refuses to release a Prime app for Android. They have for iOS and Kindle Android, but no general Android. While their streaming selection might be somewhat competitive with Netflix at times (what one lacks the other sometimes has), I'm limited with Prime. I can watch Netflix via my Roku box, our Android tablets, computers, or even our phones. Amazon Prime, we can only watch via our Roku box (with a worse interface than Netflix) and on our computers. Were Amazon to release their Prime video streaming app for Android, it might mean we'd watch more videos that way.

Re:how many products?

[snsh]

The biggest shame of Prime is that it defaults to free, 2-day shipping for every purchase, including large objects like major appliances that you don't need in 2-days. One heavy item can easily cost Amazon more for expedited shipping than what they charge for the Prime membership fee. It's a huge waste.

Re:how many products?

[MickLinux]

Okay, I tend to go with Mike Shedlock's blog.

His criticism of MMT is that

a) practically speaking, it isn't working for any of the governments that use it
b) theoretically speaking, if you print a billion dollars and bury it in the back yard, ther's no actual inflation. But the same is true if , instead of burying it, you loan it to banks, expecting them to loan it out to others, and they don't because they have no good stable prospects.

Thus, noting that credit itself is a commodity that is used as a medium of exchange, the credit monetary supply dwarfs the fiat monetary supply, and thus MMT ends up being ineffective anyways.

Re:how many products?

[daenris]

Except that they usually don't deliver on Saturday, so ordering on Thursday means you won't get it until Monday. And ordering on Friday evening, Saturday, or Sunday means it doesn't show up until Wednesday because it gets processed as if it were a Monday order. Considering how poor their shipping has been for me and a few others I've talked to over the past 6-10 months, I definitely would not be renewing if the price goes up pretty much at all. I never really use the streaming service, because the selection and ease of use on my devices is inferior to Netflix, so if their shipping gets any worse, I don't think it'll even be worth $79/year.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in the same boat. If it goes up, I'll cancel. Netflix has more stuff and I can't justify the extra $40 for faster shipping.

Re:how many products?

[nateman1352]

When one considers the US Consumer Price Index, $79 in 2004 dollars is $97.43 in 2013 dollars. Most of the cost associated with Amazon Prime is transportation, and gasoline certainly hasn't gotten any cheaper. The $99 price tag seems reasonable, $119... not so much.

Re:how many products?

[tlhIngan]

HDTV's are garbage quality compared to what was out 10 years ago, yes UTTER garbage. They used to be repairable by swapping out separate boards, today they are throw-away items because they are made as cheap as possible. Electronics in general are utter crap quality compared to 10-20 years ago. THAT is why it's cheaper.

Of course, 10 years ago, I paid $8000 for an open-box Panasonic HDTV that was 720p. 42".

Today, I can buy a 42" HDTV for under $1000. The quality may be lesser, but for 1/8th the price, I get 1080p resolution, HDMI ports (they weren't invented yet), and a TV set that's a third of the weight, a third of the power consumption, and all around better.

Sure, it may be lesser quality, and everything is built down to a price, but it's so much more affordable now. Back when the Xbox360 was the hot item, SDTVs were still the rage and there were more than a few complaints that some games were unplayable because they required 720p to see text.

A year later, the PS3 came out, and most families had SDTVs. If you're lucky, there was a HDTV people gamed on. The Wii was released, with the expectation that most Wiis will be hooked to a SDTV set because very few people owned HDTVs, and fewer still let kids have an HDTV.

These days, HDTVs are everywhere, and you can pretty much assume everyone has an HDTV, most likely, multiple HDTVs.

Quality may have gone down, but accessibility has gone up. And that's the way technology moves. You want to argue about how digital cameras, used to cost $1000 for VGA snapshots, now can be had for $100 and still get you a better image than those early dinosaurs (nevermind more storage and features)? Or how a $10,000 IBM PC back in 1981 is still better than a decent $1000 laptop from today?

Re:how many products?

[LordLimecat]

My 52" DLP Samsung from 7 years ago cost $1800 on sale, and has had a number of parts fail. You're right that its repairable, but thats not much consolation when you constantly have to repair it.

A new LCD or Plasma 52" would cost ~$1100. Given the inflation rate, thats $1000 in 2007 dollars-- almost 1/2 the price for a higher quality screen with better inputs, lower power usage, and more features. Youre not going to convince me that TVs 10 years ago were twice as reliable or twice as good in ANY metric at that price; id be suprised if you could even find a 52" tv 10 years ago for $2000

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

That plasma is not using less power than your DLP, it is probably using about 3x more power. A typical DLP uses about 200 watts, 90-95% of that being the lamp. A typical plasma uses about 500-600 watts. Just saying.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on what it is. I have a few older Yamaha and Adcom amps from the 70's and 80's all plugged in to a relatively new receiver that is really just a preamp all in my man cave for the audio/video system.

Those old amps are tanks and arguably better than anything made today $2K and above each. I'd buy an Adcom GFA565 of 555 for $250-500 on ebay before any "new" amp for that price any day of the week.

Re:how many products?

[LordLimecat]

Its also higher quality, but whatever-- if power is your concern get an LCD.

Re:how many products?

[LordLimecat]

According to this article from 1991, they cost $1700-1900.

Assuming that they were introduced in 1991 (as opposed to "the 80s"), that would be ~$3000 in today's dollars. Stack them up against one of the ones here:
http://www.avsforum.com/t/8639...

Im not really one to argue amps (since I dont deal with them), but I would guess that theres a combination of confirmation bias, "grass is greener" / "good old days" thinking which selectively forgets issues had, and a failure to account for the substantial difference in today's dollar and the dollar 20-40 years ago. There is a lot more stuff available for a lot less money (laptops, amps, etc), which can lead people to thinking that "my $200 laptop died, therefore technology today sucks".

There is also a point to be made that today's tech has finer tolerances, and so can be less reliable; stone tablets last for absolute ages compared to harddrives, because their tolerances are so loose. Harddrive platters spin at 7200 RPM and (randomly googled fact) have ~2million bits/inch; stands to reason they will fail more and more easily than the stone tablet, but they are indisputably higher quality. Quality can be had (there are high end disk arrays which all but guarantee you will not have an outage, for example) but it costs money, and a lot of people dont want to spend it.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

I picked up my Adcom 565 for $300 shipped which I use to drive my subwoofer and a Yamaha M45 for $250 shipped which drives my front speakers. A Yamaha M4 for my rear for $200 shipped for the rear. Center I do use the amp built into the receiver. Your cool story and research about what they would cost now but it is not relevant. I don't care about nostalgic as obviously I thought they were from the late 80's and they apparently are not, although I know the Yamaha M4 is. I have 3 very reliable very great sounding amps for under $800. I swap my actual receiver out from time to time as more options and features come around like HDMI, bluetooth, etc, my only requirement is they have 5/7 channel variable line level outputs that you can plug amps into and a lot do.

Re:how many products?

[benzapp]

There is no government, to my knowledge, that is implementing MMT. If anything, one of the central predictions of MMT - the collapse of the Euro - seems to be occurring as was foretold. All Western governments have decidedly neoliberal fiscal policies. I would also say that your discussions don't seem to reflect MMT theory.

The primary issue is that the nature of banking is such there must be sufficient government creation of debt free money, otherwise existing loans cannot be serviced. You cannot indefinitely keep borrowing money in order to pay your existing debts, it is simply a mathematical impossibility.

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, they deliver on Saturday to at least some zipcodes. Heck, in a few they do Sunday and same-day delivery.

Probably just depends on how far you are from a distribution center (and which your product is stocked in). I get Saturday delivery here, which is usually $5.99 iirc. I've used it once for memory cards I neglected to get before a trip, and it paid for itself then vs. going somewhere local.

Re:how many products?

[LordLimecat]

I had understood your post to be about the relative lack of quality of today's goods vs goods 20 years ago, not the relative value of used vs new.

Stating that there are no amps that stack up to your GFA-565 today is ridiculous. Some quick googling suggests that the Adacom GFA-5802 is significantly better, and its MSRP is roughly half of the GFA-565's MSRP. Whether one is a better value, subjectively, for you has no bearing on whether tech today is lower quality-per-value than tech 20 years ago (which it is not).

Re:how many products?

[Anonymous Coward]

Understand. In the $300 price range, there is nothing that stands up to a 20 year old amp. I guess that was kind of my point. That amp you pointed out is not much different.

Getting way off track here.
Personally, I don't trust random reviews of audio gear, not even from the most popular places like avsforums, They are good for long term reliability ratings but 90% of all reviews are people that do not actually have the device or have actually compared it to anything other then maybe one thing. Audio with people mirrors the high end purse companies and fashion. The name can mean a lot. Companies know this. There have pieces of equipment that were literally taken out of a chassis and placed in another chassis with a different name on it the price marked up 100% and the "new" product got glowing reviews on how much better it was and how much warmer or whatever it sounded. I LOVE audio but I also have a very extensive electronics background so I'm not a snob and I'm not tied up in the game. I have regular old speaker wires and I don't have cables that cost more than $20. I stick to the basics with basic theory on phase, distortion, and acoustics.

Re:how many products?

[MickLinux]

So now we're getting somewhere. Back before the last post, I went over to Wikipedia, and reviewed what they had to say about MMT, and I suppose it wasn't representative of what you are saying. Japan's been both printing and borrowing money to "stimulate the economy", and it has kept their economy doing badly for a long time now.

Nonetheless, let me address your concept of MMT here (which is probably more accurate than my understanding of Wiki's description).

I suspect that government creation of debt free money is an improbability, because either money represents a transfer of wealth from one person to another -- in which case, it is either theft or promised to be repaid -- or else it represents the creation of wealth. Now, if it is theft, then it is interrupting the economic chain of someone else, and that actually is a destruction of wealth. If it is a destruction of wealth, then it cannot continue -- the one whose wealth is being destroyed is either going to stop the flow, or is going to dry up.

So it remains for the government to create wealth. But creation of wealth is not what governments do well. Governments regulate well. It is just the same as saying that as a manager I create wealth -- it ain't typically so. I regulate the wealth creation.

Now, there are moments when I actually catch a hiccup, and stop it -- and that is a wealth creating event. But it isn't an accountable wealth creating event: all I did was prevent a disaster. Others are actually laboring to create it. In the same way, the government can prevent disasters, and is thus not without value. But you can't say that it is really creating wealth.

Thus, I still don't think MMT works.

Nor is Japan a good example for advertising anything, because Japan has been doing badly for so long, with no growth.

Re:how many products?

[Wolfrider]

--I completely agree. I love 2-day free shipping and have really grown used to it, but if they raise the price I will **absolutely** cancel it. There was an analysis article a few months ago that said Amazon could basically LOWER the price of Prime, and a lot more people would sign up for it!

--Even $79 is a bit on the high side, but I can justify it for the benefits - you get streaming content as well, even if their library isn't quite as good as Netflix. But any higher than that, color me gone.

"Sumsing vwrong here!"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sumsing vwrong here!"

http://www.wired.com/business/2013/03/amazon-prime-could-soon-cost-next-to-nothing/

Re:"Sumsing vwrong here!"

[Anonymous Coward]

^^^^ posted by ChuckMz.

But but there has been no inflation in 10 years

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the US federal reserve governments are printing billions of dollars all over the world to prevent the horrible horrible deflation that might happen. Why there has been no rising prices in stocks, food, commodities, or cars, or anything. Nope no inflation anywhere.... Just like all the unemployment numbers are perfectly fine and everyone is doing much better. After all gold is super cheap. I don't possibly see why Amazon would jack up prices all of the sudden, especially since its been making so much money the past few quarters... After all the last failed revenue report, they just said they intentionally weren't making money. Amazon has often believed in making up losses with volume. Maybe Amazon is making a play to be a central bank.

Re:But but there has been no inflation in 10 years

[Pinky's Brain]

They are printing billion of dollars so everyone (not the least of which is the federal and local governments) doesn't go bankrupt ...

Prime is for those that take advantage of it

[Anonymous Coward]

The Amazon Prime option is for those that can take advantage of it. My neighbors get lots of shipments of diapers and don't have a TV. They even spread the joy by offering some sweet Amazon Prime for their neighbors when they need it.

Maybe that's part of the cost increase.

Re:Prime is for those that take advantage of it

[PNutts]

They need Prime for diapers? They could order an extra day's worth and go back to regular shipping. They'll also notice that non-Prime items are typically cheaper.

There have been more subtle increases

[Anonymous Coward]

With Prime, you used to be able to do $3.99 overnight shipping. They've now modified it, so that you pay a range, from something like $2.99 to $15.99. It may still be cheaper than overnight without it, but it really was a cost increase if you used the feature at all.

Re:There have been more subtle increases

[Lumpy]

I also noticed recently that a LOT of items are no longer "prime eligible" and their video service is a joke compared to anything else out there, we never use it.

Re:There have been more subtle increases

[TheGratefulNet]

the prime items cost more to buy and so the 'free shipping' is just discounted shipping, its never free. the amazon prime item is always more, by a few dollars, at least, than the non-prime item.

I just joined prime a few months ago but I don't know if I'll continue it if they raise prices that much. its already expensive for shipping and the 'free 2nd day' costs more if you find the primable items.

Re:There have been more subtle increases

[Anonymous Coward]

I normally don't watch much tv.

My dad accidentally signed up for prime almost a year ago and didn't give a shit about the free video so he gave me his account, and since then I've literally watched every single thing I'm interested in on the service. That's like being caught up on amazon's offerings of 15 years worth of tv shows. Now that I'm back into the habit of watching tv shows again I'm left wanting for more and don't know where to go, like if netflix is better for tv streaming or what...

Moar..

Re:There have been more subtle increases

[AK Marc]

I just did a search on a couple things and I didn't see any price penalty on Prime items. I've never had Prime, as it doesn't work for Alaska, but I haven't seen the problem you complain about. Could you point out some examples?

Re:There have been more subtle increases

[lgw]

I used to see this all over the place, where the non-Amazon sellers selling through Amazon's portal would be discounted to where, with shipping, they matched the Prime cost. Hard to find examples today - makes me wonder about price fixing.

For Marketplace items it's still common though - here's an example: http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ... Both hardback and paperback Amazon marketplace sellers are setting prices that, with shipping, more or less match the prime price. I suspect for marketplace items this is just the cheaper ones sell out, and the more expensive don't.

It would still be a bargain

[reboot246]

Just in the savings in shipping costs it would still be a bargain for me. I order a boatload of stuff from Amazon, and watch their steaming service all the time. I think of their streaming service as my humongous DVR. Even at $119 per year we're still talking about less than $10 a month, just slightly more than my Netflix subscription. It's like having Netflix with the added benefit of free two day shipping.

Re:It would still be a bargain

[Anonymous Coward]

I would rather pay $79 and couldn't give a crap about prime video (or Kindle book lending), no matter how badly they'd like to foist it on me through Prime. These are side benefits *some* people use. Don't make me pay for them.

Re:It would still be a bargain

[dreamchaser]

Nobody is making you pay for them. If you aren't going to spend more on shipping than a Prime membership then don't get said membership if you don't want the other features.

Re:It would still be a bargain

[dreamchaser]

I'm not sure how you read hostility from posting a fact. There was none.

Re:It would still be a bargain

[Lumpy]

Your DVR? So you only watch obscure and really old things? I found them completely useless and every time I wanted to watch something I had to pay to watch it because it had an additional fee attached to it. Netflix blows them out of the water hard, and Hulu actually has TV shows in a timely manner.

It doesn't offer free shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

... the shipping costs $79 a year. Or $99. Or $129. Before you even buy a single product.

Personally I love prime, but at $129 I would actually count my purchases, do the math, and might settle for 5 day shipping instead.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[mysidia]

Personally I love prime, but at $129 I would actually count my purchases

Prime makes financial sense if you make on average more than 2 orders a month items that would be covered by prime that would not be eligible for free shipping, at $5 shipping.

The streaming videos and free upgrade to 2 day shipping on prime eligible items: add additional value.

I suppose what would be interesting is if they started offering a "Prime Lite" for $60 a year --- with no streaming videos, no 2 day shipping, but free standard shipping on all normally prime-eligible items fulfilled by Amazon.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the thing, they use those to feed their other services such as the kindle and the kindle fire. They want you to sign up for Prime. Offering a shipping only plan would just make it worse.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[TheRaven64]

Is Amazon shipping more expensive in the US? I can't remember the last time I bought anything from Amazon that didn't come with free shipping. The only difference is that Prime gives you next day, whereas their super-saver free delivery gives you 3-5 days (typically closer to 3). I've found that if I need something very urgently then I will go into town and buy it - there are few situations where tomorrow is soon enough, but in a few days time is not.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[rossdee]

I agree, they should offer a Prime Shipping only option, at the old price.
But even if it did increase to $120 I would still pay it, as long as Amazon remains sales tax free

anyway my Prime subscription renews in October, so I have time to save up for the increase

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Amazon shipping more expensive in the US? I can't remember the last time I bought anything from Amazon that didn't come with free shipping. The only difference is that Prime gives you next day, whereas their super-saver free delivery gives you 3-5 days (typically closer to 3). I've found that if I need something very urgently then I will go into town and buy it - there are few situations where tomorrow is soon enough, but in a few days time is not.

I'm guessing you're in the UK. Amazon US is very different from what you describe. Prime here is free 2-day shipping with no minimum (assuming you don't order "addon" items, then $25 minimum). Free Super Saver Shipping is a minimum of $35 now, and usually takes 3-5 days to even ship out from Amazon, and another 3-5 days for delivery. Non-prime Amazon customers are really treated as 3rd class customers compared to other online stores.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[mysidia]

Free Super Saver Shipping is a minimum of $35 now, and usually takes 3-5 days to even ship out from Amazon,

Interesting... I suppose it depends on item. Some items have significant shipping, but are prime eligible. A few items are ineligible for super saver shipping; for some items there is a "Subscribe and Save" option that includes free shipping and a discount --- for automatic reordering of the item on a continual X week basis.

Some big ticket items include automatic free shipping, even without prime.

Some 3rd party sellers have items where shipping is free with or without prime.

Other 3rd party sellers have charges for basic shipping that apply to prime users --- when the seller's not a "fulfilled by Amazon" seller.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

super-saver free delivery gives you 3-5 days (typically closer to 3)

I have prime not so much for free shipping, as I'm willing to leave items in my cart until I hit the free shipping minimum, and not for two-day shipping, as I rarely need it that fast. I have prime because standard shipping is unpredictable. Sometimes it's three days, sometimes it's ten. I have prime because I want to know when it will arrive. I'd be okay with three or four days, consistently. But an occasional ten days isn't acceptable.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[Lumpy]

Amazon punishes people who use free shipping, they will refuse to process the order until there is a whole semi truck full going to the section of the state you are in, I have had an item sit for 7 days before they shipped it. It's the scammy Fedex Post they use, Fedex delivers a semi truck to your state region post office then they carry the packages off to the cities around it. If your timing sucks it can be up to 10 days before it ships.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[ColdWetDog]

And to further confuse things, it depends on where you live. In Alaska (and I presume Hawaii and perhaps Puerto Rico), Prime is a great deal because routine shipping is expensive. Except when it's impossible when you find out that the affiliate doesn't ship to the hinterlands. Amazon also jacks up prices in Alaska, apparently to cover shipping or just because they're Amazon.

It's complicated...

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[John.Banister]

I think, for Amazon, part of the reason behind Prime is to force/enable them to improve their content/product delivery network. They don't want to sell slower shipping. They want to move up to same day shipping, so that they can sell you groceries and be able to insert their delivery and payment infrastructure into purchases you make from local farmers.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[TheRealMindChild]

It is like cable TV channel bundling. You have to take the whole thing so they can profit

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[wiredlogic]

That's fine. Imagine having to wait months for your mailed-in Sears Roebuck order to arrive in Chicago and then get shipped back by train. You don't need instant gratification to get by in life.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

And just to rub it in, after those 7 days of waiting, they ship it via one day shipping. Really, this is a common occurrence for me.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[DarkVader]

I dunno. All of the prime stuff is also free shipping anyway, so long as it's over $35 on your order and you don't mind it not getting there in two days. I'm not usually that impatient, so everything is free shipping, stuff shows up in 3-4 days, and I don't have to pay for prime.

And now that they've started charging sales tax, I'm definitely not paying for prime, I'm buying from alternate sources whenever I can. Sales tax adds damn near 10% to the price.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[hechacker1]

And, if you are in a busy region with a nearby warehouse, I almost always get the items within 2 days even without Prime. I do have Prime, because occasionally I get something that comes from across the country and I appreciate the consistency of knowing when it should arrive.

Oddly enough, sometimes I order things I expect in two days and make plans around it; only to have Amazon deliver the next day (once I had an item the same day when I ordered very early in the morning). I prefer consistent times over anything else.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon punishes people who use free shipping, they will refuse to process the order until there is a whole semi truck full going to the section of the state you are in, I have had an item sit for 7 days before they shipped it. It's the scammy Fedex Post they use, Fedex delivers a semi truck to your state region post office then they carry the packages off to the cities around it. If your timing sucks it can be up to 10 days before it ships.

Umm, that's not punishment, it makes perfect sense. You want to get from the airport to the hotel quickly, pay up for a cab or a taxi. You want to get from the airport to the hotel cheaply, wait for the first bus to drop you off at the downtown transportation hub, use a free transfer, and wait for a second bus to get you from the downtown transportation hub to get you to within a block or two of the hotel.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon punishes people who use free shipping, they will refuse to process the order until there is a whole semi truck full going to the section of the state you are in, I have had an item sit for 7 days before they shipped it. It's the scammy Fedex Post they use, Fedex delivers a semi truck to your state region post office then they carry the packages off to the cities around it. If your timing sucks it can be up to 10 days before it ships.

Oh yes. And fedex "punishes" me by sending my package cross country on a truck instead of the overnight plane just because I didn't pay $40 for the overnight shipping. How dare they.

Seriously, don't be such a whiner. They advertise it as taking 7-10 days. Instead of whining because it sometimes actually takes 7-10 days like they advertised, why don't you just be happy that sometimes it shows up in 1 or 2 days without you having to pay for the 1 or 2 day shipping rates.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

Around here Amazon uses "Laser Ship".

Laser Ship packages are delivered by sketchy looking guys driving 15 year old Honda Accords, with non-commercial plates, that are filled top-to-bottom with packages randomly shoved in the back. They can't see out the back, and at the beginning of their shift the passenger seat is crammed full too.

Re:It doesn't offer free shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

Punishes? This sounds like the sort of trade-off I expect from free shipping.

AWS prices reduced up to 50%

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news. Starting today.

I expect things to get cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Progress, you know.

Re:I expect things to get cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Given an increasing population and a limited supply of land, the price of real estate will never get cheaper.

Re:I expect things to get cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

There's more land, in space! Spaceward, ho!

Re:I expect things to get cheaper

[Hognoxious]

The population isn't increasing, at least not everywhere. Ever heard of the demographic time bomb?

Re:I expect things to get cheaper

[c0lo]

Given an increasing population and a limited supply of land, the price of real estate will never get cheaper.

Yeah, I know; house prices never go down, isn't it?

worth it to me, with the free shipping and video

[cascadingstylesheet]

Not sure I'd be paying for it for just one or the other, but the free shipping on eligible items and Amazon Video on my Roku make it a sweet deal.

My coworkers get a laugh at how many packages I get, but for anyone who's busy, there are countless items that are just a pain to get in the store, but easy as pie to just show up in a box and bring home from work. (Have 'em shipped to work to avoid the whole randomness of where packages get left thing.)

amazon is a Service, not a product

[turkeydance]

services have definitely decreased in prices, however the question is about products. HDTV's, books/magazines, and some popular prescription medicines (depending upon where you shop)...have all decreased in retail price over the last nine years.

Milk

[Anonymous Coward]

Was $1.10 in 2003, now it is $0.99

Re:Milk

[Trepidity]

Also, natural gas: was around $6.50 per million BTU in 2003, now it's $2.25.

Re:Milk

[c0lo]

Was $1.10 in 2003, now it is $0.99

Last time I checked, it was over $40 a galon 128 fl oz.
Yeap, it starts at $45 now, but can get as high as $120,000.00 (+$13.49 shipping).

Re:Milk

[Anonymous Coward]

But is it organic milk from certified virgin lesbian cows that have never felt the touch of a bull?

Re:Milk

[Lumpy]

in your mind.... Its $4.75 a gallon here in 2014

Re: Milk

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it going to snow?

Re:Milk

[Swave An deBwoner]

But in fairness, the gallon with the $120,000 price tag has been quality checked by the seller:

Brand new item. Opened once to check the
contents. Ships fast from NY.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Anonymous Coward]

Your cow-orkers don't steal your packages, don't break your packages, and don't bully you for receiving packages? Must be nice not working among humans.

Re: But but there has been no inflation in 10 year

[JWW]

Your final thought there made me think of something. Imagine if all the spare cycles on EC2 were devoted to mining bitcoin any time they were idle. Amazon probably does have the capacity to corner the market on crypto currency, Google could as well.

Re: But but there has been no inflation in 10 year

[Anonymous Coward]

If your EC2 instances have spare cycles, you're using it wrong.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Trepidity]

Have 'em shipped to work to avoid the whole randomness of where packages get left thing.

This is getting common enough that some companies are starting to complain, though. If a few people do it occasionally it's no big deal, but if 500 employees are each receiving multiple packages a week, it starts becoming a significant added burden on the corporate mailroom.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Anonymous Coward]

The mailroom staff are demanding bribes or they'll go postal.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[dreamchaser]

Your cow-orkers don't steal your packages, don't break your packages, and don't bully you for receiving packages? Must be nice not working among humans.

If that is happening to you then you're the one not working among humans.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[gnasher719]

This is getting common enough that some companies are starting to complain, though. If a few people do it occasionally it's no big deal, but if 500 employees are each receiving multiple packages a week, it starts becoming a significant added burden on the corporate mailroom.

The relationship between company and employees, at first approximation, is that employees come to work, and the company pays them money. In a better approximation, employees do useful work to advance the purposes of the company, while the company does things to keep employees happy. Adding a person to the mailroom is a cheap way to make 500 employees a lot happier, so they will work for you instead of someone else if everything else is equal.

Makes sense from a shareholder PoV

[EmagGeek]

This makes perfect sense from a shareholder point of view. Raising the price to $119 will decrease the number of Prime members, thereby decreasing the cost of providing the Prime service, but the people who stay with Prime will likely more than pay for those who leave. So, it's a win-win for shareholders and Amazon.

Re:Makes sense from a shareholder PoV

[EzInKy]

I'm not so sure. I order twice a month on average and use the hell out of prime videos. Anyway, when I first heard this on NPR I thought to myself that I'd be okay with $99 a year, but at $119 it would be time to think of switching to Netflix or Hulu and stick to shopping locally.

Re:Makes sense from a shareholder PoV

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on some other factors. Examples of how raising the price 50% could hurt amazon:

* Prevents new customers from joining. I know the Prime membership may be saturated, and Amazon has agressively pushed free trials of Prime, but if the full price is high, a lot of people just arent going to bother looking into it.

* For those customers who drop prime, are they also going to drop Amazon? Amazon has some advantages (size...they offer one stop shopping for most things) but I can find most things they sell from another online dealer at similar or lower prices. In fact, many other online retailers now offer the equivalent of Amazon's Free Super Saver shipping, so without Prime, Amazon loses some of its incentive.

* Videos. Amazon's Video service comes with a lot of decent free stuff, but its not as good as (and largely a subset of) Netflix. It doesn't have to be though, because Amazon wants you to use it because its "free" but then start buying the non-free content which is seamlessly mixed within the library. This has worked well for them in my case, that is what the wife and I use for rentals. But if you don't already have a reason to install or view their "app" for the free stuff, you again might be more inclined to purchase content somewhere else.

I always assumed Prime was a "loss leader" designed to "get you in the door" to Amazon's product/service offering. Perhaps they want it to be profitable as a standalone item, but 50% is a steep hike.

Re:Makes sense from a shareholder PoV

[AthanasiusKircher]

This makes perfect sense from a shareholder point of view. Raising the price to $119 will decrease the number of Prime members, thereby decreasing the cost of providing the Prime service, but the people who stay with Prime will likely more than pay for those who leave.

This logic is horribly flawed. Yes, it's possible that this will be the case, but it will really depend on a lot of factors.

The main problem is your assumption that the people who would drop were the ones who weren't profitable to Amazon. This is not necessarily true.

Let's take the shipping aspect. I bet a lot of people who pay for Amazon Prime don't order nearly as often as they assume they might. They just want stuff fast occasionally, so it's convenient. Maybe they only place an order every 4-6 weeks.

Now, let's say for the average order (just to make up some numbers), that Amazon breaks even at an $80 price point for shipping if a customer orders once per 4 weeks. If they order more frequently, the shipping ends up costing Amazon more than $80; if they order less, Amazon makes a profit.

Okay, so what happens when we raise the price to $120, i.e., an increase of 50%? Now the break-even point is 18 shipments per year, so you'd think Amazon can now afford to provide better service to frequent users, right? Except, suppose a significant number of those people who only order once per 4, 6, 8, etc. weeks decide $120 is too much for them. They all drop. Suddenly you're left with all the "heavy users" of Prime -- the people who place orders weekly or biweekly or something. Amazon can now afford to make 18 shipments per year per customer, an increase of 50%, but their average customer demand went from 12 shipments per year to 26/year or 52/year or something.

It's perfectly possible for this to go the other way, in which case Amazon's decision works for shareholders and Amazon's profits. But it's also certainly possible that if they raise the price too much, it will drive away all but the "worst" Prime users in terms of the value to the company.

This is generally an issue whenever an "unlimited free X" service is offered. It's the issue with internet bandwidth, for example (to bring up something that's inevitably going to lead to huge digressions in this thread if anyone wants to argue about it). A small percentage of users for "unlimited" services often utilize a hugely disproportionate amount of resources... and most companies would generally prefer to get rid of the heaviest users when possible, if it were.

Instead, they usually accept the fact that they will take a hit in profits on the top 5-10% of "unlimited service" users (who cost more than they are worth) in order to grab that bottom 30 or 40% who barely use the service but pay anyway. The "unlimited" idea is great advertising.

But eventually, if you raise the price enough, you'll probably hit some sort of place where you only have those crazy people left... and the entire service ends up being unprofitable.

To take the extreme case, the logical outcome of your argument is that companies should increase prices to the point where they only have one customer for any given service, since the person who stays will "likely more than pay for those who leave." That's clearly not a "win-win" in most scenarios.

Re:Makes sense from a shareholder PoV

[EmagGeek]

Your logic an assumptions are horribly flawed, most notably because you are assuming they can't and won't ever lower the price again if they need more subscribers.

Re:Makes sense from a shareholder PoV

[poolecl]

But if you shed the casual Prime customers, the ones that are making less purchases, you are decreasing your prime revenue more than you are decreasing the cost of providing prime services. Also, you risk loosing the sales of those customers altogether if they no longer feel "locked in" to Amazon through their prime membership.http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4739279&cid=46128421#

Re:Makes sense from a shareholder PoV

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's take the shipping aspect. I bet a lot of people who pay for Amazon Prime don't order nearly as often as they assume they might. They just want stuff fast occasionally, so it's convenient. Maybe they only place an order every 4-6 weeks.

But eventually, if you raise the price enough, you'll probably hit some sort of place where you only have those crazy people left... and the entire service ends up being unprofitable.

Shhhh! I happen to like having 29" mountain bikes and 50" TVs overnight expressed for $13 :)

Re:Makes sense from a shareholder PoV

[Rich0]

I have to agree. I was on the fence at $79, signed up, and I think I've gotten good value from it. However, I'd be back on the fence at the new rate.

Maybe they should offer prime members some incentive to use super-saver shipping on orders they don't need in two days. The price is the same either way so there is no incentive for me to save them money, but there are some orders that I really don't care about delivery time on.

They also need to release a video app for Android. They already have it - they just need to release it. The video offerings aren't going to sway customers when the competition works on any tablet and theirs only works on a Kindle that isn't as good for reading books.

Now that they charge sales tax there are also a lot of vendors which can beat them on price - sales tax and shipping are basically a wash. Also, I've noticed that more of my prime orders show up USPS with poor tracking in two days, instead of UPS with excellent tracking in 1-2 days.

I'll probably stick with Prime for $79 - two-day shipping is really convenient - more convenient than a store much of the time. However, if they hike the price I'd probably cancel and see how much I live with the pain. They might end up giving a bunch of please-come-back deals and end up losing more money than they'd have made if they just left the price alone.

Re: But but there has been no inflation in 10 year

[TheRaven64]

There are two things wrong with your post. The first is that the electricity cost just from the CPU is significantly higher than the value of the BitCoins created. The second is the assumption that there are a lot of spare cycles on EC2. The entire design of datacentres like this is to ensure that the computers are used efficiently by ensuring that there is always some job ready to run.

Re: But but there has been no inflation in 10 year

[Hognoxious]

You having them != Amazon (or any other host) having them.

Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[rayd75]

I find it interesting that this comes just as Amazon has fallen in love with hybrid shipping services such as UPS Mail Innovations and FedEx SmartPost for Prime delivery. These services utilize UPS or FedEx only to the destination city where your package is then handed off to the USPS for delivery. As a result, Prime "guaranteed" 2-day delivery has become "often 2-day" or "occasional 2-day" ...and now, they feel like this is worth more? Wow.

Oh, they still haven't dropped the magic word "guaranteed". Their offering to satisfy the guarantee is an additional month of inconsistent, slower than stated service.

Re:Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[Anonymous Coward]

The worst is when they use OnTrac. OnTrac is a Colorado, Nevada, etc. regional carrier. Once you see OnTrac just add a day. Their website will say "guaranteed delivery date of Jan 30" but it won't be there till the 31st. Guaranteed.

Re:Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. USPS adds at least a day to delivery, and even at that my "assigned" post office is 28 miles round-trip (the nearest one is 4 miles away, used to be our "assigned" PO).

That's not worth anything to me - UPS, FedEx, and DHL are happy to deliver to our house, but USPS doesn't feel it's worth their effort because the road dead-ends. This is why we need a government monopoly - to ensure "universal service".

I've complained to Amazon, asked to be put on a "no USPS" list - so they can live up to their guarantee, but the best they could offer was to forward the message on to management. Maybe it's my fault prices are going up. :) I can't blame Amazon for the Federal Reserve's dollar-depreciation strategy, though.

CAPTCHA: bilking

Re:Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Portland and often get Prime packages sent from NV by OnTrac. In my experience they've been pretty darn reliable as far as transit times to the city, but the delivery drivers are some of the laziest around. A couple times they didn't even bother to attempt delivery although that hasn't happened since I complained.

Re:Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[hobbes vs boyle]

If Amazon does indeed give you a guaranteed delivery date and the item doesn't arrive on time you can complain to CS and they'll give you 5 to 10 dollars off/one month of free prime.

Re:Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[drinkypoo]

On the flip side I live in bumfuck and the only carrier I've found to be more reliable for delivering to my rural address than OnTrac is California Overnight, which is even more local and even smaller. And shockingly inexpensive, judging by what people have paid to ship things to me via them.

Re:Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[Zaphon]

Yeah, I was complaining to them about this exact issue, but they just don't care. I used to get everything with UPS/Fedex and it was great and reliable. Then it went to OnTrac and it became problematic, and now it's all coming via the USPS and half the time they say I'm not home when I am (I work from home, I absolutely assure you I am here), and let's not forget the problem that I haven't gotten a package in the promised time in forever. It's simply not worth the hassle to complain to Amazon every time anymore, I'll just let my subscription lapse (and it's definitely not worth more money (unless they will let me choose UPS/FedEx only for example, that I would pay more for)).

Re: Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't had the SurePost happen but know personal friends who have. One of these days Amazon is going to end up with a Class Action lawsuit on their hands over it...

Re:Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, just recently cancelled my Prime membership for this very reason. 80% of what I ordered was ending up in the hands of USPS, which is just terrible around here. I'm talking about leaving pink slips for my packages without even checking if I'm home because the postman is too lazy to come to my door. In this case "2-day delivery" means one of two things: 3-day-then-wait-in-line-at-the-post-office-for-at-least-20-minutes delivery, or go online to "schedule redelivery" and hope that they actually honor the request (50/50 around here). Had to do that 3 times with my last package before they actually got it to me, so 2-day delivery ended up being 2-week delivery, and that's when I finally cancelled.

If Amazon had stuck with UPS, I would have kept it.

Re:Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[RealGene]

You should be complaining to the Postmaster General, not AMZN.

Re:Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[Anonymous Coward]

When it clearly isn't the carrier's fault I file a complaint and get a refund on the shipping. I say it's been about a 50/50 split on whose fault is the shippping delay.

Re:Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[longbot]

You seriously think they give a damn? I live in an apartment complex with package lockers, and I had a lazy mail carrier break the key off in one of the locks, making it unopenable. They chucked the key in my mailbox and left it there for three days. My options were to call USPS or take power tools to the locker. The latter would be a felony, as it was supposedly USPS property. I spent two hours on the phone before I got to the regional postmaster, and even then, they refused to do anything until I threatened legal action. I just wanted my goddamned package... And people wonder why I ship everything I can via FedEx.

Re:Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon auto-renews... you can't just let it lapse.

Re:Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[Anonymous Coward]

I fucking hate this. UPS drops it off in a different city than the one that services me. I lose tracking AND it takes an extra 2 days to get my package. DIAF hybrid shipping.

Re:Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[Rich0]

I've noticed this as well. 95% of the time I do get it in two days, but:

1. Tracking is awful. With UPS I knew where the package was practically in realtime. The guy would drop it at my door and I'd get a text in 15min. I'd know at 5AM that it was out for delivery. With USPS the tracking might start working before the package is delivered half the time, and it is anybody's guess when it will be delivered.

2. With UPS the guarantee was 2 days, but maybe half the time I got it in one. I buy something at 2PM and I have it at lunch the next day for free. That caused me to but a LOT of stuff from Amazon that I'd normally run to Walmart or whatever for. Who wants to stand at a checkout? Any better and I'd be ordering milk and eggs from them. With USPS I'm basically not going to get it in less than 2 days.

The one benefit to USPS is they deliver on Sat. If they used USPS when the timing was such that it would enable a Sat delivery I could live with the lousy tracking.

Aside - I recently rented some textbooks on Amazon and the free returns were all via USPS. That bothered me - the cost if those shipments were lost was substantial and I couldn't use a courier with decent tracking. As far as I'm aware you can't get a receipt for dropping off a package with USPS like you can with UPS/etc. When I return things with substantial value I ALWAYS get a receipt from the place I drop it off at. Oh, UPS drop-offs are more convenient - they don't close at lunch on Sat and they are open on Sun.

Re:Brilliant strategy: Pay more for less

[Swave An deBwoner]

There's a checkbox to disable auto-renewal.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Anonymous Coward]

A strict ban on personal packages is cheaper and easier for the company. Employees can either obey or find employment elsewhere.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Trepidity]

That's certainly an option. However around here, we got an email in December asking us to please not have all our Christmas shopping sent to the office address. No real enforcement, just "hey don't ship everything to the office pls". My guess is that this will become more common if more people start doing it: right now the people ordering from prime regularly to their work address at most workplaces are a pretty small proportion of employees, so it's not a big deal to accommodate them.

Computers have gone DOWN in price

[pubwvj]

Computers have gone down in price.

I paid $10,000 less for my new tractor than the one 12 years before and the new one is 50% more powerful.

Music, DVDs and other entertainment cost less - I don't go to the theater which I hear costs more but the fact that it costs more is part of why I don't go.

Amazon Prime has even less to delivery than computers so by your logic it should decrease in price over time.

Already have a marker to canel

[Anonymous Coward]

Addition of sales taxes at amazon + more competition in streaming service makes this a deal breaker. I was on the fence at $79.

Seeing as it's not a product...

[jpellino]

...it really doesn't need to be justified. It's a leash. Like your Sam's, BJ's or Costco membership. It makes you want to buy more stuff at Amazon (on account of you don't want to waste that $80 you handed them) and they make it all up on volume and margins. No way the $80 ever offset the shipping in any reasonable fashion. I get free shipping from Bean's and pay nothing up front for it.

They do need to get more money though, if only to replace the drones that will no doubt be used for plinking practice by the neighbor kids.

Re:Seeing as it's not a product...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean anti-capitalist terrorists? They have drones to deal with that.

Re:Seeing as it's not a product...

[csumpi]

Disagree. It's not free shipping. It's free two day shipping. That's a big difference. The difference of having to spend a couple of hours to buy stuff at a store 10 miles away, vs having it on my doorstep in a reasonable amount of time. Many times it's there the next day. With two kids, this not only is worth it, it actually saves money big time for or family. Then throw in the occasional free instant video, it's golden.

Re:Seeing as it's not a product...

[ColdWetDog]

Not always. Sometimes it is free shipping. Amazon Prime is a fantastic deal for folks not living in the continental US. And will remain so until they wise up and find that even more affiliates 'can't' ship to my destination address.

Just had a propane grill shipped to Alaska. For free. Hard to beat that.

I don't expect it to last. WalMart stopped free shipping to Alaska a while back. At present, the back of the UPS / FedEx trucks are just full of Amazon boxes. Is it a good deal for them? Who knows?

Re:Seeing as it's not a product...

[Anonymous Coward]

I got Prime within a year or two of when it came out, and it was a great value for me. As soon as I wanted a single product, I could buy it -- whereas I used to wait weeks or months to bundle things together to save on shipping. My purchasing habits have changed greatly, and I also don't like their video service and they bought exclusive contracts on at least one TV show (Community) I enjoy so I can't watch on the video services I do use. I was already pretty sure I wouldn't renew, and there's no way I'd pay $119.
 
Tying shipping together with on-demand video is a very, very tenuous association that was clearly a way to try to get people to use their video service; increasing the costs because of the video part of the service is an easy way to lose people who used Prime for their shipping. I guess they must think they no longer need those Prime members, even if it costs them retail sales as well.

Re:Seeing as it's not a product...

[csumpi]

I live in Boston. There's an amazon warehouse somewhere in the area. With prime, about 30% of my orders are on my doorstep the next morning. So it has benefits for continental US, too.

In fact, I think that's where amazon is going. Local warehouses with same or next day delivery.

Re:Seeing as it's not a product...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

It's a leash. Like your Sam's, BJ's or Costco membership. It makes you want to buy more stuff at Amazon (on account of you don't want to waste that $80 you handed them) and they make it all up on volume and margins.

This, 100% this. Prime is about making sure Amazon is at the top of your list of places to shop at. We all have such a list, and very few of us have the time to check thee or four merchants. Lots of people don't even have the time to do more than one merchant. Having a prime "membership" helps to make sure amazon always gets a chance at your money whenever you are ready to spend it.

Re:Seeing as it's not a product...

[Loligo]

As a small business owner that lives in a small town in the middle of nowhere, that $80 a year makes perfect sense.

Being able to order computer parts with free two day shipping is a huge boon. I can't buy them locally (as in, they don't exist in a 130 mile radius), less downtime makes my customers happy, and free shipping increases my margins.

I place anywhere from two to ten orders a week with Amazon. First name basis with my UPS and FedEx drivers AND their backups. Amazon Prime has been tremendously helpful to getting my business going.

Sure, if you live in a metro area surrounded by Best Buys and WalMarts it makes less sense, but many of us don't.

Re:Seeing as it's not a product...

[Rich0]

Sure, if you live in a metro area surrounded by Best Buys and WalMarts it makes less sense, but many of us don't.

Bestbuy is almost guaranteed to cost as much as Amazon plus paying for overnight shipping - that varies but is often the case. Walmart could be better/worse depending on the item.

However, convenience is what causes me to use Prime heavily. I don't want to go to Walmart on some random weeknight to get one thing and then stand in line for 15min, plus parking a mile away from the store in the winter. Instead I can buy that item on Amazon and have it at my door in a day or two. Unless I was going to drop everything and go to Walmart THAT NIGHT Amazon gets me the item just as fast or faster, and certainly more conveniently.

Re:Seeing as it's not a product...

[NoImNotNineVolt]

I get free shipping from Bean's and pay nothing up front for it.

Who is this Bean? That sounds like a great deal, and your informative post couldn't have come at a better time. I'm looking to buy a new TV, some cat litter, and mesophilic cheese culture. I was about to purchase a Prime subscription, but perhaps I'll be able to get all this stuff shipped from Bean's and save myself some money.

bad move Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a bad move on Amazons part. I dumped cable in favor of Netflix. I dumped Netflix in favor of Amazon Prime. All 3 have crap content so price point is my comparison. Except Amazons interface is the crappiest of all 3 AND it forces me to stream from an iPod or iPhone to an AppleTV because there is no app for the AppleTV (yet?) and so the resolution is less than other choices. I am not firing up my Playstation every time my kid wants to watch some Nickelodeon stuff as its a power hog.
Amazons prices in general don't encourage me to purchase anything and "free" shipping as a Prime member is not free if the shipping is built into the price of the product. I have made one purchase in 3 months through Prime and that was for a pile of computer memory offered through an affiliate of Amazon.

I WILL go back to Netflix if I am presented with a bill next year that is the same or more than Netflix per year.

Prime air?

[JC61990]

Maybe they are going to start collecting more to help fund prime air. Either way i get it 50% off with my student discount :P

I'd buy it at $99, maybe not $119

[digitalhermit]

Having Prime makes me more likely to buy an item. In fact, when I search I generally click the "Prime" filter. Many of the items I won't buy without Prime because the extra shipping discourages me .It's not that I care all that much about the actual shipping cost, just the total price. When a retailer puts an artificially low price then tacks on a large shipping price then I get annoyed and don't buy from them. With Prime, I know the price I see is what I'll pay and have it there in two days.

I don't use the Prime video service because it sucks. I can't watch it on AppleTV or Chromecast natively and selection is quite poor.

If only Prime were a premium service...

[SavvyPlayer]

As a Prime member, for every non-prime eligible item I find, I look for a Prime eligible counterpart. The price for the counterpart is _always_ about $3-5 more expensive, usually by the same amount as the quoted shipping price on the non-Prime eligible item. So what we are getting here is the 2-day upgrade for free, not the entire cost of shipping. Most of the time, 2-day vs. 4-day shipping makes no difference to me.

We do occasionally stream Prime content, but the vast majority of titles on Prime are also on Netflix. If I could cancel my Netflix subscription and replace with Prime, the $120 pricepoint might not look so steep, but alas, it often seems Amazon's library is only about 25% the size of Netflix, so that's not an option.

So as it stands, I feel I am not really getting $80 in value from Prime as it stands. $120 with no improvement to the service is out of the question. I like the idea of a premium Amazon service, it just needs to actually _be_ premium.

Re:If only Prime were a premium service...

[csumpi]

Except non prime items ship for $8. They just hide your "savings" in the shipping cost. So you still save $3-$5 on prime and you get it in two days vs a week. With extremely liberal free returns vs paying shipping on returns to 3rd parties.

Re:If only Prime were a premium service...

[drinkypoo]

Except non prime items ship for $8. They just hide your "savings" in the shipping cost.

That is commonly untrue on items which cost any significant amount of money, which typically have free shipping.

Re:If only Prime were a premium service...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except I normally just wait to buy until I have $35 worth of stuff in my cart. Don't get me wrong, I use prime, it's just the 'savings on shipping' is bs to me. I rarely pay for shipping, especially on amazon. The main advantage of prime is fast shipping, and not having to worry about a minimum.

Re:If only Prime were a premium service...

[csumpi]

Ok. Sure. I can find a $400 GoPro Hero for free shipping.

But how many of those you order a month? Vs soap, books, lightbulbs, undies and other small items that one needs quite often?

Also, if you buy the $400 GoPro Hero through amazon prime, and there's an issue with it, they will ship you a new one before you drop yours, for free return, into a UPS box.

Free shipping also means free shipping back. Free shipping also works on small items.

Dude. You are missing the whole point.

.

Re:If only Prime were a premium service...

[Anonymous Coward]

I literally had no idea anybody routinely bought soap via Amazon. I tend to get a shitload of soap all at once at some bulk store and it lasts a long while. Similar with underwear (people get new underwear frequently, in less than super-saver quantities? Men? Huh.).

Books, I buy a few at a time, which again qualifies for free super saver shipping and is less frequent to boot.

Re:If only Prime were a premium service...

[TheFirebyrd]

I'm pretty sure they send you the replacement item before you ship the broken one regardless of whether you have Prime or not. I know for sure they did it with a Kindle for me once and I can think of some other items that I'm pretty sure happened before I had Prime. Doesn't make sense that they wouldn't since their reasoning is that they have your credit card number (and if they don't, they will require you to give it to them before shipping the replacement), so they can just charge you for another if you haven't returned the broken one within a month. As for small items, many of the small items on Prime have now become "add-ons," and you can't even buy them without a $25 order.

Re:If only Prime were a premium service...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was completely worth it when overnight shipping was only an additional 1.99. Now, overnight shipping is 3.99 and it takes a significant number of shipments to end up with a net win.

Re:If only Prime were a premium service...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's you who are missing the point. Free shipping is offered on almost any order totaling over $35 sold by Amazon. If you queue up items until you get $35 before you buy, you'll never pay shipping.

Re:If only Prime were a premium service...

[Rich0]

Except I normally just wait to buy until I have $35 worth of stuff in my cart. Don't get me wrong, I use prime, it's just the 'savings on shipping' is bs to me. I rarely pay for shipping, especially on amazon. The main advantage of prime is fast shipping, and not having to worry about a minimum.

That's what I used to think until I got Prime. I found myself buying a lot more cheap stuff that normally would sit in my cart until I accumulated $25 worth (at the time). Except, half the time I'd end up buying it at Walmart before then anyway because I couldn't wait any longer. With Prime I can usually have something delivered before I even get a chance to go to Walmart, and there are no minimums. I buy a lot more from Amazon as a result.

Amazon also isn't the only game in town. If Newegg or whatever charges the same price, doesn't charge sales tax, and has $3 shipping with no minimum order size, I need to buy a lot of stuff on Prime for it to make sense.

Re:If only Prime were a premium service...

[Swave An deBwoner]

Also, if you buy the $400 GoPro Hero through amazon prime, and there's an issue with it, they will ship you a new one before you drop yours, for free return, into a UPS box.

Recently I ordered a light fixture with a glass shade and an Intel CPU at the same time. Apparently Amazon decided to package these two items together to ship them to me via Prime. After a few days I checked the tracking info and found that FedEx had returned the shipment as damaged before it even entered the state that I reside in. I decided to wait to see what Amazon was going to do next.

Five days after the "guaranteed" delivery date I received email from Amazon saying that "A shipment from your order (#xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) for the following item(s) has been returned as undeliverable ... If you haven't already requested a replacement order or received a replacement notification, you'll receive a refund notification soon, in which case you may return to our website and place a new order."

They then refunded the price of the CPU. I waited a few days more to see whether they were going to add on a refund for the fixture. No. So I emailed them to note that neither the fixture nor the CPU were delivered to me and that I'd appreciate a refund on the fixture also. They then promptly refunded that.

I was curious about the "extra month of Prime" that I had read about on other discussions so I waited some more, but no, no such offer was forthcoming. This time I didn't write to Amazon to ask.

I didn't reorder the fixture yet but I ordered the CPU for $20 less with free shipping from Fry's. And now it's backordered from there :-)

So what is my point? I digress.

Well, according to the government

[argStyopa]

"...How many products do you use that haven't increased in price for that long?..."

Pretty much none. Of course, the government (of both parties) has been telling me "inflation's at/near 0%" for longer than that....

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[ButchDeLoria]

From Outer Space?

Prime is 29 Euros in Germany

[Knuckles]

Just FYI

Re:Prime is 29 Euros in Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

In germany prime does not include streaming instant video. For that amazon has a separate service called lovefilm.de which does netflix style DVD delivery and instant streaming.

Re:Prime is 29 Euros in Germany

[Knuckles]

In germany prime does not include streaming instant video. For that amazon has a separate service called lovefilm.de which does netflix style DVD delivery and instant streaming.

I see, thanks

Oh no the sky is falling!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Darn those pesky first world problems. They have provided a decent service and if you really need to cover the increase, then hit a few garage sales and buy some books cheap to sell back to amazon.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Anonymous Coward]

Gay or not the superintelligent blacks are the ones who reject thug culture because they understand it is self-destructive. The biggest threat to them is the blacks who weren't so smart. After all valuing education and not thinking of jailtime as a trophy is "acting white" and running a business is being an "uncle Tom".

Course the media would rather blow a few instances of real white racism out of proportion than talk about what really keeps black people down. No one in media or politics is interested in actually solving a problem. That would hurt their business.

Bad Idea :(.........

[Anonymous Coward]

NOOOOOOO!
This is a bad idea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

still very good deal if you use streaming

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I have children who love Netflix. However, Amazon prime video has enough stuff now that it's pretty comparable. Plus if there's something I really want to watch and it's not in Prime it is usually available for instant on-demand streaming for a fee (don't have to wait for a DVD per Netflix, which I'm never interested in doing). So I get free shipping + a decent netflix clone for $100/year? It makes sense to me. I suspect my price-point to drop it is over $150 honestly, since I do a large percentage of my shopping on Amazon. I may drop Netflix though.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Anonymous Coward]

This is getting common enough that some companies are starting to complain, though. If a few people do it occasionally it's no big deal, but if 500 employees are each receiving multiple packages a week, it starts becoming a significant added burden on the corporate mailroom.

The relationship between company and employees, at first approximation, is that employees come to work, and the company pays them money. In a better approximation, employees do useful work to advance the purposes of the company, while the company does things to keep employees happy. Adding a person to the mailroom is a cheap way to make 500 employees a lot happier, so they will work for you instead of someone else if everything else is equal.

Not doing this falls under "keep employers and coworkers the fuck out of my business thankyouverymuch", a policy that has served me well. I know a lot of people use the workplace as a substitute for having a real social life. They're the ones who want to have some stupid "potluck" or awkward office party every other day so they can waste your time and make you have to bring something in like you weren't already busy enough so they can feel significant for a whole afternoon. But when you have a real social life and meet those needs in a more healthy way, you realize the virtue of keeping nosy gossips out of your business. You're also more productive when you come to the workplace for the sole purpose of working, something bosses tend to appreciate.

My employer already knows a lot about me. What I order and from whom and how often and what the busybodies can infer about me doesn't need to be added to that list. Believe me, they'll take the most innocent act and twist it around. If you think this isn't happening to you, it's happening behind your back. It's nothing more personal than how petty and childish the average person has become. Besides, most of the reasons why you'd send packages to the office are resolved in a much more satisfying way by living in a decent neighborhood.

Why Prime?

[MMC Monster]

I never saw the fascination of Amazon Prime. I figured that, like most people on /., I'm not in the target demographic. I'm quite happy to wait 3-5 days for a package to arive. In addition, when I buy a movie, I like to hold the disc in my hand.

Prime is for the people that must have what they bought now. Whatever happened to delaying gratification?

Re:Why Prime?

[guruevi]

It's not really the wait time, it's mostly that almost all shipping is free. Where regular Amazon users generally pay a few bucks in shipping per order (yes, there are free 3-5 day shipping items but not everything is), Prime users don't pay anything at all AND they get a 2 day delivery. I order just about anything for my office from Amazon, the Prime cost is recouped in less than a month.

Re:Why Prime?

[sehryan]

Amazon Instant Videos, which includes much better movies than are available via Netflix. $79/year breaks down to being cheaper than Netflix Streaming.

The free two-day shipping is just a perk for me. You can also share Prime shipping with other Amazon accounts, which allows my wife (and the business she runs) to benefit from Prime with no additional cost.

Re:Why Prime?

[squiggleslash]

As far as the free shipping goes - It's not just about two day shipping, the "free" (non-Prime) supersaver shipping option only applies on orders over $25. Ordering one book or one DVD won't qualify. Prime, on the other hand, lets you order something for $5 and not have to either find $20 worth of other stuff you don't really want, or add 20-50% to the price just to cover shipping costs.

By itself that's of questionable value, but quite nice, but the fact Prime also includes a Netflix type streaming service and an eBook library makes the subscription worthwhile, at least at its present price, for me.

Re:Why Prime?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Prime is for the people that must have what they bought now. Whatever happened to delaying gratification?

You don't go to stores? Prime is to replace driving to do store shopping, not getting a book you will read next month. Need an odd concrete anchor bolt you can't find at the little hardware store or Home Depot? Just get it on Amazon and save the hour and a half drive to the specialty concrete yard

Our washing machine died, and I paid $4 to have the part here the very next day. Sears was a week plus shipping and double the price. What benefit would I have gained by waiting a week to fix the washer?

Re:Why Prime?

[csumpi]

Easy. Don't use it.

Re:Why Prime?

[Anonymous Coward]

What benefit would I have gained by waiting a week to fix the washer?

That small delicious feeling of knowing your wife is pissed off about something outside of her control for an extra week?

Re:Why Prime?

[MMC Monster]

What I'm saying is that for the extra $79 a year, I don't see much value added over standard amazon. Especially since if your amazon cart is $50 or more you typically get free shipping anyway.

So maybe it makes sense for you. I generally don't need that special part the next day. And for the rare times I do need something the next day, I go to a local store.

Re:Why Prime?

[kenai_alpenglow]

Agree. I needed a replacement cord for a printer. With prime, I got the thing cheaper than gas money to the local store. Plus, since I lived near a distribution center it was quicker (I usually got things the next morning from an evening order).

Re:Why Prime?

[dugancent]

Better than Netflix? I have both and I think Prime video is TERRIBLE. Everything I want to watch is a rental, which I don't need prime for.

Re:Why Prime?

[Pulzar]

I figured that, like most people on /., I'm not in the target demographic.

I don't think you figured "like most people on /." part right. At least in my experience, just about every computer geek I know has Prime.

Screw the delayed gratification. When I go to store to buy something, I get it right then and there. Online was always a pain because of the delay... Prime makes the delay very manageable.

Re:Why Prime?

[SeaFox]

As far as the free shipping goes - It's not just about two day shipping, the "free" (non-Prime) supersaver shipping option only applies on orders over $25. Ordering one book or one DVD won't qualify.

It's actually $35 minimum now, but that really isn't hard to do. I will lots of times pad my order with a cartridges for my inkjet, or optical media blanks -- things I like to have around and don't have to use immediately. Also, you can set up your order to include pre-order items. Amazon will send you the items that are immediately available, and then wait for the preorder item to release to ship it, and you'll still get free shipping on everything even though the order was technically split (provided you don't cancel the pre-order).

Re:Why Prime?

[timeOday]

Do you actually have Prime? Most small items in the $5 range are not prime-eligible, or are at best add-on items (i.e. find $20 of other stuff you don't really want...)

Re:Why Prime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't seem very local if it's so far that you need to drive there.

Re:Why Prime?

[squiggleslash]

Yes I do have Prime and yes we frequently order things that are well below $10 in price.

Re:Why Prime?

[AdamHaun]

Amazon has much better selection than any store and doesn't require me to drive anywhere, plus it has reviews. I buy almost everything that isn't groceries off of Amazon with Prime. If I need something quickly, I do the $3.99 upgrade to overnight shipping.

If you don't care about long it takes a package to arrive, there's free super saver shipping on the same items eligible for Prime. It's just different tiers of service for people with different preferences.

Re:Why Prime?

[Rich0]

It changes the sorts of things you buy online. Before it was about stuff that you stockpiled before you needed. With Prime it replaces quite a few trips to the local Walmart. Need a box of pens? How about a light bulb? Need new wiper blades before the car inspection next week (local place loves selling $35 cheapo blades)? Groceries?

I've been a member for a year. If I get the $79 rate I'd probably keep it. If they try to up the rate I'd probably cancel, at least for a while. It drives me nuts that they don't have an Android video client, that they're now moving to USPS for many deliveries, and they now charge sales tax in my state. Granted, they can't control the last bit, but they're losing the ability to command a premium all the same...

Re:Why Prime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Prime users don't pay anything at all

This is completely wrong.

I routinely check alternate price listings when I don't actually need something right away, and the Amazon Prime price is almost always about the same as the next highest offer INCLUDING SHIPPING.

You ARE paying for shipping, plus an additional increment of $79 / x, where x = "the number of things you buy in a year".

You will pay FAR MORE for shipping using Amazon Prime when you need to buy multiples of items only available as single items via Amazon. In those cases, it's far more cost effective to buy somewhere else that discounts for bulk orders.

The real advantages to Prime come from 1) the ability to manage orders through a single site, including a good return policy, and 2) not having to pay extra for the ~2 day shipping.

Re:Why Prime?

[Swave An deBwoner]

The stuff that ships "free" via Prime also ships "free" via their SuperSaver (slower) shipping method if your order is over $35 (raised recently from $25).

There's a lot of stuff on Amazon that is not Prime (or SuperSaver) eligible though.

Re:Why Prime?

[painandgreed]

I never saw the fascination of Amazon Prime. I figured that, like most people on /., I'm not in the target demographic. I'm quite happy to wait 3-5 days for a package to arive. In addition, when I buy a movie, I like to hold the disc in my hand.

Prime is for the people that must have what they bought now. Whatever happened to delaying gratification?

You sound old. Do you live in Korea?

Food has gone down in price.

[pubwvj]

In real dollars food costs far less than it did 30 years ago. Not everything goes up in price. In fact, accounting for inflation, a lot of things go down in price.

Re:Food has gone down in price.

[tepples]

"Accounting for inflation" doesn't help people who have to make ends meet on income not tied to inflation.

The Umbrella Corporation.

[rmdingler]

I enjoy the convenience of Web shopping for personal and professional use.

I can order from online companies I have never heard of, without fear of being cheated, when they are under the umbrella of the Amazon corporation. This is their prime benefit to me.

The reduced prime membership rates also include a nominal fee (sometimes $3.99) to upgrade to one day shipping... very handy when shopping parts for a job. It is still almost magical to me that I can order something from a city 1500 miles away at 1400 hours and, despite signs at both gates to leave the package outside the fence, have our puppy chewing the box it was delivered in the next day.

If it wasn't such a mess in Europe

[jbernardo]

I have Prime for the German amazon, as it is the closest (less delivery time) to where I live, the prices are in euros, and has the most diversity of the European amazon stores.

However, I have my kindle set to amazon.co.uk because I only understand a few German words, most my reading is in English, my magazine subscriptions (Analog) are available only from there or the US, and I'd rather read some of my favourite authors in the original UK English spelling.

As such, I can't loan kindle titles (only if I had my kindle set to the German amazon), and of course I don't have the streaming. The interesting part here is that I can have prime either with German, French, Italian or UK amazon, without living in any of these countries, but I must pay a Prime subscription in each country, like if it was a different company and not the same one with headquarters in Luxembourg.

It *used to be* no taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

But now that's changed here in Mass. So I'll probably drop in any case in favor Netflix and slightly longer shipping / more comparison shopping.

Re:It *used to be* no taxes

[bill_mcgonigle]

Surprising - our State doesn't extract taxes on sales here in NH, but so many of my friends have Prime. We use it to replace driving. I can get a package overnight for what gas costs to go to the local urban sprawl and do other things with my time. Plus, if you need anything odd, the local & big box stores rarely have it. Yeah, the local store will order it for you if you have two weeks to wait, but to do that you have to go there and not find it in the first place.

Prime is for those who don't understand marketing

[justthinkit]

Prime is for those who don't understand marketing.

Why do manufacturers come out with those two-bit coupons? The handling on that $0.25 discount is probably $25.00. What do they get for that?

(1) They get some advertising of their product, sure, but most importantly (2) They lower the barrier to entry/purchase so that (3) More people buy their product with (4) Less thought about it.

Gift cards are a similar idea. Give someone a gift card and they will spend it as a "bonus". Give them cash and they will treat it like all their other cash. When gift cards first came out, they used to offer something extra, for your trouble. That something extra was a tip-of-the-icebergian fraction of what they were gaining from the transaction. Now we are all so accepting of, and enamoured with, gifting hunks of plastic that they charge...up to $10...for a "gift" charge card.

When you have "free shipping" you buy (1) more stuff, (2) more often, (3) with less thought about it. And Amazon laughs all the way to the bank.

If I want something and it is over the $25/35 cutoff, then I order it. Otherwise I put it on the wish list and forget about it. For video watching I use Netflix. Amazon Prime is for $DerogatoryWord.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Anonymous Coward]

find employment elsewhere.

Yes, I believe that is what gnasher719 was getting at.

Both

[tepples]

has shipping gotten more expensive or are people ordering more stuff?

Both. As wages and fuel prices increase, shipping costs increase. (Much of this ultimately results from cost-push when the U.S. minimum wage and other wages tied to it rise.) And people have been ordering so much stuff from online stores in general that in the fourth quarter of 2013, parcel volume exceeded even UPS's reserve capacity.

Re:Both

[Pinky's Brain]

I agree with you for the most part ... but increased parcel volume should reduce the cost per parcel (smaller distances between drops).

My Pirates Bay Prime is still the same price...

[Bob_Who]

Smarmy answers to rhetorical questions....

The Demonoid made me do it.

Aaarrrrr. Aarrrrrrr...

Re:Prime is for those who don't understand marketi

[tepples]

When gift cards first came out, they used to offer something extra, for your trouble. That something extra was a tip-of-the-icebergian fraction of what they were gaining from the transaction. Now we are all so accepting of, and enamoured with, gifting hunks of plastic that they charge...up to $10...for a "gift" charge card.

For one thing, these new cards with a fee run on the credit card network and can be used at any business that takes credit cards. Retailer-specific gift cards, such as Walmart cards, Target cards, Google Play cards, and the like, still have no transaction fee for a couple reasons. First, the retailer doesn't have to pay a transaction fee every time a shopper uses the gift card, especially when it requires store gift cards to be purchased with cash or EFTPOS (PIN debit), which has a much lower swipe fee than a credit card. Second, the retailer is assured of a return visit and earns interest on the stored value.

amazon shill go away

[Anonymous Coward]

and stop spreading your advertising on here.
one thing in 9 years that most assuredly increased is stupid fucking idiots.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree...I also watch Amazon Video on the Roku, but my wife and would probably pay $119 just for the 2 day shipping. I live in a small town (pop ~8,000). If I can't get what I need at the local Walmart, I have to drive a solid 30 minutes to get it, burning about 2 gallons ($7) of gas and wasting an hour or two of time, which is worth even more than $7 to me. I'm saving *easily* $20 a month from Amazon Prime, not including the fact that I can often pay less for the item itself.

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason I subscribe is for streaming.

Prime streaming is pretty much equivalent to Netflix.

I get about half my Amazon goods from non-fulfilled-by-Amazon dealers, so the free shipping isn't a big deal.

If they raise it to that, I would probably consider switching to Netflix.

Price has NOT remained the same

[theedgeofoblivious]

Nine years ago, I could order whatever I wanted and have it delivered in two days.

Now every item on Amazon is an "add-on item" that you can only get shipped to you if you're buying more than $25 worth of stuff. Making me pay $25 for extra stuff I don't need or want when I need toothpaste and deodorant is quite an increase in cost from nine years ago. Amazon Prime was almost $80. That $80 investment gives people quite an incentive to choose amazon.com, and it's not even like every item on amazon was available for Prime shipping even before they started doing this "add-on item" crap. There are plenty of times where I've chosen the prime item, not because it was the cheapest, but because it would be here in two days. There are many other sites and many other non-prime Amazon sellers who have better prices. Being locked into a system that doesn't have the lowest prices is not a benefit. It's a burden.

And to make matters worse, if I decide that I do want just one add-on item, I can't even opt to just pay the cost of shipping on that one "add-on item" that I do want. If shipping is costing you too much, why can't I just pay the cost of shipping to have you send the *one* thing I do want? People who don't have Amazon Prime get to pay regular shipping cost without having to buy $25 worth of stuff they don't need, so why do people who are paying $80 extra have to get screwed over every time?

Asking someone to pay almost $80 per year to get "unlimited two-day shipping" on things and then hiding most items behind an "add-on item" label and not allowing them to order said items at all unless said person buys $25 worth of stuff every time is not a money saver, and it is not the same price as it was nine years ago. A $40 increase in price for something that is now a burden and not a service is not justified or reasonable.

Re:Price has NOT remained the same

[Pulzar]

I guess it's all about managing your toothpaste shopping habits. I can always easily find $25+ worth of things that I need for the house that are cheaper or same price as my local grocery store, so I just buy a bunch of things I need altogether.

Toothpaste, paper towels, garbage bags, coffee, cat litter... those are things you always need in regular intervals. Just get them together in appropriate quantities.

Re:Price has NOT remained the same

[el borak]

People who don't have Amazon Prime get to pay regular shipping cost without having to buy $25 worth of stuff they don't need, so why do people who are paying $80 extra have to get screwed over every time?

Open a second Amazon account and don't add it to your Prime membership. Problem solved.

Price of the service is not the point

[paiute]

I read an article some time ago that argued Amazon Prime should be free or nominal. I agree. Trying to make money off the membership fee is short-sighted. When I want something online I go immediately to Amazon, because they probably have it and it might be in the Prime program. If they keep raising the Prime fee, I might be at some point tempted to include some other service or services in my initial search, and when that happens Amazon will have lost the mindshare monopoly they own right now in my house and millions of others. The money they stand to lose to other sites is way more than the piddling membership fee.

ive been a prime member for years...

[Anonymous Coward]

And have absolutely used it to my advantage.
My issue is some people I know who have now signed up for prime have received the 2-day stuff sent via SurePost.. Which has taken more than 2 days to arrive (in one case 4). If amazon is going to say 2-day and use a service that has UPS or FedEx drop it off at the local post office knowing that's going to add time to when it is finally delivered, and that time pushes it past the 2 days.. I'm not okay with that and am waiting to see someone else who gets sick of it to file a class-action.
I myself haven't had it happen but have heard of quite a few others who have...

Use tax

[tepples]

What U.S. state do you live in that charges sales tax but doesn't require you to report use tax on your income tax return?

Re:Use tax

[stoploss]

What U.S. state do you live in that charges sales tax but doesn't require you to report use tax on your income tax return?

No one pays use tax. Have you ever done so? Hell, a few years back a newspaper in my city ran a story about use tax on internet sales and they reported that the state Department of Revenue told them that the previous year there had been fewer than 200 use tax returns filed in the whole state. I decided to look up how many people the Department of Revenue employed—it's far, far more than 200.

No one pays use tax, not even the tax collectors.

Re:Use tax

[Anonymous Coward]

What U.S. state do you live in that charges sales tax but doesn't require you to report use tax on your income tax return?

No one pays use tax. Have you ever done so? Hell, a few years back a newspaper in my city ran a story about use tax on internet sales and they reported that the state Department of Revenue told them that the previous year there had been fewer than 200 use tax returns filed in the whole state. I decided to look up how many people the Department of Revenue employed—it's far, far more than 200.

No one pays use tax, not even the tax collectors.

Unless you live in a State that gets regular dumps of purchase data from Amazon, in which case you get a bill from the state with the list of penalties for not paying it. Most of the big tax states have such a deal.. NY, NJ, MA, CA

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you ARE one. You are our token here at the office.

Housing corrections

[tepples]

Housing prices do experience corrections, or troughs in the overall price level. But overall, each correction is to a higher price level than the previous correction.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Lumpy]

That is why you dont have it delivered to the mail room. Put in your address the Building Address and Suite. it get's delivered to the receptionist. Bypass themail room as much as possible and you end run the idiots in management. Be nice and buy the Receptionist lunch once in a while and she will never say a word.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Lumpy]

Employer can STFU and stop being assholes or they can try and pay someone else for my expert talents and all the experience I have with their systems... Childish hissy fit by a moron manager are always costly in employee replacement and training.

Why is it you people all roll over for the company? they OWE YOU not the other way around.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[TheGratefulNet]

we have offices in various countries and we have foreign workers fly to the US for extended periods of time to work here. you would not believe the amount of amazon boxes that accumulate in our open office environ when the foreign workers 'go nuts' and buy everything they can from amazon before returning home.

the funny part: most of the foreign workers are from china and the goods they buy are almost always made in china. but they are cheaper here and they buy from amazon, have it shipped to the company mailroom and then bring those goodies home on their return flight. after they leave there are a ton of amazon empties all over the office floor. sneakers and cameras and laptops seem to be the things they buy the most, from what I can tell, looking at the empties.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[danomac]

Adding a person to the mailroom is a cheap way to make 500 employees a lot happier, so they will work for you instead of someone else if everything else is equal.

Sure, if the place you work for has the money to do this. The situation is where we work, we don't, and we can't get funding for a position like that. Quite a few people started to use work as the delivery address, and the higher-ups passed a new policy for no personal packages allowed to be delivered at work - they are flat-out refused. We don't have a dedicated mail person and never will.

In my specific case, I order stuff all the time for work and have it delivered (including from Amazon, NewEgg, and other sites) so if I were to order one personal package it would not likely be noticed. However, the other 99% of staff need to order through someone else and don't have that luxury.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[ColdWetDog]

My current place of employment has a separate area for personal packages. Warehouse staff will sign off on the package (which is fantastic since I don't have to be at home and the dog still hasn't figured out to use the little terminal thing). They place it in the locked area, email you that you have a package and you pick it up at your convenience.

Doesn't cost the warehouse staff anything - they're signing for tons of boxes anyway. Makes people happier.

Damn Boomers

[Anonymous Coward]

You only buy one car ever in your life? I own 3 of them right now, and have owned 20 in my lifetime. And I'm on house #3 looking to move to House #4 in 4-5 years.

I think you college kids really need to learn reality, "fixed one time purchases" That is a complete HOOT!

I think you damn Boomers need to learn fiscal reality, instead. I've never owned more than one car at a time and I always keep them for at least 10 years. Assholes who spend borrowed money like you have are why so many older-range Boomers aren't retiring at usual ages and why so many all-age Boomers pushed to increase the Social Security retirement ages for only folks younger than them rather than accept real means testing on their own Social Security payouts.

You've been borrowing against your children's and grand children's future for decades to fund your own spendthrift lifestyles. Typical Boomer arrogance to put down youth for recognizing that what you did was wrong.

Hey If You Want to Make Money Amazon

[tekiegreg]

Likely I'll pay the price hike, but if they want to earn money, how about something like this. Currently (as many know) Shared Amazon Prime Members can only use the 2 day shipping benefits, not the Streaming Instant Video benefits. How about for $40/member/month more, change that? This way I don't have to beg my wife for her last login all the time and can use my account instead. Also perhaps, allowing 2 linked prime accounts who both have instant video access to get to each others separately purchased (non-prime) instant videos? This way I can even get to my wife's video library and watch something of hers if there's something in there I want without needing a second purchase. Just sayin...

Re:Prime is for those who don't understand marketi

[Anonymous Coward]

Those "retailer-specific" cards that "don't charge" are the ones I mentioned that used to GIVE you something. They don't need to give you anything any more because of our ever-increasing love/addiction to giving human beings bits of plastic. As I said already.

Brian Regan called it with his "Blank Inside" routine.

What hasn't gone up in price for that long?

[Rick Zeman]

Costco hot dog and soda at the snack bar. Been $1.50 for nigh on 20 years.

Boooo

[Anonymous Coward]

I think paying $80 for the service is about my breaking point. 2-day shipping is great when you don't have to pay an extra $4 for it when you are checking out (i'm cheap). I'm a netflix fan and find myself using the Prime video only when I can't find anything on netflix to watch. I think for me the value of prime has decreased since I first started a couple years ago despite the add-ons. Especially now that AZ customers have to pay for tax, I find myself either searching for a 'fulfilled by amazon' seller or suck it up and pay for shipping from an independent. So yes, an increase to $100 let alone $120 would make me give up Prime and go back to batching my orders to get free shipping and at that point, I may as well be shopping at other online retailers

Re:Boooo

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry, anonymous coward again... To add, I'm probably one of the Prime customers that Amazon makes a profit on since I'm not making Prime purchases probably as much as I should, but magic 2-day shipping with a $80 once a year hit makes me come back for more. If it raises, I will be done. If they bring in a fleet of delivery drones, I'll pay $200 for the service for a year because that would be freakin awesome, but probably get bored of it and then be done again.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Anonymous Coward]

#1: your office is miserable and has a terrible culture.
#2: You open a prime box when you want to open a prime box. The contents aren't written on the box, and the sender's mailing address is "Amazon". If your mail room is opening packages for you: see "#1"
#3: No neighborhood in the world is as nice of a shopping experience for us anti-social types as Amazon Prime. The time investment of driving to the store is massive waste and you don't notice how taxing it is until next day shipping is $3.99 with prime.
#4: You spend less money on shit "because I'll probably need this and don't want to drive back here"
#5: You no longer have to maintain a shopping list.
#6: Finding the item on Amazon takes around ~90 seconds & 24 hours to be delivered to your desk. Finding the item at Brick & Mortar requires the same 90 seconds, plus the phone call to verify inventory, plus the drive, plus the process of finding the item on the shop floor, plus the wait at the checkout, plus the forced human interaction at the checkout, plus the walk through the parking lot, plus loading the car, plus parking the shopping cart, plus driving home, plus unloading a car full of shit you purchased all at once because the overhead of going to the store is so high.

With Prime you invest the 90 seconds and click on the "one click checkout" button and you're done. The only reason to buy anywhere else is clothes, or for extremely niche products like a yacht, car, or $100,000 watch. I buy shoes, socks, underwear, and food on Amazon. I give it 1 year until I start buying shirts and pants too.

Also, with Prime: every purchase is like a Christmas present. You don't get that thrill of opening a mysterious box from Brick & Mortar.

Target

[tepples]

Those "retailer-specific" cards that "don't charge" are the ones I mentioned that used to GIVE you something.

Target gift cards give 5% off. (But so do Target credit cards.)

Hmmm...Optimized profit

[Anonymous Coward]

I was told that Amazon really isn't interested in making money directly off Prime, but use it to drive sales and price it accordingly. That is to say, they price Prime so that people will use it just to get their "money's worth". Warehouse stores are sort of like this. They could make it free, but then you would only use it when it really was a good deal, but if you have to pay a membership fee then you feel like you "need" to use it to get your money's worth.

Cost limit functions

[sjbe]

but increased parcel volume should reduce the cost per parcel (smaller distances between drops).

It does to some extent but there are limits. It cannot go below the variable cost of delivering the product. In reality you can only amortize the fixed costs down so much as well since volume is never infinite.

Re:Cost limit functions

[alexander_686]

Yes, with more orders cost per parcel goes down - but overall costs go up because Amazon is not charging. See the following example:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics...

Re:Cost limit functions

[NemosomeN]

Considering Amazon Prime is likely a loss-leader, the fact that it is now costing more due to an increase in the profit-making side of things is irrelevant.

Re: Cost limit functions

[alexander_686]

I think I am missing your point. The loss leader is now cutting into the profits, so it is no longer a loss leader - it is dragging down Amazon's profits.

Re: Cost limit functions

[NemosomeN]

You are absolutely correct in that you are missing my point. A loss leader always cuts into profits. That's part of the definition of a loss leader. The loss is likely expanding due to inflation and increase in services (Keep in mind, the streaming portion, which is now a major driver of Prime subscriptions, was added without increasing the price). That being said, adjusted for straight inflation, the price would have been about $99 ($97.43, based on CPI to 12-31-13) anyway. In reality, the spending power surrendered to get Prime access has fallen.

Cost difference

[sjbe]

They'll also notice that non-Prime items are typically cheaper.

Not once you factor in the cost of shipping in a lot of cases. I'm typically looking for the best price including cost of delivery and the cost difference between Prime and non-Prime is often minimal to non-existent.

What I don't get though is that Amazon provides basically no incentive to use slower shipping methods. I use Prime and there are times when I don't really need the product in a hurry but the cost is the same for 2 day shipping or regular ground. If Amazon would throw me a bone (discount, bonus merch, whatever) I'd be willing to order some things without the 2 day shipping.

Re:Cost difference

[David_W]

What I don't get though is that Amazon provides basically no incentive to use slower shipping methods.

Actually they toyed with that a bit over the summer sale season. I remember a couple of things I ordered had, if you chose regular shipping, a bonus of like $2 in MP3 credits or something. It wasn't anything particularly impressive. They haven't been doing it recently though. So the idea is apparently on their radar, they just haven't found a sweet spot to make it work yet.

Re:Cost difference

[Quirkz]

I saw that once or twice and liked it. I'd say about half of what we order isn't a rush, but the other half we do want quickly. I'd gladly defer the priority shipping in exchange for a small kickback.

Drone Service

[ChadSmith4920]

Quadcopters are expensive. Yes I'll pay the extra $40 if I can get Kindle delivered via Drone.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[John.Banister]

People who are poor and stupid are humans. The work environment where >60% of the people present are making more than $50k / yr is often very different from the work environment where the majority of your co-workers feel financial motivation to steal your lunch.

Is it a better product?

[Anonymous Coward]

$99 is merely a long-overdue inflation-adjustment. Anything more is a price increase. Is it worth $20 more (in today's dollars) than it was when it started? If so, a price increase much beyond $100 may not alienate long-term customers.

An significant jump over $79 will alienate customers who only signed on recently.

Captcha: seller

Limited appeal service.

[Anonymous Coward]

When Amazon introduced Prime at $79, I evaluated it.
It really didn't offer me enough to compensate for the $79 fee.
Some people have a life style that the service at makes sense, at certain price points.
I imagine there are some people for whom a Valet makes sense.

For you it may be the greatest thing since slice bread.
For me, the break even is very low. Lower than $79.

It will be interesting to see what they do.

Without Amazon Prime Video on Android?

[krelvin]

If they release Amazon Prime Video for other Android devices, most likely I would not mind. I take advantage of it enough for shipping to make it worth while.

Yes you can get it on an Amazon Android device like Kindle Fire etc... but I'm not going to buy one of those (actually my wife has one). I have a Nexus 7 and a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, neither have Amazon Prime video available for them. I don't even use Amazon prime video for that reason. Would be nice for GoogleChrome to access it as well.

Why use them if you have Netflix?

[SuperKendall]

I also have both Prime and Netflix.

However, the interface to use Prime video is pretty horrible. I hate searching with it, and generally I've found Netflix has a wider selection with Prime very occasionally having something Netflix does not.

So what are you watching on Prime that you can't find on Netflix?

Almost the same selection

[SuperKendall]

If you look at Prime and Netflix, just about all of the movies that are free to Prime users are also on Netflix. There are a few exceptions, but not very many.

Meanwhile for TV stuff, Netflix has far and away a better and wider selection.

I watch a few things on Prime video, but not more than a handful per year - I could easily replace that with a disc choice from Netflix or even just renting a few times. A more expensive Prime I'm really on the fence paying for.

Popular Amazon Prime service

[nurb432]

Soon to be less popular.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Anonymous Coward]

You work in a shitty company. I have worked for major corps and tiny private companies. In no case has anyone ever had a problem with things like this. Two cases spring to mine from two hugely different sized companies.

1. Small private company (approx 30 employees). The office manager sorts the post, brings round our amazon packages quite happily.

2. Major (US) oil company. I was a contractor. Wife had locked her car keys in the car. Post department couriered my keys to her. For free.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Anonymous Coward]

The free shipping is nice, but I don't order enough anymore to get $80 worth of value each year. If they raise it to $120, I will cancel my prime membership.

And the video is completely worthless to me. They keep trying to tell me it exists. I still don't care. I will never watch video from Amazon.
(I pay for a separate streaming video service; I do not want my buying to be through the same portal as my video watching. I subscribe to the video service with zero ads for a reason.)

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[AK Marc]

Yup, the only two ways to get the US shoes are to steal them from the Chinese factory, or re-import them from the US after they were sold at full-retail in the US.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[cascadingstylesheet]

Have 'em shipped to work to avoid the whole randomness of where packages get left thing.

This is getting common enough that some companies are starting to complain, though. If a few people do it occasionally it's no big deal, but if 500 employees are each receiving multiple packages a week, it starts becoming a significant added burden on the corporate mailroom.

I work in a small office, and we don't have a mailroom. I either pick it up from the receptionist's desk, or she drops it on my desk.

If anybody minded, I wouldn't do it.

Re: Prime is for those who don't understand market

[Anonymous Coward]

Prime has saved me money every year I have used it.

I declined for a while, having done the math on my past purchases. What I hadn't accounted for, though, were all the things I HADN'T purchased on Amazon that I could have. In one month of Christmas shopping using Amazon, Prime had paid for itself. And then there were all the times I spent more for something because I couldn't wait for shipping and two day shipping would have been even more expensive. And the times I had to pay for transportation for some in-town purchase instead of it being shipped to my door.

I save money on all that, and I get near instant gratification without having to debate myself on if it is worth it. People using Prime instead of Netflix are saving even more.

$80 for Prime has absolutely been worth it. I'm not sure if $120 will, though. I would rather have an option to drop the crummy selection of TV shows with its terrible interface.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[chihowa]

That depends. I'm at a university and, no matter what I put for the address, the package always goes through the receiving department. Some companies are like that, too. This is especially true at places with restricted access to the buildings, in which case delivery trucks are only allowed to go to the receiving docks.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Anonymous Coward]

People who are poor and stupid are humans. The work environment where >60% of the people present are making more than $50k / yr is often very different from the work environment where the majority of your co-workers feel financial motivation to steal your lunch.

True, the motivation of the ones in the office stealing your lunch are entirely different but no less disheartening.

Sounds like a great way to get people to cancel.

[TheFirebyrd]

That seems like a brilliant strategy to get Prime members to all quit. If they raised it by a little, say $5-10, a lot of people probably wouldn't care enough to go to the effort of quitting. Increasing the price by 50% though? People are going to care then. As it is, the value of Prime has gone down substantially in just the three years I've had it. One of the reasons it seemed worth it to me was that before, I'd always feel like I had to make sure I had an order worth $25 in order to get free shipping. Prime made it so that I would just go and buy the thing I actually needed instead of buying extra crap just to get free shipping. Now they've made a huge number of items, including the exact things I've bought in the past, "add-on" items that you can't buy unless...you order at least $25 worth of product. So I'm back to square one. I haven't even been getting my free book lately because trying to find good stuff by digging through the Kindle's awful, slow menus takes longer than hitting TPB (or even Baen's free list) and downloading what I want. As for Prime Video, I don't think there's ever been anything I wanted to see (though admittedly there are a few kids' shows my kids like) that wasn't also on Netflix. So go ahead, Amazon. Raise the price. I'll just cancel. I'm half tempted to right now after documenting how little value I'm getting out of Prime already. Getting a new power supply in a day for only $6 extra (the best use I've gotten out of it recently) really doesn't justify $79/year as it is.

An iron law of economics

[russotto]

Things that are "bargains" will increase in price or decrease in quality or quantity until they are merely "ok" deals. Yet another reason economics truly is the dismal science.

Re:Sounds like a great way to get people to cancel

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm posting anon because I've already modded.

That seems like a brilliant strategy to get Prime members to all quit. If they raised it by a little, say $5-10, a lot of people probably wouldn't care enough to go to the effort of quitting. Increasing the price by 50% though?

I think their strategy is slightly more sophisticated. They figured out that they are going to have to raise the price $5-$10 but some market survey said even this modest increase would cause defection so they are getting people over the sticker shock by leaking a possible large price increase. Then when people see the actual increase is only $5-$10 they will be much less likely to defect.

Amazon video on demand broke on Linux

[Shompol]

Video on Demand stopped working on Linux some time last year. It is possible that the main culprit is Adobe, who stopped updating Flash on Linux. So my only option for Flash is now Google Chrome browser, that has its own interpreter. Unfortunately, Amazon vide is broken there as well. And the worst part? I cannot teminate my Prime until next year.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[Anonymous Coward]

Adding a person to the mailroom is a cheap way to make 500 employees a lot happier, so they will work for you instead of someone else if everything else is equal.

Sure, if the place you work for has the money to do this. The situation is where we work, we don't, and we can't get funding for a position like that. Quite a few people started to use work as the delivery address, and the higher-ups passed a new policy for no personal packages allowed to be delivered at work - they are flat-out refused. We don't have a dedicated mail person and never will.

In my specific case, I order stuff all the time for work and have it delivered (including from Amazon, NewEgg, and other sites) so if I were to order one personal package it would not likely be noticed. However, the other 99% of staff need to order through someone else and don't have that luxury.

If your employer is bitching about $0.25 a day, you have a terrible employer or a commodity job where you will be replaced at the drop of a hat. The fully loaded cost of a bare bones mail room clerk is well under $40k even in an expensive urban environment. If you have just 400 people (25% less than the previous posters scenario) generating this load that's 40,000/400=$100 a person, per year. Pay the guy $10k for the 6 weeks of Thanksgiving to New Years and it's a quarter a day a person for the most enthusiastic mail clerk you've ever seen.

Re:Prime is for those who don't understand marketi

[Anonymous Coward]

tell when when netflix starts streaming "justified" or any other shows that aren't streaming anywhere besides amazon prime.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[longbot]

Unless you are obscenely overqualified, and have either huge saving to pay rent/other expenses or don't have them at all (mom's basement?) being unemployed for several months while looking for a job that pays better than starvation wages (not an exaggeration at my last one, I had to choose between gas, food, and rent on a regular basis) isn't exactly an option. Since most people like not going hungry, building huge amounts of debt, or being homeless, we tend to keep the jobs we have.

If the video catalog was better

[Anonymous Coward]

I would pay more if the video catalog was better, but is simply ho-hum. Also the search mechanism is terrible on consoles ( PS3 for instance )
They want you so bad to pay for movies they make it too hard to search in the freebies with the service.
It isn't THAT good of a deal, especially since there $5 Bluray sales ON Amazon, all the time where you can get AAA quality blurays, so I'm having a hard time justifiying the current cost. Free shipping is nice, but not a 33% increase in price nice

Don't forget inflation

[AdamHaun]

According to Measuring Worth, the inflation-adjusted price of Prime today would be ~$90 per year. $99 isn't a huge step up from there.

Reasonable or not...

[Bob Hearn]

I probably wouldn't renew at $119. And without free shipping, I would order less stuff from Amazon. That doesn't sound too good for the shareholders.

Re:Sounds like a great way to get people to cancel

[TheFirebyrd]

You could very well be right. Amazon generally seems pretty sophisticated with this sort of thing. At the same time, though, everyone blunders at times and the comments on HuffPo were full of people claiming they'd be happy to pay as much as $200 for Prime. So I could also see them having done some sort of market research and deciding that people like that were their target demographic for Prime and forget people like me. I still think that'd be a poor idea though. As people have noted, Prime is a leash. I do almost all of my online shopping on Amazon these days. That'll change if I don't have the incentive to maximize the value of Prime. I might be poor, but I do shop online and will continue to do so. Seems to me it'd be better for them to cement my brand loyalty, which a price hike at all will not do at this point. I /might/ not have noticed or cared about $5 without this announcement. With it? I've definitely thought about what value I get from Prime and will not be keeping it with a hike of any sort.

NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon got big and they think they can jack up the price on everything now, we can no longer ship free unless its 35 dollars or more, and prices on shipping without it are just prohibitive. Somebody tell Amazon it's time to knock it off.

Shipping stuff...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is cheaper than it used to be.. and Bandwidth.. is cheaper. Why isn't the price of Prime going down?

Re:Sounds like a great way to get people to cancel

[Rich0]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

For TV shows, you need Hulu not Netflix

[Anonymous Coward]

Netflix is for movies, Hulu is for TV shows

Spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Get this bs spam off Slashdot NOW

Try somewhere else Mr Bezos

Amazon streaming quality vs. Netflix

[sremick]

All these comparisons with Netflix fail to address one critical point: video quality

I can stream the same movie on Netflix and Hulu on the same device (Roku), at the same time, on the same internet connection. If I stream that movie on Netflix, the stream doesn't fully-utilize my internet connection and is noticeably poor. If I cancel, then immediately start streaming the same movie on Amazon Prime, same device, just moments later, it saturates my internet connection and looks considerably better. I can switch back and forth and the results are consistent. I can also recreate this with other movies available on both. I've done this on multiple different nights... the test results are always the same.

Not to say that if Amazon ups the price of Prime that we'll keep it... I'm not a big fan of streaming in-general. But to compare Netflix and Amazon one really needs to take into account the video quality. Netflix quality is absolutely HORRIBLE and I can't stand watching content off it, and choose Amazon or Hulu whenever possible. Of course, in this day and age people seem content with Youtube level of over-compressed shit so it's probably a lost cause...

Amazon Student

[Anonymous Coward]

You do not get Amazon Prime 50% off for being a student. You get Amazon Student, which costs half as much as Amazon Prime but does not include all the benefits, such as being able to share the service with other people.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[kaatochacha]

Just wait until ONE package is lost/missing/disappears, and see how fast that policy continues.

Re:worth it to me, with the free shipping and vide

[drsquare]

Since when do companies care whether their workers are happy or not? And what company has a mailroom nowadays? My company doesn't even have a reception, it was closed down to save money. If you had something delivered to the security lodge it would just get stolen, and you wouldn't be there to sign for it anyway.

In this jobs market employers don't have to do anything to attract workers.