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Amazon Won't Sell Non-Prime Members Certain Popular Movies and Video Games (businessinsider.com)
An anonymous reader writes: If you're not an Amazon Prime subscriber, you will no longer be able to purchase certain popular game titles and movies, according to a report on game blog Videogamer. One of the benefits of Amazon's Prime program is that it gives members exclusive access to some items. This selection includes a rotating roster of popular video games, Blu-rays, and DVDs. Non-Prime members in the US can't buy titles such as Oscar-winning "Birdman" on Blu-ray or "GTA V" for PS4 from Amazon. This initiative, which has been going for quite some time, affects customers in the UK as well (though the selection is different). Non-Prime customers can still buy these titles from third-party sellers on Amazon's platform, but not from Amazon directly.
I have stopped buying from Amazon completely.
I'm glad I signed up for Prime. I signed up and I buy some of those items. Thanks, Amazon!
I am a Prime member and I can conclusively say it isn't worth the $100. Take a look at the movies/music available for Prime streaming: utter garbage. Also, not having to see "Birdman" is a bonus in my book.
First thy want you to pay for good service and then they try to force you to pay extra for the right to buy from them?
It's called, lock in. Nice trick but who actually cares...
Seriously think about it. Someone is searching on the INTERNET to purchase a popular item. If amazon won't sell it to random customer, there are 20-100 other stores that gladly will. All you have done is lose business which could have also resulted in additional sales for other items at the same time of the purchase (as well as all the additional marketing information that was lost from the sale which seems to be the real money anyway now).
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
No, it's not. It's a legal and established business model that's been used for decades by stores like Sam's Club.
Amazon, regardless of 3rd party sellers and "competitors", have the market cornered.
Now they can drop the hammer and get away this shit!
Disgusting.
and by laws in some states beer / liquor and pharmacy can not be members only
and many are much cheaper than Amazon. Just saying.
Such policies are another good reason for having a marketplace independent of vendors through which people can search and buy whatever.
More sells for Google's Play store I guess.
The amount of pushing they do of Prime is what really turns me off of it. When someone comes to my house to sell me something, I know it's likely not in my best interest because they've invested considerable time and energy to come and solicit me, so they're likely to take a big cut, and I'm better off finding the product on my own if I can. It's the same with Amazon Prime - they seem to want to push it on me so bad that it must be a really valuable sale for them, which likely means it's not a good deal for me.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Bow and pay your tithe or be cut off from the goods!
He died of a marijuana overdoes
I admit that I didn't read the article, but I don't think drugs and alcohol are things which are offered exclusively to prime members.
this is called market power, extraction of rents, monopoly.
Then I can take my business elsewhere. good day!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Amazon is a good place to shop. It has a huge selection, decent prices and it's simple to use. But recent changes, such as forcing my to buy $25 of most things before they'll ship it and the change in TFA make it less convenient. I'll stop shopping at Amazon the moment it becomes less useful than alternatives. I can definitely see that moment approaching soon.
Lots of big companies do what Amazon is doing. They all have different words for it, but the appropriate phrase is "managed dissatisfaction". When your grocery store shuts down a register and makes you wait longer, when Amazon makes itself less convenient, when your bank demands payment for sending you paper statements, when you have to wait on hold half an hour, when you have to walk through an isle of shit you don't need to get what you want, all of this stuff. They recognize they're offering a disservice and they're betting it's not quite bad enough to make you stop going there. They aim for as much dissatisfaction as they can give you and still keep you as a customer. As someone who doesn't like being fucked with my threshold is a little more sensitive than a lot of people. Maybe if you lower yours too stores in general will fuck with everyone a little less.
My guess, though, is that Amazon's leadership are jumping the shark. They're trying to liquidate customers for short-term gain. If I'm right they'll keep milking until they hemorrhage customers and lose their hard-won reputation at which point they'll rebrand and start it all over again. Coming in five years: the totally-not-Amazon shopping network. New! Shiny!
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Exclusive, low price items for a membership fee? If I were Costco I'd be nervous...
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I wanted to buy a few movies from Amazon for convenience, but didn't want to get Prime for the "privileged" of buying the movies... end result went to a local store that offers price matching, and bought them there instead! Very good move Amazon.... Actually one movie was cheaper already than Amazon... if they keep this up, I'll end up going back to buying most movies locally...
No, it was your crappy spelling that did him in.
Shipping has gotten worse. The once a week shipping unless you pay for 2 day or prime is reason enough to make Amazon a last-stop situation.
Can't buy it on Amazon? There's always Walmart. Or dozens of other places. Or your local store that is employing people in you area. Or torrents. Whatever.
Costco, anyone?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
That's why, in some states, Costco, Sam's Club, etc, will let members of the public purchase those items without membership.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Wait a minute, I can get drugs and alcohol on Amazon with a Prime membership? Now you're talking.
It's Friday afternoon. You think I could get a 12-pack of Tequiza and an eight-ball of coke delivered by 5pm?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Who the fuck buys movies?
The fuck is wrong with you people?
Makes me sick.
-- Counting backwards since 1984!
This isn't new. They've been doing this for other products for a while now.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
I love the rage here. While not a proponent of this tactic (it seems self defeating), I don't really think it makes Amazon inherently evil. I mean, at least they let you purchase most things. They could be like Costco or Sams club and not let you purchase anything without a membership (and a special credit card should you wish to use that for your purchase).
I hope all of you that are so up in arms spend as much time being made at warehouse clubs.
They can keep that movie for prime members, it's fine with me.
Watching it once on tv was too many times for me.
"Go fuck yourself Amazon". There are plenty of online retailers and this may motivate people to use them instead of a site which thinks so much of its customers it wants to strongarm them into buying a subscription they didn't want or need.
new monthly prime option combined with expanded "prime-exclusive" inventory translates to a $10.99 price increase for those items for many (most) shoppers . most items on the exclusive list have 'free shipping' (standard delivery) already, so don't try to argue that there would be a shipping cost on them. this is going to come back to bite bezos in the ass.
Only in states where they're doing their Drone Delivery pilot programs.
This is nothing more then a common capitalist business cycle. When you come in you look good and everyone starts to use you because you're so good. Then when you have attracted a significant amount of business you tweak things so that you are no longer as good. In fact you may become similar to what was there before or slightly worse, but you work it so that enough people cannot go back then you profit.
When people talk about the greatness of capitalism, they usually only refer to the first phase.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The more difficult the content is made to access, the more motivated people will be to copy and share it illegally. Fair enough.
I used to be Amazon for everything, but after their discusting act of throwing out Google and Apple TV streaming products, I let my Prime membership expire and always look for alternatives now when shopping.
I use them for my initial search. The feeling of then giving someone else my money is awesome.
Amazon, will all do respect, please consider to go fuck yourself.
Yup. Lots of butthurt here today. LOL
... it must be true.
Already redacted.
I may have misread the title...
If it was the case though, not to worry. You could just buy multiple primes to construct your non-primes.
right. well, Steam will sell it to me. Another reason to check Amazon only after I've checked other places
This just happened to me. Was trying to buy Star Wars 7 for my brothers' birthday to have shipped to Hawaii. Got told I could not. Rarely use Amazon. Now I will go out of my way NOT to use Amazon. Congrats, Bezos... Will now boycott and steer customers away from Amazon every chance I get. Why is my non-Prime dollar worth less than a Prime dollar?
Amazon won't directly sell internal hard drives anymore? I always seem to have to get them from a third party Amazon storefront, prime or not. Why are they so reluctant to house and store hard drives themselves anymore?
Is all of "an awful lot" at no additional charge with Prime membership, or is it mostly rentals at $3.99 a piece? The article doesn't link to the original Barclays research with which I could verify the methodology of the count.
I hope they get sued.
The butthurt is strong with this one. LOL.
Now that's some weak, lame ass shit right there. Wah!
/. Dissent will not be tolerated. Think like us or perish.
They just want to squeeze another $10.99 per month out of their customers. When they feel they have enough dumbins on the hook, they will charge $14.99 per month.
And as 100% of cable companies have shown, once you reach $15 per month, you quickly go to $30 per month, then $50 per month, eventually $100 per month and if at all possible $150 per month.
Revolving accounts...you can revolve around my middle finger Amazon. Not going down that slippery slope. As Cartman says, That's it guys, I'm going home.
sweet! Which state is that where I can buy recreational drugs at Costco, Sam's, etc?
I usually get a lot of stuff from B&H. Free shipping... and TAX FREE!
The cost of paying taxes to Amazon offsets the cost of shipping, being able to order from NY to deliver to CA with no sales tax makes a world of difference.
I tried Amazon Prime, and at the end of the trial thought "I'll see how much I order from Amazon this year, if I exceed $100 in shipping, will get Prime next year", so far, I have not exceeded $100 dollars in rush orders from Amazon.
And then, there is the fact that I consider it morally offensive to "give you money, so that I can give you money", hence, no buying in Costco either.
The big difference is that Costco is by no means the dominant player in any market. Amazon has become the dominant player and is now attempting to leverage that position as consumers have fewer options.
This is a perfect time to ask: so, what are alternatives to Amazon.com? I know for music there's SheetMusicPlus.com, and also this Jet.com thing keeps stuffing our home mailbox with junk mail. NewEgg for electronics. And the "Clicks & Mortar" stores Walmart.com, Target.com, etc. (This is on the USA West Coast.) Anything else? Any other experiences? Does Alibaba.com ship overseas?
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
It's not completely clear cut. It might come under tying (you're not allowed to only sell unrelated products together if doing so would distort the market), but it looks as if it is most likely to just make me buy things from someone else. Most Amazon deliveries for me arrive in 1-2 days using the free super-saver delivery option, so paying extra for the same service doesn't sound very attractive. Most DVDs are cheaper on Rakuten (formerly play.com) than Amazon anyway, but if Amazon starts responding to searches telling me that they won't sell things to me then that's a good reason to not even bother searching for things there in the future.
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As a Prime member it's definitely less attractive than it once was. I notice many items are simply not that competitive in price and I suspect Amazon raises prices some to cover shipping costs. Amazon Music streaming is also just OK as it has never risen to what I call a broad choice of artists. Amazon annoys me with this steering effect of trying to take actions to get people to do what they want. Such as eliminating certain items that compete with Amazon devices, or as with this sell certain products only to Prime members. It's sounding to much like an exclusive club rather than a discount membership like a Cosco or Sam's Club only online.
... Since I rarely buy from Amazon to use subscriptions. Same for Netflix and many others. I only get subscriptions if I use the services a lot.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I have seen hard drives, keyboards, and soaps marked "Exclusively for Prime Members". They can do it for ANY type of item.