Amazon Product FYI - Prime memberships going up to $119 USD in June

[Reprise]

Just an FYI, for those who use Prime. You may (?) be able to 'early renew', and beat the increase for a year.

As for me...I just joined last month (still in my 'free' month, actually). Didn't want to be an early adopter...LMAO

I'll let you decide if you want to discuss whether it's worth the extra $20.
Wonder if Amazon will roll out any new bennies for that extra $20 ? Might make it easier to swallow.

 

[Mooseman]

A few extras like Amazon music and video but they don't compare to Spotify and Netflix for sheer amount available. AV does have a few good shows. I think there's other benefits like storage and photos.

Haven't heard about Amazon Canada getting upped.

 

[Reprise]

Since you mentioned that, I just Googled - Canada stays at $79 (CAD, I'm sure).
Now I know why you guys pay higher prices for the same merch...lol.

Yep - they really do have a nice palette of benefits, at least here. Now that they've made a few 'prime' deliveries to me, they're now offering 1-day and even same-day delivery on items. I even broke down and bought a Kindle Fire for use in the trailer during downtime (e-readers have it all over physical books for weight and room Got it for 1/2 price, on an AMEX points redemption deal Amazon offered. Really nice tablet (and since it runs Android, it can be modded to use Google Play (and Chrome), instead of Amazon's 'app store' (Amazon still pushes the OS updates to it).

Of course, their end goal with Prime and all their other 'deals' - is to make us 'consume more' than we ordinarily would
I held out for a long time - but with outfitting the trailer, it was a no-brainer to use them for the bulk of it.

I do regret contributing to the demise of brick-and-mortar retail - a lot of people are going to be removed from the workforce (and I'm not holding out hope for UBI / GMI to ever take hold over here - but I'll stop there and hold my tongue.)

I may not buy much from them outside of this little binge - but the non-shipping benefits alone cover the cost (just one example - I get a free book selection of my choice every month - and not the surplus titles from the cutout bins - new releases, even)

 

[Eric04]

I quit when they increased to $99. I didn't use or want to use enough of the offerings for it to make sense. There is no other site/service like it, but I cobble together multiple outlets to end up getting what I got through them without the membership. Zon is the best for convenience without question though.

 

[Mooseman]

Here we're pretty limited with online retailers. eBay, most of the time, are sellers from the US so we get hosed on shipping. I buy a fair bit from Amazon.ca just for the better prices but sometimes they are ludicrous expensive, probably because it's from the US and haven't adjusted the price or something. If it's the same price as the brick and mortar store and I'm not in a hurry, I'll go online just to save on time and gas.

And the video content gets cut down a lot here compared to the US. A lot of stuff we can't access unless we cheat and use a proxy. And that's for Netflix as well. Something to do with studio rights.

Something interesting here as well, Amazon bought the Whole Foods grocery chain and are looking at doing home delivery.

 

[Reprise]

They already are doing home delivery of groceries here, FYI. Some of the established chains (moreso than Whole Paycheck, anyway) are also doing home delivery. I think the promised service level among most is 2hrs or so.

Pretty ironic that your video content is less robust, compared to the US. I think there's more being filmed *north* of the 49th, than *below* it these days. And that includes television *and* theatrical releases!

 

[Mooseman]

I don't think it has to do with where shows and movies are shot but who owns the rights and distribution. Stupid any way you look at it.

I wanted to dump Spotify and go with Amazon Music but the content just wasn't there. Google Music had 99% of Spotify's content but their interface sucked worse.

Grocery delivery will especially appeal to the older crowd, which is growing with the baby boomers. I can see myself using this service latet on.

 

[ddgm]

Back in the 50s & 60s, you could phone the local grocery store, order your groceries and it would be delivered by a young lad on a bicycle. The amount would be put on your "tab", which you would pay later, predating the "credit card". Nothing new under the sun.