- The author canceled their Amazon Prime subscription on a whim and realized they didn’t really need it.
- Leaving Prime meant slower shipping but the author was happy to wait and still found the selection and delivery speed satisfactory.
- Many people love Prime for its fast shipping and convenience, but some readers expressed ambivalence and considered canceling.
Archive link: https://archive.ph/3M27c
You’re kidding right? Are there actually people thinking they just can’t live without Amazon Prime? Seriously? Fuck even if you HAVE to order something off of Amazon, which you absolutely don’t HAVE to do, you don’t fuckin need prime just for… what… slightly faster shipping?
Free shipping, but at that point you should question why you are buying so much from amazon in the first place
$25 gets you free shipping anyways unless they changed it!
Might be 35 bucks now. Can’t remember.
Some of us have been living without an Amazon account since 2007 and we’re still alive. Go figure.
I started boycotting Amazon back in 1999 when they pulled the 1-click patent bullshit. I loved them before that.
In 1999? Brah.
I was an edgy college kid who was raging against software and business process patents. Their 1-click patent started me on a 25 year grudge.
Not a lot of people hold onto such a niche part of their righteous rebellious college years for so long. I love that, and your bar was so high too!
What’s this one click patent ?
In 1999 Amazon applied for and was granted a US Patent for One Click Purchase. Before then, everyone had a shopping cart that you had to go into to check out and pay. Amazon realized that a huge percentage of people would add stuff to their cart and then leave without buying anything, either because they decided they didn’t REALLY need that thing or because they found it cheaper somewhere else or whatever. They allowed you to save all your credit card info plus shipping preferences, then just hit “1 Click Purchase.” It was convenient for shoppers because they didn’t have to go through the whole checkout steps or add everything then come back later to check out. They could just hit a button and be done. For Amazon, though, it prevented the dreaded “items left in cart.”
Other sites like Borders and Barnes & Noble, etc also implemented the feature, since it made a lot of money. Amazon filed for a business process patent (I think they also tried it as a software patent??) and forced the entire internet to go back to normal shopping cart purchases. They ended up losing the patent lawsuit in the EU, but that didn’t stop them from enforcing it on US websites. Borders and BN both implemented “2 Click Purchase” to get around it, but the damage was done. In everyone’s minds, Amazon was the place to go for convenience and speed. Amazon made more money, while others started losing money. With that extra money, Amazon was able to move into the “niche” of Walmart, since Walmart hadn’t yet figured out e-commerce. Amazon out-Walmarted Walmart on the web and became the trillion dollar behemoth we have today.
i have reverted to this lifestyle, and i love it. creating the 5-6 accounts for local platforms was a slight hassle, but now i can enjoy the benefits of a “small” company which still cares about what the customer thinks.
Can you please expound on this?
I gave up on Amazon last year. I do without many things which is fine, but there are some things that are more difficult to find without them. I am still doing without as I’d like to figure it out for the long term.
Can you give examples of the vendors that supplant Amazon for you?
Home Depot, Staples, B&HPhoto (decent selection of general tech merch, but tons of photo/video)
As much as I dislike it, google shopping helps me find where I can pick things up locally.
There are things that I’ve been unsatisfied with the alternative options, or particular brands that only sell on Amazon, so I use it occasionally. But I don’t have a subscription to prevent the compulsion to use it.
Not the person you asked, but generally I just go to the manufacturer website. Amazon is useful for it’s pictures and an aggregate of similar products, but now it’s usually just a catalog of stuff so I know what to look for
Plus then you can be far more certain you are not receiving a Chinese knockoff of your desired product
creating the 5-6 accounts for local platforms was a slight hassle
What “local platforms” are you referring to?
It’s kind of crazy how Amazon has dominated so much that alternatives pretty much aren’t a thing over there.
Here in Sweden we didn’t get Amazon until a couple of years ago, and they’re honestly so skeevy. Most of the stuff they sell is weird computer generated garbage, and the brand stuff they sell is usually available cheaper or for the same price elsewhere. They also use the same shipping all other companies use, so there’s literally no upside to using Amazon outside of buying weird little niche products. These niche things could be bought on AliExpress or EBay anyway though.
When it comes to “real” products, it’s just generally preferred to buy them from Swedish/Scandinavian retailers. You know they operate within our legal framework with consumer protection in mind, and if you ever have any issues, contacting support puts you in touch with real people that work for the store, not some outsourced representative that’s disconnected from the whole thing.
The only good thing Amazon has brought is hilarious machine translations. Like curtains of people frolicking in the sexual assault, or fondue sets with integrated email functionality.
Buying anything on Amazon hardly seems viable anymore. There’s so much counterfeit crap there, and a million low-effort rebrandings of the same stuff you can get on AliExpress for cheaper.
Shop local when you can, and at least shop not-Amazon for the rest.
Shop local when you can
Not sustainable for me, I price it from time to time and local stores are usually, at best, double what Amazon or even Walmart has it for and that’s if the local store even has what I’m looking for to begin with
So my choices are Amazon or Walmart (or similar big name stores) and going to Walmart…yea fuck that it’s a last resort for everything but groceries…
There’s so much counterfeit crap there, and a million low-effort rebrandings of the same stuff you can get on AliExpress for cheaper.
I keep seeing this over and over, but I order a lot off Amazon and I’ve never had a problem with it. Don’t know if I’m just incredibly lucky or what, but the only times I get counterfeit / cheap Chinese crap is when I order it on purpose.
Ofc, those things I can just get off AliExpress too and sometimes I do when I don’t mind waiting which is the biggest issue with AliExpress, the waiting
I, and probably millions of others, are shopping where the best price/value is and nothing else because we can’t afford not to. I wouldn’t mind shopping locally owned and paying the premium…if I could afford it. Stop pushing for expensive alternatives people can’t afford and push for regulations instead.
Ya simple solution: don’t buy no-name chinesium crap regardless of the storefront and you won’t be disappointed
damn right
every time i’ve intentionally picked the ASNDSZYY brand i’ve been disappointed in the thing and in myself. now i’d rather just spend up front for something actually good rather than waste time and effort going back and forth returning things
I thought this meant the writer is forgoing Amazon as a service completely.
Cause that would be something worth reading. Not these first world problems ffs
Seriously. I have stopped doing as much business with Amazon as I can. Terrible company. Bad for the planet.
I wish I had alternatives. For man yof the stuff I need, my only option is amazon simply because local shops dont stock them.
Okay, but can’t you simply ship something from a non-local company the same way you ship from Amazon?
I’ve never really understood what prime actually is. They nag me about it on the occasion I might buy something from amazon. weird to think someone perhaps couldn’t live without it.
Free two day delivery and access to prime video
I canceled my prime over a year ago but previously have been a prime member since 2003. the two day shipping thing was legit for a lot of those years but has been anything BUT two day shipping for at least the last 5 years. week if you’re lucky.
One thing I’ve noticed is that it pretty much always takes two days to deliver your items. The only difference is that Amazon will let your order sit in their warehouse for a few extra days if you don’t have Prime.
Yep I think that they optimized so much for 2 day delivery that it is cheaper to give to everyone. They just let the order sit around for a few days to make it take longer.
That’s what I don’t understand. The item is using up warehouse space, marked for me, for five days. Surely they’d make more money just mailing it and restocking the item to sell more during those five days.
It’s a joke unless you need something overnighted or next day and as a bonus - it will usually be improperly packaged and delivered with malice.
Prime Video catalogue is a pale shadow of what it used to be. Exclusives have dwindled. Now they want 3 bucks for no ads on top of paying for Prime? Naw.
Counterfeits are everywhere. That’s what Aliexpress is for (half joking). Frequently have to check the manufacturer’s site when pricing or picture seems dubious.
One delivery driver commandeers our neighbors’ empty driveway, swings the back doors open and blasts shitty pop music at full volume while fumbling through deliveries for 30 minutes every other day.
Buying direct is now often the same price more or less and you can get in a week anyway for negligible shipping price. Or even free shipping if you spend x amount.
So we cancelled too.
Amazon is bad at packaging books lately. I’d say 1/3 orders are damaged. My last one was both misprinted and the envelope was unsealed, so the book arrived bent, wet, and blurry.
Yep mine are always floating around in the boxes, dogeared and cosmetically damaged. They can’t even get their original core service right.
Edit: Just ordered a roofing tool. Was shipped the tool packaging and the pieces of the box from them tearing it open to steal. But it was carefully supported with packaging material this time. Hilarious.
Shop local, it’s actually quite fun
Must be nice if you can leave the house without need for concern while receiving home treatment for disease/injury and your local brick and mortars actually do hold the products you need.
These aren’t personal shots at you bud.
Then stop with the public lecturing.
Why don’t you stop doing the exact same thing you want others to stop doing?
What: representing minorities where they are ignored? No. You won’t silence me. All experiences matter. Even ones you don’t share in. It’s a far cry on ordering other people around “Shop local” on what to do with their life as if they all fit the same standard experience. Not even the same planet of existence. So you can go huff your farts through your empty comparisons for a shitty red herring argument. That is some bad actor Bullshit to try to silence me as if they are even remotely compared that I shouldnt reply to an absent minded direct order like that. Neglect minorities and order me around. Nope. Fuck that. Not on my watch. You get the full brunt of this argument if you think you can order me around. Fuck that poorly thought out action all the way up a mountain.
As the famous words go; standards are good, double standards are double as good.
What you are essentially doing is that you are publicly lecturing people on public lecturing. The very same thing you despise, you’re doing yourself.
The cause is lost the very same second that you cross your own line.
You dig a good hole for someone with an injury.
Don’t tread on me.
When I lived in NYC I could not even understand the appeal of Prime. Now that I live in the burbs I can’t live without it. I hate that I keep throwing money at Bezos but abusing their return policy is my little solace.
As somebody who lives on an island, I don’t understand the appeal of Amazon Prime. It’s a bogus product - if you live outside the mainland USA, you still get slower shipping speeds (usually like 1 week with Prime vs 2 weeks without it). It’s literally just an instant gratification thing - if I need something now, I’d just go out and buy it from a store instead of ordering it through Amazon or any online retailer.
Musk, bezos, guillotine
What’s common between the three? “They are all headless”
Is it really 140 USD annually in US? Here in EU it’s about equivalent of 12 dollars yearly… What is that?
I live in an area where lots of stuff can get there same day or overnight which has legitimately saved my ass a bunch of times. If it was just 2 day I would definitely consider cancelling, especially now that prime video has ads.
same. i feel gross using it but it’s literally figuratively magic being able to lie in bed, realize i need a specific cable for something, order it on my phone, and have it the next morning
sometimes i’ll try to go to an actual store instead, but then often they won’t have the specific thing, or it’ll be out of stock, or they’ll only have expensive ones, and either way i have to drive there and back and talk to the guy which is a pain
I hate to be honest, but I used Amazon Prime a lot because:
- I cannot drive. Thus, getting to the store is difficult.
- I must bring in 3-4 items a week, so yeah, I save on shipping.
- Auto-subscriptions save a little.
- I have priced a lot of stuff over the years, and while Amazon is not always the best, the convenience is impressive.
- They have, multiple times, been incredibly helpful with customer service. Like above and beyond.
- COVID and nobody masks around here. I have an autoimmune condition, so it’s important that I not leave unless it’s a medical appointment or similar need.
- They just have stuff I can’t find anywhere. Yes, as some have said, caveat emptor, but that’s true for all the stores.
I also save a shit ton of money. When I used to browse Walmart or Target, I used to buy a lot of shit I didn’t need. I don’t get as distracted with focused buying. I also order from Aliexpress if I can wait 30 days, and I have only been ripped off three times in several years, for a total of maybe $35.
I’m not saying my way is better, and certainly not if it’s better for you, but it’s been a godsend to the house-bound.
If Amazon genuinely fits your use case, more power to you. I think the problem is the average person being duped into thinking they need Amazon Prime as the default position.
No mention of the free shipping?
I’m no fan of Amazon, but not mentioning the free shipping as part of the benefits of being a Prime member is not presenting an honest argument to people.
Lots of mentions. Most of the article is about that in particular. Don’t trust summary bots
Wait, read the article? This is Lemmy, I thought we were just supposed to read the post comments and talk about what we think might be in the article.
Snarkiness aside, it’s fair for one to look at the summary before deciding if they want to read the whole article or not.
The summary itself should have mentioned it, and it’s omission is suspicious.
Lots of mentions. Most of the article is about that in particular. Don’t trust summary bots
Well I depend on the summaries to decide if I’m going to read the article or not. /shrug
Pro-Tip: If you’re already signed up for prime, you can go to your membership details and cancel auto-renewal OR they allow you to cancel now and will refund whatever they owe you before the renewal date.
Ok, thanks!
I wonder how they handle people signing up to prime for a shipping discount and then immediately cancelling it, only to do so again for their next order…
