So to recap:
1. Amazon announced they now have more than
100 million Prime members globally.
2. Amazon announced they made
$1.6 billion in profit in just the first 3 months of 2018, which is more than double from the same time period last year.
3. So they
raised the annual service fee by $20?
I order a lot off Amazon, and Prime is very convenient, but where does $120 a year in value come from? I mean, I personally order enough stuff monthly to make the breakdown of $10/mo to be worth the free shipping, but that's a big pill to swallow for a lot of people who don't do as much online shopping. The increase from $79 to $99 was already bad enough, but there's something about going past the $99 line that makes it seem unreasonable. Current Prime features:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201910360
1. I like the "free" 2-day shipping on everything (which you pay for in that annual subscription cost, lol).
2. I like Spotify Premium a lot & use that instead of Amazon Music. Partly because Amazon Music never has what I want to listen to, and partly because you have to pay another $7.99 a month (under Prime...$9.99/mo otherwise) for Amazon Music Unlimited if you want ALL the songs. Plus Spotify Premium is still only $4.99/mo for students!
3. I think their selection of free Prime TV shows & movies stinks in comparison to Netflix. And Netflix is already a struggle because a lot of times you feel like you've already watched all of the good stuff on Netflix, and they're just stringing you along with enough quality new content like Daredevil to keep you paying for it. Or if you have kids, they have a lot of great cartoons available, which is really convenient. You also have Amazon Channels, which offers stuff like HBO, Showtime, and Starz...except you have to pay between an extra $4.99 to $14.99 per month for those channels on TOP of Prime.
4. I don't like the idea of the unlimited Amazon Photo feature. Google Photos already does this...for free. What happens to your photos if you stop paying for Prime? "If you cancel or do not renew your Amazon Prime membership, the unlimited photo storage benefit associated with the membership ends". So why would I use this service over Google's FREE unlimited photo service? Plus you only get 5 gigs towards video on Amazon. With Google Photos, all photos up to 16-megapixels & all videos up to 1080p resolution are free. If you have a 20-megapixel camera & a 4K video camera, you can pay for extra storage if you need storage for the higher resolution content.
5. "Prime Pantry: Prime members in select regions can pay an additional monthly membership fee to receive FREE shipping on all Prime Pantry orders of $40 or more, or pay a flat shipping fee for each order they place under $40." First, I hate how they word this lol - "Prime members (note: will now be $119/year) can pay an additional monthly membership fee to receive FREE shipping" WUT NOW? lol. You can pay extra to get "free" shipping? That doesn't sound free! AND there's a $40 minimum? Hahaha. I mean, sure, I understand how this works economically, but c'mon. Second, I'm a big Prime user, but I haven't really bothered to use Pantry because it's yet another extra cost. Right now, it's $5.99 per box (flat fee) for up to 45 pounds of products. They are switching over to a new model where it's $5 a month for Prime Pantry, which is better than a per-box fee, but it's still another $60 annually on TOP of Prime! If you want me to buy my pantry/grocery items from you, why don't you just include Prime Pantry for free in the now-$120/mo Prime fee? Again, I know, economics, but still...I'll just swing by the grocery store on the way home for free, thanks. Plus, as much as I do meal prep, I don't really plan ahead enough to slowly fill up my Pantry box & then wait for it to be shipped vs. just hitting up the local store for some paper towels & ketchup, you know? And most grocery stores in the area offer delivery (for a fee) or a drive-in trunk-fill-up service already (which is insanely convenient), so I already have local options if I want to be extra-lazy. I think Pantry could be pretty convenient if you're home-bound from being, say, disabled, but if you're home-bound from being elderly, I don't think that the older generation is largely going to overcome the technological barrier of using a website to randomly order pantry items & pay a monthly fee for it.
You could probably spend $100 a month on the various Amazon subscription fees if you signed up for everything. And subscriptions are great for companies, because that's pretty much a guaranteed line of incoming coming in until you die. One study I read said that 95% of Prime users had no intention of cancelling Prime. Plus, the latest data says that non-Prime Amazon uses spend $700 annually, Prime members spend $1,300 annually, and Echo owners spend $1,700 annually. Times those last two by 100 million Prime users worldwide. Dang!