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Now unbundle delivery from movies/series/stuff and I'll be a member again.

iforgotpassword 4y ago
I'm honestly surprised they kept going with this for so long. I expected them to do this for two or three years tops, but it seems to work out I guess? I signed up for Amazon student after I finished college (still had access to a mail account and didn't know about the program before, or maybe it didn't exist yet) so I got prime for 25€ for a couple years. I watched one show on prime and never used it for music. Only really wanted the free and faster shipping. As soon as student ended I unsubscribed as it wasn't worth 45€ to me.
- OJFord 4y ago
  I think it's because if unbundled it would collectively cost a lot more, and nobody actually uses everything (or even more than one, maybe two) much anyway, so it's sort of a costless value-add to bundle them. 'Huh yeah maybe I'll use that occasionally.' I'm sure they'll have run focus groups or whatever with proposed unbundled pricing to see which services people would pay for and how it stacks up.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  There's huge value to them in being the only people who know how many people subscribe for the video and how many people subscribe for the shipping. In every vertical they can negotiate using the full Prime subscriber numbers, not the "number of people who have ever played a single Prime Video show".
orra 4y ago
It feels incredibly anticompetitive they were able to bundle Prime Video with Prime Delivery. Amazon have significant market power in online commerce, and for them to use that muscle into online video is ridiculous.
- scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
  It’s almost exactly like when Rockefeller managed to use strategic rail infrastructure to attack and intimidate oil competitors until the entire industry became monopolized and had to be dismantled. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    That's the conventional narrative. But if you read "Titan" by Chernow, it's substantially different. Rockefeller never had a monopoly. He was accused and convicted not of having a monopoly, but anti-competitive behavior. Also, during the long trial, his market share kept slipping, and he was unable to stop the slide. His competitors had never been vanquished, and had figured out how to compete with Standard Oil. https://www.amazon.com/Titan-Life-John-Rockefeller-Sr/dp/1400077303 https://www.amazon.com/Titan-Life-John-Rockefeller-Sr/dp/140... What's ironic about the book is Chernow reaches the standard conclusions that you wrote, but his actual text says the opposite. I suspect that Chernow's preconceived notions about Standard Oil were so strong he was not convinced by his own research and narrative of what actually happened.
    - scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
      That’s super interesting. I’m not familiar with the book - but the point about the monopoly doesn’t surprise me. Things are never that simple. From a legal standpoint no one actually reaches a full monopoly unless it is a government instituted/regulated monopoly, no? Like, I mean monopoly as a pursued ideal and total victory state for a business, but not as an achievable goal. My point mostly related to Amazon - they’re really not a monopoly, but they’re definitely strategically pursuing a direction which left unrestrained would give them that monopoly. In this specific example it is Amazon using their AWS cloud infrastructure to bundle video streaming into Prime to then create a mix that strangles competitors. In the case of Standard Oil what I remember were strategic investments into directly unprofitable rail infrastructure and then SO using that to exert pressure on smaller oil competitors to force them to sell at a loss. I’m no expert but I think this is what makes anti-trust so difficult to prove reliably.

I'm honestly surprised they kept going with this for so long. I expected them to do this for two or three years tops, but it seems to work out I guess? I signed up for Amazon student after I finished college (still had access to a mail account and didn't know about the program before, or maybe it didn't exist yet) so I got prime for 25€ for a couple years. I watched one show on prime and never used it for music. Only really wanted the free and faster shipping. As soon as student ended I unsubscribed as it wasn't worth 45€ to me.

OJFord 4y ago
I think it's because if unbundled it would collectively cost a lot more, and nobody actually uses everything (or even more than one, maybe two) much anyway, so it's sort of a costless value-add to bundle them. 'Huh yeah maybe I'll use that occasionally.' I'm sure they'll have run focus groups or whatever with proposed unbundled pricing to see which services people would pay for and how it stacks up.
ocdtrekkie 4y ago
There's huge value to them in being the only people who know how many people subscribe for the video and how many people subscribe for the shipping. In every vertical they can negotiate using the full Prime subscriber numbers, not the "number of people who have ever played a single Prime Video show".

orra 4y ago

It feels incredibly anticompetitive they were able to bundle Prime Video with Prime Delivery. Amazon have significant market power in online commerce, and for them to use that muscle into online video is ridiculous.

scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
It’s almost exactly like when Rockefeller managed to use strategic rail infrastructure to attack and intimidate oil competitors until the entire industry became monopolized and had to be dismantled. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- WalterBright 4y ago
  That's the conventional narrative. But if you read "Titan" by Chernow, it's substantially different. Rockefeller never had a monopoly. He was accused and convicted not of having a monopoly, but anti-competitive behavior. Also, during the long trial, his market share kept slipping, and he was unable to stop the slide. His competitors had never been vanquished, and had figured out how to compete with Standard Oil. https://www.amazon.com/Titan-Life-John-Rockefeller-Sr/dp/1400077303 https://www.amazon.com/Titan-Life-John-Rockefeller-Sr/dp/140... What's ironic about the book is Chernow reaches the standard conclusions that you wrote, but his actual text says the opposite. I suspect that Chernow's preconceived notions about Standard Oil were so strong he was not convinced by his own research and narrative of what actually happened.
  - scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
    That’s super interesting. I’m not familiar with the book - but the point about the monopoly doesn’t surprise me. Things are never that simple. From a legal standpoint no one actually reaches a full monopoly unless it is a government instituted/regulated monopoly, no? Like, I mean monopoly as a pursued ideal and total victory state for a business, but not as an achievable goal. My point mostly related to Amazon - they’re really not a monopoly, but they’re definitely strategically pursuing a direction which left unrestrained would give them that monopoly. In this specific example it is Amazon using their AWS cloud infrastructure to bundle video streaming into Prime to then create a mix that strangles competitors. In the case of Standard Oil what I remember were strategic investments into directly unprofitable rail infrastructure and then SO using that to exert pressure on smaller oil competitors to force them to sell at a loss. I’m no expert but I think this is what makes anti-trust so difficult to prove reliably.