7 ms·

I had been on the fence about renewing my decade+ long Prime membership in a couple weeks. The only thing that was seriously tempting me to keep it was Prime V

I had been on the fence about renewing my decade+ long Prime membership in a couple weeks. The only thing that was seriously tempting me to keep it was Prime Video. I have mixed feelings already about Prime Video, as a watching experience I find it quite annoying because I'll find a movie I'd like to watch only to find I have to pay another $5 to watch it. With the other services, I know if a movie comes up on the display, I can watch it without further cost. I'm fairly sensitive to adverts, I really don't like seeing them, largely because I've isolated myself from them. The fewer you see, the more unsettling they are, the blatant attractive factor of them, do.not.want. And anther $40/yr is too much. Apparently, dropping Prime with the shopping really does not impact the speed of delivery or cost. I'm already often selecting delayed delivery. With the increased prices, it's hard to justify the $140/yr.

notatoad 3y ago
The prime video experience is just incredibly bad. To the point where even though I pay for prime, I pirate the shows I want to watch instead of watching them in the prime app on my tv.
beej71 3y ago
I was in the same boat. If I hadn't already cancelled, this would have definitely pushed me over the edge. "This deal is getting worse all the time." --Lando talking about his Prime membership
- seesaw 3y ago
  I have had prime for over 10 years. I think this would push me to cancel it. I think I would also think more before buying if I cancel Prime. We have also found Temu a lot better than Amazon these days. So this is a blessing in disguise.
  - QuantumGood 3y ago
    Better in what ways? (Not my experience with Temu vs Amazon.)
MrFoof 3y ago
If you drop Prime and then go to order something on Amazon, more often than not, you'll be offered to have a "1 week trial" of Prime for $1.99. Sign up, get your delivery faster, and set a reminder to cancel it immediately or at least after your order ships. If you spend enough, you'll sometimes be offered a full full month of Prime for free. Same thing, once your first order ships, cancel. I did this all 2023. I had Prime for nearly every single shipment over the year, and it looks like I spent a whopping $14 total for all of it.
- chii 3y ago
  Conveniently, the membership renewal reminder checkbox in the settings is unchecked - aka, you don't get a reminder before the trial automatically renews to a paid one.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - RankingMember 3y ago
    They're in a dark patterns class of their own
    - foldr 3y ago
      I like to think I'm not one to be easily tricked by dark patterns, but last year Amazon somehow bamboozled me into buying a monthly subscription for a pot of hair product. When the next month's item was delivered and I saw the charge on my card, I was so infuriated that I impulsively disputed it. Months later, Amazon sent me a rude email asking for their money, but I eventually won the dispute. It feels kind of good knowing that I'm one pot of hair wax up on Jeff Bezos. (I did offer to send it back.)
    - lakpan 3y ago
      The Prime unsubscribe flow is a master class of darkness. Try it. It takes several clicks, multiple word-heavy pages, hard choices, flat-out lies, and in the end maybe you just accepted to be reminded 60 seconds before the renewal date.
mey 3y ago
We dropped Prime over a year ago. When it stopped giving you a ad-free Twitch experience that was a serious downgrade for us. Many other retailers have free shipping these days. Rarely do I need something next day. Rarely is Amazon able to deliver things next day anyways. You can very easily get free shipping from Amazon with a minimum purchase order. Their infrastructure isn't able to handle slowing down your package just because you aren't Prime, so you basically get just as fast service. If anything, we've found way more value out of Instacart for quality of life these days.
- danielhep 3y ago
  I guess it depends on where you live. In Seattle I usually get deliveries the same day when I order in the morning, and there are enough grocery stores in walking distance that I wouldn't pay for delivery.
  - dmix 3y ago
    I live an hour from any urban area in Southern Ontario and get next day deliveries all the time. I'd say 90% are next day. Also in Canada the "most sites have free shipping" thing is not true at all for us sadly. Nor do they have as consistently fast shipping as Amazon. Amazon (via Canpar) does two delivery cycles each day in my town either in the early day or early evening depending on when you order. Canada Post has gotten way better thanks to Amazon competiton but next day is still a shot in the dark even when ordering regionally, and fedex/UPS conspire to pretend they attempted delivery even when I work from home. So yeah as a Canadian I can't see myself ending prime any time soon. And I thank Amazon's competition for making the other shipping options better even if they are only 70% of the way there. Maybe one day competiton will plateau and end their ecommerce shipping dominance.
  - fader 3y ago
    That was my experience in the Boston area 3-4 years ago. Last year it had gotten to 3-4 days between ordering and the item arriving normally with probably every third or fourth delivery delayed by at least two days and occasionally a week. Cancelling my 10 year old prime subscription was the easiest decision I've made in the last year.
eek2121 3y ago
I get it at half price ($5.99/mo, no yearly sub), and between my spending at Amazon dropping by 90%, rarely ever watching prime video, and the price increases, I can't even justify it at that rate. I'm sure most will stay subscribed, but MY price is going up by a couple bucks a month in February, so I'm cancelling.
david422 3y ago
> Apparently, dropping Prime with the shopping really does not impact the speed of delivery or cost. I don't have prime. If you are willing to wait a couple extra days, you can usually get free shipping. BUT also, it usually ships faster than indicated anyways.
jwcooper 3y ago
We also just canceled our decade+ prime membership. It used to feel like a great deal, not anymore. $150 a year is just too much for what they offer when we didn't use the music or photos or very limited kindle offerings.
- jart 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    What are you doing here Elon?
  - lostmsu 3y ago
    Maybe it has to do with despise for subscriptions for all the little things which add cognitive load, especially in the presence of bundling. It just evokes a natural "fuck you" reaction.
  - hypothesis 3y ago
    Surely Jeff Bezos is filthy rich because he was giving away $3/month to anyone who asked, is that the logic here?
  - Prickle 3y ago
    I am already paying them. If they decide to add advertisements after the fact, I am allowed to stop paying. After all, they are degrading the service.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - data-ottawa 3y ago
    Is it any surprise that people are unhappy that a service they pay for is degraded so the provider can make more money, or they can pay more money for what they were already getting? If your salary were reduced unilaterally, would you accept that because you make enough? Obviously an anti-consumer move is going to upset consumers, even on a venture capital forum.
d3w4s9 3y ago
I stopped being a Prime member after losing the student status. Guess what -- I discovered that I really don't need it. Most of the time I don't need items delivered in two days, so I can plan ahead and bundle them in an order that exceeds minimum free shipping threshold. These days I order from Amazon barely more than once a month and I am not missing out on anything.
- elif 3y ago
  thanks i had no idea you could get free shipping without prime. i'll likely cancel soon
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    Practically every order I ever get has free shipping by just ordering enough stuff (doesn't take much, but more than a single $10 item) and being willing to wait a couple more days. Stuff comes fast enough regardless because as someone else pointed out, they aren't set up to specially slow your order down while still delivering all others fast. It would actually cost them more to take an order and then sit on it for a while rather than process and dispose of it as fast as possible. Now that I think about that...it means the entire scheme of paying for faster shipping is really a huge scam, getting everyone to pay extra for something they already would do for their own reasons anyway. Anyway, as a user, if I need something today, I find a retailer and drive to them. If it's weird enough that there is no retailer I can drive to, then I wouldn't have got in in a day or two even from Amazon anyway, since it won't be in a local Amazon warehouse any more than it was in a local Walmart or AutoZone or PC Richards etc. And these days, you no longer even get a good search result to find the right things, you just get pages and pages of no-name chinese crap versions of things. The selection used to be the one real killer feature of Amazon, but now you effectively don't even get that any more. There is really hardly any reason to use them any more. I'm actually pretty suprised they allowed that to happen. Even when they were being evil in the sense of taking over the world, they were doing it by making sure their product was irresistable, maybe by unfair means, but still the case never the less. Like them or not you could not deny that. Now, it's no longer true. Their value proposition is actually gone. I never would have thought that would happen, but I'm glad it is starting to.
Dig1t 3y ago
I cancelled mine when they murdered Lord of the Rings. As a fan, I was saddened. After getting rid of my membership, I have not really missed it nearly as much as I thought I would. It doesn’t actually affect me very much, and at the current, high, price for Prime it’s worth canceling just to save the money.
afruitpie 3y ago
I just canceled my annual subscription and found out I get a refund for the 5 unused months I paid for. Cool!
m463 3y ago
> I'm fairly sensitive to adverts It's amazing we all don't develop PTSD with the way amazon product listings are going these days. "Sponsored" everywhere.
babyshake 3y ago
I actually can't figure out how to cancel my membership on the web or mobile. "Manage my Membership" just redirects to the Prime page.
- Tagbert 3y ago
  On the web, goto: Your Account Click on: Prime Manage your membership, view benefits, and payment settings This takes you to a page with button on the right: Manage Membership Update, cancel and more clicking on that button displays a menu of options, including: End Membership By ending your membership you will lose access to your Prime benefits.
browningstreet 3y ago
For me.. I hate ads, but it’s also how the ads impact the ability to pause or rewind/fast-forward a show. I’m gonna un-renew my Prime. They won’t miss me but it’s the very least I can do, and I will. They already took away key/garage delivery by default. And really, I still have plenty of other streaming options.
- TheJoeMan 3y ago
  I think the Amazon Key Garage had to be taken non-free because the semi-monopolist, Chamberlain, realized they could charge Amazon for the ability to open your garage door.
  - browningstreet 3y ago
    It still works. And apparently you set one day/week and aggregate all your deliveries and they’ll still Key deliver. And my Tesla still opens my garage door just fine. But I don’t care why they took it away. It was a great feature for me… I live in a gated community but I travel a lot, so it’s nice to have all my stuff stowed in the garage, without thinking about it. They can’t manage Alexa, they can’t manage Key, now they’re doing ads. They’re also underwhelming on Whole Foods — selections are down, inventory is off, and they removed the Hubs. They seem off. Jassee might be ROI focused but he’s choking the customer delights. They don’t feel essential anymore. Whatevs. Not impressed. It’s a bye for me.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      The why probably should matter to you. If your gated community started charging $50 for the Amazon truck to enter, would you expect them to just "manage" and blame Amazon when they cut back the number of delivery slots? Still cancel if you want, sure, but don't knock their competence the same way.
      - browningstreet 3y ago
        Of course they’d get a pass for that. But that’s not what happened. I’m not going to pay $3/mo for something I had today. Rings of Power wasn’t that good. And: https://x.com/doctorow/status/1669073016419155973?s=46&t=UYF8kM3JuS3TLk7xrib2Kg https://x.com/doctorow/status/1669073016419155973?s=46&t=UYF...
tnel77 3y ago
>>The fewer you see, the more unsettling they are, the blatant attractive factor of them I was just talking to my wife about this. We were watching a Christmas movie via the free “Christmas Classics” app and the catch is that you see an ad every 5-10 minutes. These ads were so goofy and dumb that it felt like I was watching the pretend ads on Rick and Morty.
UncleOxidant 3y ago
It's not only the coming ads and all the non-free movies (which is indeed annoying) but it also seems like Amazon just isn't making much good content. I enjoyed their Man in the High Castle series, but that's been years ago now. Rings of Power was... disappointing - I'd probably like to season 2 hoping that maybe learned from some of their mistakes and improved it, but it's not like I'm waiting on the edge of my seat. They're just not making content that's at the same level as Netflix, Max (HBO) or even AppleTV.
- nicolas_t 3y ago
  Mrs Maisel was great (except for the last season that felt like 2-3 seasons compressed in 1). Upload was great for the first season, still ok for the second season and unbearably bad now.
shostack 3y ago
Soon they will be more incentivized to keep you endlessly scrolling the video feed instead of watching something because the ad impressions will be more valuable.
nytesky 3y ago
I find all the streaming services to be basically chock full of B movies, few that are worth seeing and many that never were released in theaters. Usually there is one or two blockbuster movies, a few classics from the 80s or 90s. HBO used to be a little better in this regard. I miss the red envelope Netflix, that was a deep quality catalog.
- mikrotikker 3y ago
  Pirate bay has a pretty good catalog. So does popcorn time online.
maxglute 3y ago
oh man its 50 loonies per year in canada. Reliable 2 day shipping in the only big city. What are we not getting for 110 usd less? Less content or just cheaper to service Canada.
- linsomniac 3y ago
  But it's only 25 twonies per year!
dmlerner 3y ago
I initially was going to cancel as well - I don't care that much about the fast shipping, and if you hit the minimum order, you get free shipping anyway. But, it means 3% back instead of 5% on the Amazon visa, so if you spend more than 150/12*50=625/month, prime is negative cost. Especially using it for many groceries, I usually hit that.
stjohnswarts 3y ago
They've definitely gotten more greedy and want to offer less and while making you pay for more. I have been on the fence since they started blocking VPN, this may be the nail in the coffin.
wand3r 3y ago
> Apparently, dropping Prime with the shopping really does not impact the speed of delivery or cost. I don't know about this. I don't have prime and rarely use amazon. I ordered something recently that qualified for free shipping. I honestly felt like Amazon intentionally held my package for 3-4 days before shipping it. I think i got it in 5 business days. I will say, not having Prime has probably saved me hundreds of dollars as I only use it for things I really need. My above anecdote was of course just that, an anecdote. Prime is core to their business though, so don't expect quick shipping.
- voakbasda 3y ago
  They absolutely do hold non-Prime packages. But as the GP noted, I dropped Prime last year and have not seen any impact on free delivery times. They were holding back packages for me, even as a Prime member, causing 95% or more delivery times to jump from the two day estimate to the reality of over a week. They gave up trying to provide 2-day shipping to our rural address over two years earlier during the pandemic, and they never restored that supposedly core feature of Prime. Given that behavior, I now see them for what they are: typical rent-seeking crooks.
samstave 3y ago
Prime started adding the pay/subscription rows to the UI some time ago - they used to have a filter button "free to me" - but since they ramped up the number of paid rows - they removed the free to me button and have more pay rows than free ones these days. Its a fucking joke. Netflix, while not having ads has the worst UX for finding genres, movies - cant sort, cant change view modes, cant favorite or easily recommend - they removed the downvotes, then they added them back in. I asked a friend who is an engineering mgr at netflix some time ago about the UX - he told me the shitty UX on netflix is intentional to hide the poor quality of their content library. And that was a few years ago - its never gotten better. Streaming was great until MckInsey and the MBAs hit the market.

notatoad 3y ago

The prime video experience is just incredibly bad. To the point where even though I pay for prime, I pirate the shows I want to watch instead of watching them in the prime app on my tv.

beej71 3y ago

I was in the same boat. If I hadn't already cancelled, this would have definitely pushed me over the edge. "This deal is getting worse all the time." --Lando talking about his Prime membership

seesaw 3y ago
I have had prime for over 10 years. I think this would push me to cancel it. I think I would also think more before buying if I cancel Prime. We have also found Temu a lot better than Amazon these days. So this is a blessing in disguise.
- QuantumGood 3y ago
  Better in what ways? (Not my experience with Temu vs Amazon.)

MrFoof 3y ago

If you drop Prime and then go to order something on Amazon, more often than not, you'll be offered to have a "1 week trial" of Prime for $1.99. Sign up, get your delivery faster, and set a reminder to cancel it immediately or at least after your order ships. If you spend enough, you'll sometimes be offered a full full month of Prime for free. Same thing, once your first order ships, cancel. I did this all 2023. I had Prime for nearly every single shipment over the year, and it looks like I spent a whopping $14 total for all of it.

chii 3y ago
Conveniently, the membership renewal reminder checkbox in the settings is unchecked - aka, you don't get a reminder before the trial automatically renews to a paid one.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- RankingMember 3y ago
  They're in a dark patterns class of their own
  - foldr 3y ago
    I like to think I'm not one to be easily tricked by dark patterns, but last year Amazon somehow bamboozled me into buying a monthly subscription for a pot of hair product. When the next month's item was delivered and I saw the charge on my card, I was so infuriated that I impulsively disputed it. Months later, Amazon sent me a rude email asking for their money, but I eventually won the dispute. It feels kind of good knowing that I'm one pot of hair wax up on Jeff Bezos. (I did offer to send it back.)
  - lakpan 3y ago
    The Prime unsubscribe flow is a master class of darkness. Try it. It takes several clicks, multiple word-heavy pages, hard choices, flat-out lies, and in the end maybe you just accepted to be reminded 60 seconds before the renewal date.

mey 3y ago

We dropped Prime over a year ago. When it stopped giving you a ad-free Twitch experience that was a serious downgrade for us. Many other retailers have free shipping these days. Rarely do I need something next day. Rarely is Amazon able to deliver things next day anyways. You can very easily get free shipping from Amazon with a minimum purchase order. Their infrastructure isn't able to handle slowing down your package just because you aren't Prime, so you basically get just as fast service. If anything, we've found way more value out of Instacart for quality of life these days.

danielhep 3y ago
I guess it depends on where you live. In Seattle I usually get deliveries the same day when I order in the morning, and there are enough grocery stores in walking distance that I wouldn't pay for delivery.
- dmix 3y ago
  I live an hour from any urban area in Southern Ontario and get next day deliveries all the time. I'd say 90% are next day. Also in Canada the "most sites have free shipping" thing is not true at all for us sadly. Nor do they have as consistently fast shipping as Amazon. Amazon (via Canpar) does two delivery cycles each day in my town either in the early day or early evening depending on when you order. Canada Post has gotten way better thanks to Amazon competiton but next day is still a shot in the dark even when ordering regionally, and fedex/UPS conspire to pretend they attempted delivery even when I work from home. So yeah as a Canadian I can't see myself ending prime any time soon. And I thank Amazon's competition for making the other shipping options better even if they are only 70% of the way there. Maybe one day competiton will plateau and end their ecommerce shipping dominance.
- fader 3y ago
  That was my experience in the Boston area 3-4 years ago. Last year it had gotten to 3-4 days between ordering and the item arriving normally with probably every third or fourth delivery delayed by at least two days and occasionally a week. Cancelling my 10 year old prime subscription was the easiest decision I've made in the last year.

eek2121 3y ago

I get it at half price ($5.99/mo, no yearly sub), and between my spending at Amazon dropping by 90%, rarely ever watching prime video, and the price increases, I can't even justify it at that rate. I'm sure most will stay subscribed, but MY price is going up by a couple bucks a month in February, so I'm cancelling.

david422 3y ago

> Apparently, dropping Prime with the shopping really does not impact the speed of delivery or cost. I don't have prime. If you are willing to wait a couple extra days, you can usually get free shipping. BUT also, it usually ships faster than indicated anyways.

jwcooper 3y ago

We also just canceled our decade+ prime membership. It used to feel like a great deal, not anymore. $150 a year is just too much for what they offer when we didn't use the music or photos or very limited kindle offerings.

jart 3y ago
[flagged]
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  What are you doing here Elon?
- lostmsu 3y ago
  Maybe it has to do with despise for subscriptions for all the little things which add cognitive load, especially in the presence of bundling. It just evokes a natural "fuck you" reaction.
- hypothesis 3y ago
  Surely Jeff Bezos is filthy rich because he was giving away $3/month to anyone who asked, is that the logic here?
- Prickle 3y ago
  I am already paying them. If they decide to add advertisements after the fact, I am allowed to stop paying. After all, they are degrading the service.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- data-ottawa 3y ago
  Is it any surprise that people are unhappy that a service they pay for is degraded so the provider can make more money, or they can pay more money for what they were already getting? If your salary were reduced unilaterally, would you accept that because you make enough? Obviously an anti-consumer move is going to upset consumers, even on a venture capital forum.

d3w4s9 3y ago

I stopped being a Prime member after losing the student status. Guess what -- I discovered that I really don't need it. Most of the time I don't need items delivered in two days, so I can plan ahead and bundle them in an order that exceeds minimum free shipping threshold. These days I order from Amazon barely more than once a month and I am not missing out on anything.

elif 3y ago
thanks i had no idea you could get free shipping without prime. i'll likely cancel soon
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  Practically every order I ever get has free shipping by just ordering enough stuff (doesn't take much, but more than a single $10 item) and being willing to wait a couple more days. Stuff comes fast enough regardless because as someone else pointed out, they aren't set up to specially slow your order down while still delivering all others fast. It would actually cost them more to take an order and then sit on it for a while rather than process and dispose of it as fast as possible. Now that I think about that...it means the entire scheme of paying for faster shipping is really a huge scam, getting everyone to pay extra for something they already would do for their own reasons anyway. Anyway, as a user, if I need something today, I find a retailer and drive to them. If it's weird enough that there is no retailer I can drive to, then I wouldn't have got in in a day or two even from Amazon anyway, since it won't be in a local Amazon warehouse any more than it was in a local Walmart or AutoZone or PC Richards etc. And these days, you no longer even get a good search result to find the right things, you just get pages and pages of no-name chinese crap versions of things. The selection used to be the one real killer feature of Amazon, but now you effectively don't even get that any more. There is really hardly any reason to use them any more. I'm actually pretty suprised they allowed that to happen. Even when they were being evil in the sense of taking over the world, they were doing it by making sure their product was irresistable, maybe by unfair means, but still the case never the less. Like them or not you could not deny that. Now, it's no longer true. Their value proposition is actually gone. I never would have thought that would happen, but I'm glad it is starting to.

Dig1t 3y ago

I cancelled mine when they murdered Lord of the Rings. As a fan, I was saddened. After getting rid of my membership, I have not really missed it nearly as much as I thought I would. It doesn’t actually affect me very much, and at the current, high, price for Prime it’s worth canceling just to save the money.

afruitpie 3y ago

I just canceled my annual subscription and found out I get a refund for the 5 unused months I paid for. Cool!

m463 3y ago

> I'm fairly sensitive to adverts It's amazing we all don't develop PTSD with the way amazon product listings are going these days. "Sponsored" everywhere.

babyshake 3y ago

I actually can't figure out how to cancel my membership on the web or mobile. "Manage my Membership" just redirects to the Prime page.

Tagbert 3y ago
On the web, goto: Your Account Click on: Prime Manage your membership, view benefits, and payment settings This takes you to a page with button on the right: Manage Membership Update, cancel and more clicking on that button displays a menu of options, including: End Membership By ending your membership you will lose access to your Prime benefits.

browningstreet 3y ago

For me.. I hate ads, but it’s also how the ads impact the ability to pause or rewind/fast-forward a show. I’m gonna un-renew my Prime. They won’t miss me but it’s the very least I can do, and I will. They already took away key/garage delivery by default. And really, I still have plenty of other streaming options.

TheJoeMan 3y ago
I think the Amazon Key Garage had to be taken non-free because the semi-monopolist, Chamberlain, realized they could charge Amazon for the ability to open your garage door.
- browningstreet 3y ago
  It still works. And apparently you set one day/week and aggregate all your deliveries and they’ll still Key deliver. And my Tesla still opens my garage door just fine. But I don’t care why they took it away. It was a great feature for me… I live in a gated community but I travel a lot, so it’s nice to have all my stuff stowed in the garage, without thinking about it. They can’t manage Alexa, they can’t manage Key, now they’re doing ads. They’re also underwhelming on Whole Foods — selections are down, inventory is off, and they removed the Hubs. They seem off. Jassee might be ROI focused but he’s choking the customer delights. They don’t feel essential anymore. Whatevs. Not impressed. It’s a bye for me.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    The why probably should matter to you. If your gated community started charging $50 for the Amazon truck to enter, would you expect them to just "manage" and blame Amazon when they cut back the number of delivery slots? Still cancel if you want, sure, but don't knock their competence the same way.
    - browningstreet 3y ago
      Of course they’d get a pass for that. But that’s not what happened. I’m not going to pay $3/mo for something I had today. Rings of Power wasn’t that good. And: https://x.com/doctorow/status/1669073016419155973?s=46&t=UYF8kM3JuS3TLk7xrib2Kg https://x.com/doctorow/status/1669073016419155973?s=46&t=UYF...

tnel77 3y ago

>>The fewer you see, the more unsettling they are, the blatant attractive factor of them I was just talking to my wife about this. We were watching a Christmas movie via the free “Christmas Classics” app and the catch is that you see an ad every 5-10 minutes. These ads were so goofy and dumb that it felt like I was watching the pretend ads on Rick and Morty.

UncleOxidant 3y ago

It's not only the coming ads and all the non-free movies (which is indeed annoying) but it also seems like Amazon just isn't making much good content. I enjoyed their Man in the High Castle series, but that's been years ago now. Rings of Power was... disappointing - I'd probably like to season 2 hoping that maybe learned from some of their mistakes and improved it, but it's not like I'm waiting on the edge of my seat. They're just not making content that's at the same level as Netflix, Max (HBO) or even AppleTV.

nicolas_t 3y ago
Mrs Maisel was great (except for the last season that felt like 2-3 seasons compressed in 1). Upload was great for the first season, still ok for the second season and unbearably bad now.

shostack 3y ago

Soon they will be more incentivized to keep you endlessly scrolling the video feed instead of watching something because the ad impressions will be more valuable.

nytesky 3y ago

I find all the streaming services to be basically chock full of B movies, few that are worth seeing and many that never were released in theaters. Usually there is one or two blockbuster movies, a few classics from the 80s or 90s. HBO used to be a little better in this regard. I miss the red envelope Netflix, that was a deep quality catalog.

mikrotikker 3y ago
Pirate bay has a pretty good catalog. So does popcorn time online.

maxglute 3y ago

oh man its 50 loonies per year in canada. Reliable 2 day shipping in the only big city. What are we not getting for 110 usd less? Less content or just cheaper to service Canada.

linsomniac 3y ago
But it's only 25 twonies per year!

dmlerner 3y ago

I initially was going to cancel as well - I don't care that much about the fast shipping, and if you hit the minimum order, you get free shipping anyway. But, it means 3% back instead of 5% on the Amazon visa, so if you spend more than 150/12*50=625/month, prime is negative cost. Especially using it for many groceries, I usually hit that.

stjohnswarts 3y ago

They've definitely gotten more greedy and want to offer less and while making you pay for more. I have been on the fence since they started blocking VPN, this may be the nail in the coffin.

wand3r 3y ago

> Apparently, dropping Prime with the shopping really does not impact the speed of delivery or cost. I don't know about this. I don't have prime and rarely use amazon. I ordered something recently that qualified for free shipping. I honestly felt like Amazon intentionally held my package for 3-4 days before shipping it. I think i got it in 5 business days. I will say, not having Prime has probably saved me hundreds of dollars as I only use it for things I really need. My above anecdote was of course just that, an anecdote. Prime is core to their business though, so don't expect quick shipping.

voakbasda 3y ago
They absolutely do hold non-Prime packages. But as the GP noted, I dropped Prime last year and have not seen any impact on free delivery times. They were holding back packages for me, even as a Prime member, causing 95% or more delivery times to jump from the two day estimate to the reality of over a week. They gave up trying to provide 2-day shipping to our rural address over two years earlier during the pandemic, and they never restored that supposedly core feature of Prime. Given that behavior, I now see them for what they are: typical rent-seeking crooks.

samstave 3y ago

Prime started adding the pay/subscription rows to the UI some time ago - they used to have a filter button "free to me" - but since they ramped up the number of paid rows - they removed the free to me button and have more pay rows than free ones these days. Its a fucking joke. Netflix, while not having ads has the worst UX for finding genres, movies - cant sort, cant change view modes, cant favorite or easily recommend - they removed the downvotes, then they added them back in. I asked a friend who is an engineering mgr at netflix some time ago about the UX - he told me the shitty UX on netflix is intentional to hide the poor quality of their content library. And that was a few years ago - its never gotten better. Streaming was great until MckInsey and the MBAs hit the market.