I am not a Prime subscriber, but do buy from Amazon a lot (usually orders are over $35 so qualify for free shipping anyway). One thing I'd like to say about Am

I am not a Prime subscriber, but do buy from Amazon a lot (usually orders are over $35 so qualify for free shipping anyway). One thing I'd like to say about Amazon's position of strength is that if you look at a competing service like ShopRunner -- to which I was given a complimentary one-year membership, which just ended -- Amazon is a beast in comparison. I mean, even with the free ShopRunner subscription, I was still buying from Amazon more than from ShopRunner merchants, simply because Amazon is a huge department store with practically every retail category well represented, whereas ShopRunner is largely a collection of specialty stores. Is this necessarily a good thing, though? I mean, the more power Amazon has, the less competitive it needs to be, right? That's why I have mixed feelings about using Amazon for most of my online shopping needs; I don't want to be contributing to a situation where all of the "little guys" are edged out.