Amazon Hikes Prime Membership Fee 276
An anonymous reader writes with official news that, as expected, "Amazon officially announced that it is increasing Prime Membership fees from $79 to $99. Amazon Students will pay $49, and participants of Amazon Fresh (the grocery shopping service) will continue to have a $299 fee. The price hike in Prime Membership is attributed to rising shipping costs, but some wonder if the 'real question around Prime is whether it's sustainable at all, even at a higher price.'"
Re:Still worth it (Score:5, Interesting)
I have both (and am sneaking in at the end of the month at the current $79 price for my renewal).
The Netflix streaming player is much more mature than the Amazon streaming player (Amazon's is basically a half-step up from YouTube).
Netflix will save my spot and I can get miniscreen previews as I'm selecting where I want to be in a film.
But Netflix can be tetchy at times. Trying to manually pick a time point in a film in short succession usually winds up leading to an endlessly pre-buffering scenario until I refresh the tab.
The shipping is nice though, for when I order things.
With Netflix, if they don't stream what I want, I have to waste time with shipping a DVD.
With Amazon, they have a decent amount of content available for free, and if I want more, I can purchase (or in some cases rent).
Re:Turned off auto-renew today (Score:5, Interesting)
They've had the "turn off" option obfuscated for a while now. I accidentally signed up a while back and it took a while to find it. I do have it now, but doubt I'd enroll again. I've seen a Amazon prime "tax" in effect on pricing that makes me suspect I'm not really getting my money's worth.
As an Australian (Score:5, Interesting)
...that has recently moved to the USA, I am stunned by Amazon - I mean, I always knew it looked awesome but until I got here I didn't fully understand how much stuff was on there and how amazing it is to order basically anything.
Prime simply adds to my amazement - I can order (almost) anything and it will arrive (almost always) 2 days later. My shopping behaviour has changed significantly, to the point where I'll not buy something while it's right in front of me in a store because I can just have Amazon bring it to my house a few days later, saving me the effort of carrying it around or trying to get it home (I don't own a car yet).
Even at the new price it seems like a fantastic deal, and that's before I add the streaming video service, which I've also gotten a lot of use out of, despite having Netflix and Hulu.
I guess I am surprised by the people complaining about the price hike. I'm back in Australia right now for a couple weeks and from the wistful look everyone here gets when I explain how great it is, I know they'd happily pay twice the new fee just to never have to deal with the local retailers ever again.
Anyway, my 2c: this price raise would in no way dissuade me from renewing next year (if I'm still living in the usa).
Re:Turned off auto-renew today (Score:3, Interesting)
You must not use it much if an extra $20 a year is a deal-breaker for you. I use it all the time (along with the movie/TV streaming) and it's a helluva bargain, even with a $20 price bump. And I haven't even looked into the extras I could get on the Kindle.
"$100 is too much for Prime."
"You must not use it much if an extra $20 a year is a deal-breaker for you."
"$120 is too much for Prime."
"You must not use it much if an extra $20 a year is a deal-breaker for you."
"$140 is too much for Prime."
"You must not use it much if an extra $20 a year is a deal-breaker for you."
"$160 is too much for Prime." ...
"You must not use it much if an extra $20 a year is a deal-breaker for you."
You draw a line where you draw a line. Others may draw it somewhere else.
But to say "+$X is still worth it" is retarded when you don't know where someone draws their line. It's especially retarded when they just told you that +$X was past their line.