Comment on It’s Surprisingly Easy to Live Without an Amazon Prime Subscription
abraxas@sh.itjust.works 9 months agoIt’s the Walmart problem. People buy from Amazon because they can’t afford some necessities at MSRP when going to a local store.
Some of the stuff I can get in bulk on Amazon are as much as 50% cheaper than getting those same things in bulk from a restaurant supply (which is cheaper than buying them at a grocery store). And that’s before Subscribe&Save’s 15% off. Coffee (for example) costs would drive me into the poor house if I didn’t get my beans from Amazon… and I end up getting higher quality beans than my grocery store at that lower price.
Do I NEED coffee to live? No. But it’s not exactly a luxury in the modern world. There are things I buy that I need; there are things that I buy that I want. And as much as I hate it, most of them are not available locally or are FAR more expensive locally. I never go to Amazon first, but I very often find myself landing at Amazon last.
And yes, that doesn’t justify Prime on its own. But because I have Prime, I get those things that I couldn’t find cheaper elsewhere the very next day. Prime will never be necessary when there’s free shipping options, but boy have they packed it out with more features than (for example) Walmart’s subscription model.
Here’s what I get with Prime that I appreciate:
- Free games every month, some of which are pretty awesome
- that fast shipping
- A fairly average TV service with a few of the best exclusives out there (imo THE best but I’m a WoT-head).
- Tons of included books and I live in a family of readers
I mean, a lot of it I could get on the High Seas as it were, but it’s the law of convenience. They make it easy and there’s a value prop there for me.
If I JUST wanted free shipping, Prime would be a complete waste of money to me. But I’d still end up giving Amazon my damn paycheck because the alternatives are just not there where I live.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
Interesting. For me it’s the other way round 😂 The games are on their app (nope, thanks) or epic (no thanks). The digital goodies are only nice if you game any of those. The tv stuff is the worst I’ve seen back when i actually paid for my series/movies. Rarely nothing there and the interesting stuff still asked for money.
Books i can’t judge… I have a tolino full of epubs 😁
abraxas@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Their app is surpisingly fair. No inherent DRM, just click “download” and it downloads. Epic… well, I have 100+ games I got for free, so I have it anyway. I probably have a $1000 collection of “free” games on Epic at this point.
With all the subscription services, I think that’s the rule. If you like what they have, you love it. If not, you go elsewhere. At least Prime is cheaper than some of them, but at the end of the day it’s about the stuff you enjoy.
For me, it’s WoT, Reacher, Good Omens on top, along with a few of their FreeVee partnership shows. But I have to respect they also have The Boys, which I’ve been meaning to get into.
I mean, to me they beat Apple+ and Hulu, lose to Disney+ and Netflix. At $11/mo, I get all those things along with the expedited shipping and the books. Convenient, but also not overpriced.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
Ok tbh i never tried the amazon app. But i doubt it just downloads and that’s it. No tracking? No phoning home? No play-statistics? Hmm
Yeah sure, we all got epic accounts filled with freebies. But i never heard of anyone actually using the app instead of maybe even playing one of those freebies and then quitting the app again 😁
Ok, they might indeed be the cheapest, thanks to the massive added value. Maybe it was a local thing? I tried watching like 3 things. And one i could rent, the others pay extra and i was like “wtf? This is prime? Fuckit”
And i didn’t mean to question your choice. It seems to be the best deal for you.
It just sucks that you’d need like 5 services and still can’t watch EVERYTHING. And in case of netflix (i assume that’s valid for the others too) we e. G. Only get 30% of what the muricans can watch. Same price. Or use a vpn.
I really tried being legit, but I’m back to *arr and emby. Not 10 bucks a month for 99% of everything. Did i mention netflix didn’t even work on any of my droids because of rooting? Fuck this.
abraxas@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
I can’t be positive. I’ve never run any network traces on it. But it doesn’t have any of the hallmarks of service DRMs. No “connecting” popup. I’ve played Amazon-downloaded games offline. If there’s a hidden DRM, it’s more-or-less obscured.
Let’s be honest, though. Amazon gives the games away for free in an app that will never be used to sell products; and they do it as a bullet-point for Prime and to nudge people towards Luna. It’s obviously the games they get for free that they give away. I see no reason for them to do more work than they have to, plugging in a DRM.
It’s hard to remember what games I got through Amazon vs Epic, but I clearly remember a few times I was excited about an Amazon Games offering added an Epic game.
In Amazon Games natively, my happy games are Autonauts, Terraformers, Close to the Sun (recently), and a few of those short adventure games I completed that nobody wants to spend $20 on but everyone loves to play.
Their rent thing sucks, but I *never *see rentals in front of me when I use Prime Video on my TV. I named 3 of their big exclusives, but there’s plenty more either exclusive or just licensed. It’s never the most awesome shows of any service, but I could still find a few hours per day of video if I tried.
Yeah, I’m with you 5000% on that. That’s where Gabe Newall is right. I’d probably be willing to drop drop $100/mo or more on a service if it had EVERYTHING on-demand, convenient, with no DRM of any kind. And I’d never once think to download-and-unsub or distribute or anything.
…as for your experience, I say wave that damn Jolly Roger. Gimme convenience or give me death. I pay because things are convenient for me. If it wasn’t, I probably wouldn’t be paying either.