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Cancel Amazon Prime [2021] (archive.ph)

submitted 11 months ago by trashhalo@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

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Amazon Prime is a remarkable success but also dystopian. It has made convenience and speed the norm, habituating consumers to buy more products. Prime's flywheel effect - where more customers lead to more data and scale which attracts more customers - has fueled Amazon's dominance. Prime subscribers spend twice as much and Amazon's value has multiplied 97 times since 2005. While canceling Prime may not hurt Amazon, it can benefit local businesses by gaining a new customer. However, Prime has rewired how people think about what is possible to obtain and how fast, making a Prime-free life unimaginable for many.

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[-] argv_minus_one@beehaw.org 16 points 11 months ago

And buy from where? Retailers these days, insofar as they exist at all, have ridiculously limited inventory. If I want something that's even slightly uncommon, the only place I can find it is online, and since there's no telling whether any given website will steal from me, welp, Amazon it is.

[-] elbrar@pawb.social 5 points 11 months ago

You can still buy from Amazon as needed without Prime. The free shipping is still usually relatively fast, and they'll give you a free or heavily discounted Prime trial fairly often. I try to avoid buying stuff on Amazon these days, but a lot of things simply aren't available elsewhere or would be significantly more difficult to acquire. I haven't had a steady Prime sub in at least a couple years, but they end up offering me a trial probably every few months. Hell, they gave me a full month for free a week ago (probably to try to drive up Prime Day sales).

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this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023

114 points (100.0% liked)