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posted by janrinok on Sunday November 13 2016, @11:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the we-just-want-your-money dept.

Maybe some of have already seen this, but I hadn't seen it until it bit me in the ass today. Amazon is listing some of its standard products as Prime only, meaning only Prime members are allowed to buy it. Prime is an Amazon subscription service that gives you free 2-day shipping (to your local post office, not to your door), streaming services, and a bunch of other 'benefits'. They have gone to great lengths to push this $99 a year service on people, including delaying normal shipments and preventing you from buying what you want. I no longer qualify to reorder a SSD I bought last week since I'm not willing to become a member (nor can I try the 30 trial as I did that back when Prime was new). All that SSD research time wasted.

We were worried about net neutrality. It seems in the future we'll have to worry about subscribing to every store we want to do business with just to have the privilege of buying from them. I'll bet money within a couple years you won't qualify for sales like Cyber Monday unless you're a subscriber. I can easily see that spreading to every store: "Pay $10 at the door for big savings on all our in-store, on sale items." Stores used to give you discounts for going to them, now you'll have to pay for the honor of shopping there.

Here's an article about it.


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  • (Score: 2) by Celestial on Monday November 14 2016, @12:23AM

    by Celestial (4891) on Monday November 14 2016, @12:23AM (#426390) Journal

    I'm probably biased as the vast majority of my purchases over the past ten years or so have been made on Amazon with the sole exception of groceries, but I don't see the problem. There are still plenty of other online retailers to choose from.

    FWIW, I've been a subscriber to Amazon Prime since 2011, and it's been worth every penny to me. Items are delivered within two days. Some within twelve hours even. That's been rare, but it's occurred.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @04:01AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @04:01AM (#426434)

    The only negative thing I've found is the stack of Amazon boxes sitting in my back yard waiting for room in the recycle bin or fireplace.