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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, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @02:21AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @02:21AM (#426414)

    My Amazon Visa 3% cash rebate for Amazon purchases and 1% everywhere else pays off prime membership after only about 3 months use. I always pay the full balance each month, so there's never any finance charge. I use it for everything... bills, groceries, gas, shopping, It adds up quickly.

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