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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.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2016, @11:09PM
I have no problems with them running their business the way they see fit, as long as the communication is above board. It's not like we have no alternative source for these items.
I'm not a prime member - I always try to buy enough to qualify for free shipping, and then wait for it to arrive.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday November 13 2016, @11:25PM
It's just another game to play. Back in the day you'd look on Amazon for a Tommy Gunn Penis Extender [amazon.com] and the price would be 40 bucks. But if you continued looking, you could find the exact same product for 20. Now (according to that link) it's a little over ten, and well worth the investment. Which means that I, even suboptimally, achieved a 50% cost savings because I wasn't lazy or gullible and could have achieved more had I been even less lazy or gullible.
Recall the lessons learned (you did learn lessons from it, right?) from Franz Kafka's books -- You don't just stop and resign yourself to that fate just because somebody told you to, right?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @02:15AM
So... Did the Penis Extender make it longer than 2 inches?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 14 2016, @01:35PM
I wouldn't insult any individuals mom, but AC being a polymorphic c++ object I didn't feel so bad. I'm language-ist that way.
And just to head it off at the pass because I'm sure its on the way, "Who still programs c++, your mom?" yeah yeah very funny.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday November 14 2016, @05:37PM
It's used to cure his chronic whiskey dick.
(Score: 1) by gmrath on Monday November 14 2016, @12:48PM
So, here I thought a penis extension included a full suspension lift kit, 40-inch diameter tires, light bars, air horn, 500+ CID engine and a six foot step ladder to get into the thing to strap it on. Huh.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday November 14 2016, @01:49PM
Amazon sells all those parts, although maybe you need Prime.
Reminds me of my first "what the fuck are you doing on the internet" parenting experience with my daughter who was trying her best to order a complete "hello kitty" car makeover kit from amazon, the five hundred dollar one which is apparently no longer for sale, with Hello Kitty floor mats seat covers and door decals and license plate holder and steering wheel cover, window tint kit and a ton of other probably gray market branded stuff. Certainly I would have had the cutest car in the city. I was kinda torn between actually helping her buy it vs the parental version of there are certain activities not allowed on the internet etc...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday November 14 2016, @02:25PM
FYI . . . the state of Arizona has a limit of 2 dildos per household. Does this item qualify fall under the scope of that law? Or can I order as many as I want?
Revolver, or semi automatic modified to be fully automatic -- which is best for senior citizens in their porch swings?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday November 14 2016, @07:58PM
"Ma'am, your neighbors called to inform us that you were making noises akin to copulation. We are agents Richard Long and Muai-Beeg Dong, from the Dildo Intrastate Limit Dedicated Organization. We have to search you, and optional partners, to makes sure nobody is currently over the legal holding limit. Please step aside and put your guns back in their holsters, you may retain any butt plugs, this should be really quick"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @02:26AM
> I have no problems with them running their business the way they see fit,
They can run their business anyway they want and you can still have a BIG problem with the way they run it.
Its like you are deliberately trying to miss the point.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Francis on Monday November 14 2016, @04:45AM
Right now they have about 30% of the market in the US. This move is obnoxious, but at least you know they're doing. There was a story a while ago about them changing the search results to make the deals worse if you weren't a member of prime. That's a completely different matter.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @07:54AM
That's a completely different matter.
Granted. So why are you so rude as to bring it up?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tfried on Monday November 14 2016, @08:36AM
The problem is not so much in Amazon making a jerk move. It's that apparently they think they are in a position to be a jerk and still get away with it. And I'm afraid, they're probably right, too. Why?
1. Amazon has become the one stop place to get everything, for the most part at competitive prices. 2. Due to 1), a scary amount of customers will look for product X on Amazon, only. 3. Due to 2) no vendor can really afford not to have their product listed on Amazon, while there is no immediate benefit to selling on competing platforms. GOTO 1.
So a couple of years and many jerk moves later, everybody will hate Amazon, but nobody can actually get around Amazon. Pretty much like ebay is today...
I do hope I'm wrong and this move will instead offer an opportunity for an equal rival to emerge and restore actual competition.
(Score: 2, Informative) by nobu_the_bard on Monday November 14 2016, @03:37PM
They've always been jerks like this to partners, vendors, suppliers. It's just the customers have mostly been insulated from this until recently.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday November 14 2016, @07:03PM
So a couple of years and many jerk moves later, everybody will hate Amazon, but nobody can actually get around Amazon. Pretty much like ebay is today...
I do hope I'm wrong and this move will instead offer an opportunity for an equal rival to emerge and restore actual competition.
What are you talking about? We already have an equal rival: it's called Ebay. You mentioned it yourself right here. In the past year, I've already shifted a lot of my purchases from Amazon to Ebay because Amazon's prices are frequently not that great, and the high minimum order to get free shipping is annoying. I'll also look for other vendors for things to make sure I'm getting the best price, and to avoid Amazon getting too much business. I still stick with Amazon for many things because so many vendors sell through them, and they'll have the best prices for those things, but it's not universal by any means; it really pays to shop around.
I've even found vendors that sell on Amazon, but sell for a lower price on their own website. One place I saw like this offered some easy-to-get coupon so the final price on their website came out to be significantly less than the Amazon price.
So I still use Amazon a lot for researching products and seeing what's available, and seeing peoples' reviews of them, but the final purchase frequently will go somewhere else.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday November 14 2016, @09:00PM
That's actually the problem. eBay isn't competing with Amazon, Amazon is attempting to become eBay. They're fundamentally different models -- one is a storefront, the other is an auction. Which is why I don't use eBay, because I don't want to wade through a bunch of "RETAIL BOX ONLY!" and "HALFWAY FUNCTIONAL" and "PARTS ONLY" and "MIGHT SHIP IN THREE MONTHS" listings to find what I'm looking for. But now you're starting to see that same crap come up on Amazon.
So I'm trying to start moving away from Amazon too because of that. And because their shipping is a mess -- I've literally had two of the exact same item, part of the same order, shipped from the same Amazon warehouse, shipped on the same day, arrived in two separate boxes on different days. And it's not even like they were big items, it was two ten packs of bolts. The packaging was far larger than the item itself. I even contacted Amazon support and they couldn't explain it either. And they're SLOW and getting SLOWER. I order from other companies and even the "5-7 day" shipping never takes more than three days. With Amazon the "3-5 day shipping" takes a week or two. Add in Prime Only and Marketplace and Add-On Items and you end up paying five separate shipping fees trying to buy three damn items. And when you try to filter those out, the filters don't work -- you can search specifically for "fulfillment by Amazon", but you'll still have shipments coming from China if you don't double and triple check that order. And they've got a checkbox on the checkout that specifically requests that they try to group stuff into fewer shipments, but that doesn't seem to do a damn thing either anymore. They've got so many products shipping from so many different sellers and different warehouses and they just dump whatever crap anybody in the world wants to sell into one big listing and make YOU try to make sense of it all yourself. If I'm buying something online I'd like to know what I'm buying and who I'm buying it from, but when you order from Amazon even Amazon doesn't seem to know! Obviously eBay has the same issues, for the same reasons, which is why I don't shop there.
But I don't know where else to go for the weird and random stuff. Those odd sized bolts I couldn't find locally I found a good online store for, but the random electronic stuff is a lot harder, and I don't wanna have to order each item from a separate site anyway. I heard AliBaba was good for that stuff but last time I tried to order anything there they asked me to write my own invoice for it, so I'm not sure if they're looking for big commercial/industrial customers or what...it was all very confusing though, they give a per-unit price but then specify that it's only sold in packs of ten (so is that price each or for ten?) and then when you go to order they ask you what the total price should be...I don't know because you didn't label it well enough, but if you're the one selling it shouldn't YOU be telling ME the price??
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday November 15 2016, @04:05PM
You're right about Amazon, but you're totally wrong about Ebay. It sounds like you haven't used Ebay in at least 5 years; you should check it out again. Ebay is not an auction site any more; that stopped being the case years ago. They still have auctions, but most sales these days are "buy it now", from very high-volume sellers. You can still re-sell your used stuff on there (and there's plenty of that), but it's basically taken a back seat to the high-volume sellers. For a lot of things, it's a much better place to go. I just bought some odd-sized bolts on there not long ago, for probably about a dollar (from China). You can buy all kinds of weird stuff on there, for cheap prices, both from US and Chinese sellers (the Chinese ones take a while to arrive obviously, but the stuff is super-cheap, even with shipping). It's easy to filter stuff too: new vs used, worldwide vs US-only, etc. I've bought batteries on there for next to nothing, when I needed some CR2012 coin cells. There's people in the US who buy them in bulk, and then sell them in lots of ~5 on Ebay for perhaps $1.50-2.00, and send them to you in an envelope with a single stamp. I needed some 3M "Dual Lock" velcro, and got some small pieces from an Ebay seller for $1 (looks like a retired guy in Florida). You just won't find odds and ends like that on Amazon, especially not at such cheap prices. And it's a lot better than buying some retail-packaged version for $20 that has 20 times as much product as I really need, or some massively overpriced retail-packaged item that's expensive just because of the costs of retail overhead (as with batteries--coin cells are very expensive when you buy them at CVS in a 1-pack).
Right now, Ebay IS the go-to place for weird and random stuff. AliBaba is for commercial stuff in high quantities.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday November 14 2016, @02:27PM
> I have no problems with them running their business the way they see fit
If you meant 'ruining' their business, then I would agree.
Revolver, or semi automatic modified to be fully automatic -- which is best for senior citizens in their porch swings?
(Score: 5, Informative) by black6host on Sunday November 13 2016, @11:11PM
Prime 2-day shipping has always been to my door. Not the post office. And I question your appraisal of your SSD research as wasted. If you're in the market for an SSD then you research them no matter where you buy them from.
With respect to "exclusive" items the market will respond to demand. If I have to pay extra to buy from A and the cost to buy from B is lower as a result then I'm going to buy from B.
Anyway, perhaps I misunderstood. That can happen. But I can share my experience and my thoughts.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @12:09AM
Prime 2-day shipping has always been to my door. Not the post office.
Same here, seven days a week. I often have free 1-day shipping as an option, and I've even had free same-day delivery (including on Sat & Sun).
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @02:21AM
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.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 14 2016, @12:31AM
Well - there is "research" and there is "research". When I decided to build a RAID, I really didn't know where to start. So, I started looking at all the abbreviations, what the model numbers actually meant, how fast, how reliable, blah, blah, blah. I didn't "research" the price until I had narrowed my choices down to two or three models. Only then did I do any price shopping. And - Amazon wasn't even in the running. I found like three or four different vendors who beat Amazon by 10% or more.
Some people would just believe the marketing hype, "This is the fastest, bestes on the market people!" then research the price. In AC's case, Amazon may have offered the best price, or, more likely, AC has permitted targeted marketing schemes to send him back to Amazon again and again.
Amazon is NOT the best price around, or at least not very often.
How many people realize that when they click on a product from Amazon, they may or may not see the same price that I see? Targeted marketing. If Amazon has reason to believe that you have more dollars than sense, they'll show you a price three times as high as the price they show me. In my case, Amazon seems to have overestimated my income. I just don't have money to throw away on their stuff. And, I certainly don't want to pay a hundred dollars a year for the privilege of being fleeced!
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @03:53AM
> How many people realize that when they click on a product from Amazon, they may or may not see the same price that I see? Targeted marketing. ...
I may have discovered another variant of this? I have never purchased from Amazon[*] but recently I bought some window insulation film from an eBay seller. It was a good price, with free shipping, came in two days. When it arrived there was Amazon paperwork inside--it looks like this eBay seller was using Amazon for fulfillment?
If I wanted to feel paranoid, I'd say that Amazon saw me coming...and to snag me as a customer they targeted me without exposing the Amazon brand...
* Long story. Many years ago when Amazon was mostly a bookseller, our small, technical book publisher refused to meet the Amazon price discount demand. As retribution, Amazon listed our book as "out of print". Shortly after, I started getting emails from prospective customers, "Do you have any copies left?" The book was never out of print... Amazon has been hell on small specialty book publishers and I'm unlikely to ever buy from them knowingly.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday November 14 2016, @07:10PM
You've discovered "arbitrage". You just paid a higher price to some guy on Ebay who didn't even have the product, so he could turn around and buy it from an Amazon seller (or Amazon itself) at a lower price, and pocket the difference. Ebay is chock full of sellers like this.
You really have to do your research when buying either on Amazon or Ebay. The same thing exists on Amazon; I've seen sellers on Amazon selling an automatic litter box for 3-4x the manufacturer's price, because the manufacturer only sells direct; they're hoping some idiot will really pay $1600 for something they can get straight from the manufacturer for $450. Enough people probably fall for it to make it worth it.
(Score: 1) by Ramze on Monday November 14 2016, @05:31AM
Don't mean to thread-jack, but as someone who was recently looking into RAID myself, thought you might like my 2 cents. Unless you're looking to spend a few thousand on a 8 drive rack or higher or really need a speed boost from RAID 1 mirroring, you're better off with a single main drive and an identical backup drive price-wise and headache-wise.
I went with WD's external 8 TB mybook -- two of them. They typically come with WD Red (RAID approved) drives inside them -- for cheaper than you could buy the WD Red drives individually. I'm going to run one on my computer and share out the identical drive on another machine that will pull weekly changes via software. This solution was cheaper than the WD 2-bay RAID 1 private cloud, and there's no single point of failure like the RAID controller. It also holds nearly as much as the RAID 10 4-bay solutions that cost twice as much. Generally, the larger the drive, the faster the I/O... and with RAID setups, there's often controller overhead, proprietary encryption/formatting, and lots of software hiccups with sharing drives over the network -- not to mention many RAIDs are limited to 100 mbps ethernet cards and have smaller, slower drives inside them. A USB 3.0 external drive will usually beat a snap server on I/O -- especially if you turned on RAID 5 or RAID 6. They're so computation-heavy, a file copy could take all day.
Some software can configure JBOD with internal mirroring/striping also -- I think Windows 10 can do it, but don't know if I'd recommend it. That would make JBOD sort-of like a RAID if it can heal when a drive fails.
My dream solution would be a 8 or 10 cartridge tower full of 8TB drives running RAID 6... but that cost more than my car. RAIDs usually aren't worth the trouble unless you're running a business and need the up-time.
TL;DR, a good drive and a backup can be a cheaper solution to a RAID 1 if uptime isn't important.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 14 2016, @02:40PM
I had a few reasons for wanting a RAID. The one reason that finally pushed me into making the investment was, I no longer had enough connections for my JBOD. I have disks from back in the day when a gigabyte was a HUGE hard drive. I have boxes of hard drives. I needed to consolidate all that stuff. Sort through all the data. kinda organize it, and put it in one place. I started to do that once, but quickly ran out of space on a 500 gig drive. That did help me to get rid of a few of the smaller hard drives, but I still had a bunch.
So - I ordered four 2 Tb drives, built the software RAID, and started plugging and unplugging drives to move data. All my stuff has been saved into one partition of 1.5 Tb, and I've put another 2Tb partition on the network for the wife to save all her pirated movies and stuff to.
Even on my SuperMicro board, there are only six SATA channels, and two IDE channels. A JBOD can use those all up, and still leave you short of room. Shutting down the system to plug in a different disk, or purchasing a bunch of external hot-pluggable boxes both seemed pretty silly to me. The RAID has solved all my problems with regard to a massive JBOD.
Parenthetically, I remember the day that I went shopping for a larger hard drive for an Intel 386 sx machine. I stumbled across a gigabyte drive, and got all excited. Thought this would hold everything I would ever want to save. I was so disappointed when I learned that my hardware and OS would fail to read that monstrous hard drive. All these years later, I'm amused that we thought one gig was big.
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(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 14 2016, @02:15PM
there is "research" and there is "research".
My experience is Amazon rocks for mass consumer stuff like kitchen gadgets or their old specialty of books, but they're not even seriously in the running for engineering stuff.
Technically they try to sell hardware and machine tool parts, if you like paying $30 with "free shipping" for an endmill you can get at MSC or the other suppliers for like $13. Or you can buy a 6-32 x 1 inch machine screw if you think Home Depot's already insane prices are too low. It is convenient, however, if you just need four screws to complete a project and I could enter a special order somewhere else or basically throw away $2 and get it all from Amazon in one order...
Amazon is awful for electronic components, every reseller has awful prices and its unsearchable compared to Digikey or Mouser (or even Jameco). I have an order from Digikey incoming today in fact, its just too easy to search for parts there. Nice parametric search UI.
For radio control parts or general model supply stuff, again, they're as bad or worse than ordering from a hobby store, and direct from a larger hobby supplier is cheaper. You can pay more for a smaller selection at amazon or you can just go directly to hobbyking especially when some stuff on amazon is being sold by hobbyking to begin with. I don't know why hobbyking in particular only sells like 25% of their selection on amazon, which is annoying when I need something in the set of 75% of stuff they don't sell on Amazon and strongly encourages me to skip amazon and order direct.
Something interesting to note over the years is honesty is becoming more important than price and UI. For example Digikey (or Mouser) website says they have 3 in stock of some obscure transistor or IC or whatever, you can in fact order those 3 and they'll arrive in two days. Amazon is mostly honest when they say only 7 in stock you can order a couple no problem and they arrive with only the rarest exception. Other online retailers ... well... everything is always in stock at certain suppliers and then after payment is complete for your order you get the dreaded "backordered for six months" form letter. And of course their website still says its in stock afterwards because they're sons of bitches and I'll never shop there again and I'll make sure to never mention their name in public other than to strongly disparage it.
Funny digikey fact everything they ship goes in an antistatic bag inside a plastic bag inside a box with a purchase order that mentions static sensitivity, even if you backordered a single connector or its merely a stainless steel screw.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @04:11PM
Shhhhh. Don't tell Amazon about this lack of stock in electronics and hobby goods...or next they will be buying Digikey (etc).
(Score: 2, Informative) by tekk on Monday November 14 2016, @04:56AM
That's my experience as well. They no longer advertise it, but if you open a support ticket for a shipment taking more than 2 days to your door they'll usually give you a free month of prime.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Sunday November 13 2016, @11:11PM
The anonymous poster assumes that Amazon is the only place you can buy an SSD. Guess what? THEY AREN'T THE WORLD'S ONLY STORE. It makes me think of an illustrator I met at Worldcon who asked me to review a book he had illustrated at Amazon. It already had thirty reviews, so I went to B&N. Not a single review of the book was there.
Sam's club has been operating like that for decades and the sky hasn't fallen yet.
Donald Trump is a mixture of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, multiplied by ten.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Sunday November 13 2016, @11:26PM
The anonymous poster assumes that Amazon is the only place you can buy an SSD from Amazon.
FTFY. I agree that people (I don't count the AC in this number) should learn to shop, but it remains a newsworthy example of Amazon's current marketing strategy exploiting its market dominance.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday November 14 2016, @02:14AM
The anonymous poster assumes that Amazon is the only place you can buy an SSD. Guess what? THEY AREN'T THE WORLD'S ONLY STORE. It makes me think of an illustrator I met at Worldcon who asked me to review a book he had illustrated at Amazon. It already had thirty reviews, so I went to B&N. Not a single review of the book was there.
Sam's club has been operating like that for decades and the sky hasn't fallen yet.
I came to say something similar. Amazon doesn't meet your needs? You can usually buy it for less elsewhere -- especially if you have Prime. This is because Amazon prices their "Prime" (Read: free 2 day or faster shipping) at right around the price+fast shipping of other sellers on their site who will ship quickly. Given that Amazon will generally bend over backwards if there's a shipping issue, buying from them often becomes the preferred option.
Given that pricing dynamic however, it almost always ensures that there are other sites that will be less expensive.
tl;dr: Don't want to join Prime? Then don't. You can buy it elsewhere for less anyway.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SanityCheck on Sunday November 13 2016, @11:12PM
What is your main gripe here? You can't use another free trial like in the AOL days? If you enjoyed the perks, maybe you should become a member. This is no different than Costco membership. Sorry but no one is compelled to sell you anything at a below margin price reserved to members.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday November 14 2016, @12:16AM
Paying premiums for Amazon Prime has always sucked, you still can't get all those obscure movies and shows you like.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Monday November 14 2016, @02:46PM
Oh BTW, can you send me a copy of Pink Flamingos in IRC or a working torrent for it? aqu4 takes messages. :^P
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Username on Sunday November 13 2016, @11:30PM
This is just the same as any other member only business. If you don’t want to be a member shop at another store.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday November 14 2016, @01:14AM
Yup, that's why I bought my raspberry pi at dhgate. $20 cheaper, free shipping... just not two day shipping.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2016, @11:49PM
This is stupid, and will bite them in the end. Forcing people into something they don't want never works well in the end. I can do my research on Amazon, and go buy it somewhere else. It is what people have already done to the big box stores, and this is an extension of that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @02:10AM
Yeah, showrooming can cut both ways. I'm surprised nobody at B&N has figured that out; B&N should make it easy for shoppers to access online reviews on Amazon as well as their site, while providing the convenience of walking out the store with the books.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Monday November 14 2016, @03:49AM
Likewise, a lot of physical retailers gripe that people come into the store, molest their merchandise, then take their phone out and order it on amazon. I am guilty of doing that myself.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday November 14 2016, @07:15PM
Forcing people into something they don't want never works well in the end.
Wrong.
Proof: Windows 10.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @12:14AM
Ethics permitting, can you make new e-mail addresses and sign up for the free trial again? Or if you're signed up with Gmail, username@gmail.com, u.sername@gmail.com, and username+stuff@gmail.com all go to the same account.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @12:58AM
oh and username@googlemail.com, user.name@googlemail.com etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @06:51PM
I've tried that. The problem is your credit card and shipping address. They look at everything in your profile and can cancel the trial if they think you're cheating. But before you even get to that point, using Google + feature is already checked for as well as some of the EDU Google tweaks like: user@school.edu vs user+whatever@g.school.edu
(Score: 2) by Celestial on Monday November 14 2016, @12:23AM
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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @04:01AM
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.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @12:39AM
But its also my choice not to buy from them. I refuse to participate in other 'buying clubs' too ( like costco ).
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @12:43AM
They should be paying ME 99 bucks a year to shop with them. Bastards. 'buyers clubs' should be illegal
(Score: 2, Disagree) by isostatic on Monday November 14 2016, @12:49AM
Usual left wing moaning. Use someone else, vote woth your dollar.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday November 14 2016, @08:42AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday November 14 2016, @09:37AM
The people have to be able to make their own mistakes, it's a free country. If a company wants to give out credit, that's fine. If someone wants to take it, that's fine. If you want to sell your first born into indentured servitude, that's fine. It's a free country, and the public know best.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday November 14 2016, @09:12PM
...and then when they give credit irresponsibly, the government is free to bail them out with our tax dollars!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @12:29AM
What does it matter? Can't marry a cute young girl.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dunbal on Monday November 14 2016, @01:31AM
I'm sorry, are you trying to say there are no other retailers selling SSD's on the internet? Vote with your wallet. Shop elsewhere.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday November 14 2016, @01:35AM
I think this is a good thing for competition. And I don't mean "Now everyone will have to offer a premium membership service". I mean "Now other retailers that may have been ignored by the casual Amazon customer may get a look-in".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @02:28AM
> I think this is a good thing for competition. And I don't mean "Now everyone will have to offer a premium membership service".
And what if they do? What if the ten biggest stores all do the same shit. And the remaining stores don't have anywhere near the inventory capacity to compete?
What then?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @02:56AM
Then it dropships from the distributor or you have to wait a week or two for your shipment. Of course, there is the chance that kids aren't that patient today. I remember the days you mail-ordered and had to wait a minimum of a month to get your shipment. There were times where I would order things, get it two months later and literally not remember having ordered them to the passage of time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @03:55AM
> Then it dropships from the distributor
Oh great, another literalist retard. Name one online store with a large catalog of items that drop-ship.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by nyder on Monday November 14 2016, @01:51AM
Amazon's 30 day trial of Prime can last you a long while if you are smart. You have the ability to cancel the 30 day trial. What I did was activate the trial, order something, then end the trial. I did this for about 2 years till I didn't have any trial time left.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday November 14 2016, @01:29PM
FWIW, Barnes and Noble recently (over the summer) stopped their membership free trial program because of abuses.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday November 14 2016, @04:16AM
Because I know they used to be one of my go to places for PC parts and I have zero doubts I ran thousands through that company...not anymore, in fact I can't remember the last time I bought anything of note from them. Talking to other shop guys online there appears to be a lot of us that don't give a rat's ass about having their streaming crap, all this extra non shopping shit they keep tacking on, we just want to get the gear we wanted at a fair price and call it a day.
But ever since they started trying to ram prime down your throat? Well plenty of other companies willing to take my money. Sorry Amazon but you chose to fill your website with scammers and try to turn yourself into HBO, no sale.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @08:27AM
And . . . there it is! Amazon has finally failed the Hairyfeet Challenge! Who's next? How current are your drivers?
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday November 14 2016, @04:33AM
Not since they started charging sales tax in California. Too many other web sites where, when you factor in shipping and our outrageous tax, are cheaper than Amazon.
Sad thing is, Amazon was the first web company I gave my credit card to. Ordered some CDs when they were maybe a year old.
Much rather give my money to UPS than the clowns in Sacramento.
Being the dumbest idiot in the land and president of the US should be 2 different people.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday November 15 2016, @04:32AM
Are you evading your use tax obligation for out of state purchases?
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday November 15 2016, @02:16PM
You bet your sweet bippy I am, buncha spendthrifts in Sacramento.
Being the dumbest idiot in the land and president of the US should be 2 different people.
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Monday November 14 2016, @05:50AM
Like Costco, they want me to PAY THEM for the privilege of shopping?
I do NOT understand why people do that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @05:52AM
As america secularizes people are looking for new clubs/tribes to claim membership in.
(Score: 2) by iwoloschin on Monday November 14 2016, @12:24PM
I make money back at Costco. My membership is something like $110/year, and combined with their credit card I get 2% back. That alone pays the membership, and then the credit card has great cashback deals for restaurants and travel, which only sweetens the deal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @01:18PM
I have a 3% cash back CC and shop at store that has same products at cheaper prices than Costco. YMMV
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @06:24AM
Often items that are listed as Prime go back to being generally available after a few weeks. I think they do it to try and goad, but ultimately don't want to lose the sale.
The prices aren't really competitive anymore, especially if you are buying from a secondary sources and have to pay shipping.
In essence they are becoming established like Ebay, and are losing their value proposition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @04:02PM
yeah and every time they do that shit they lose a sale from me. now, a lot of times i get the oem part # and go straight to ebay or newegg or something. ebay is a crusty white turd but at least it's not running up my cpu with freakin' angular!
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Monday November 14 2016, @09:25AM
I recall they were involved with a certain legal dispute... http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/12/no-overtime-pay-for-after-work-security-check/ [scotusblog.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday November 14 2016, @10:28AM
Used to use them a lot, but now I just can't be bothered. It seems that searching for stuff on Amazon these days is worse than searching on ebay: Every search you put in is polluted by hundreds or thousands of irrelevant "amazon marketplace" results that make it nigh impossible to find what you want. Then when you do find it you have 18 results for the same thing from different vendors, half of them used or refurbed or something, each one with different price+shipping combinations designed to confuse you... It's not so bad if you're just buying one or two items, but if you want a whole basketful of stuff and were hoping to benefit from bulk shipping it becomes a frigging nightmare.
I just buy elsewhere now.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday November 14 2016, @12:04PM
The success of Sears and K-Mart right now ought to be sufficient warning to Amazon not to close their doors to anyone but members. If you are not aware, Sears and K-Mart still exist. No, really. But they have built their business right now around people who sign up for their membership program. People are not doing that. The Sears/K-Mart thing is about to collapse.
Honestly, the whole Amazon thing would have collapsed by now if it had not been for the unexpected and unplanned success of cloud computing, which is the only thing they've done that's ever earned money for them.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @04:31PM
We buy quite a bit at Sears because it's across the street at the other end of a mall. Recent purchases include appliances (fridge & washer for my mom) and tools (electric lawn mower & recently a string trimmer using same lithium battery).
In our experience the Sears sales people are often well trained and can actually give you useful advice -- a big difference to the sales people at other big box stores in the area who are usually useless. For example, while the string trimmer was recommended as working well, he told us that the snowblower and leaf blower that use the same battery are really too much load, very short run time. So we're keeping the old gas snowblower (even though I would rather stop dealing with small engine maintenance) & the corded leaf blower for now.
No connection to Sears, just a reasonably satisfied customer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @12:23AM
Under anti-trust law this is called Bundling or Tacking. It is illegal, especially if there is no reasonable market alternative to acquiring the product/service.
Of-course all you feminist faggots who are against men marrying female children wouldn't care or know to care.