Sure, Amazon Prime offers all kinds of cool benefits. Youget free games, you can listen to Prime Music (with ads unless you pay more money), you get access to Prime Video, and, of course, you get free two-day shipping on all of your Amazon orders.
I often feel tricked clicking on shows and movies that wind up being Freevee content
But here’s the problem. Two-day shippingisn’t always two-day shipping. Packagescan arrive laterdespite Prime’s subscription fee. As for Prime Video, I find the selection lacking, and I often feel tricked clicking on shows and movies that wind up being Freevee content with ads, and now we know more content will also have ads unless we pay up. Ads are also why I don’t utilize my subscription’s free access to Prime Music, since you only get free accesswith ads. I also don’t bother with any of the free games Prime offers. While the games are excellent perks, I’m a Steam stan. Ultimately, after some close inspection, it would appear I gain little benefit from paying Amazon $140 a year. So why in the world would I pay Amazon $3 a month on top of a service I’m barely using?
As we all witness so many corporations adding extra fees and raising prices through the last year, I often think aboutGabe Newell’s succinct observationthat “piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.”
I moved to streamed video content years ago specifically because of the lack of advertising
While I doubt one less subscription for Amazon will make a difference whatsoever, much as Amazon is tightening the reins by adding fees during an economic downturn, I’m going to weather the storm by building a system I control to serve my content, just like I did before streaming made things easier. Once again, the extra effort to buy hard copies, rip them, and store those rips outweighs the junk being shoveled through official channels. So now thatstreaming is shaping up to be no better than cable TV, it appears it’s time to cut the cord a second time. So thank you, Amazon; your new fee was the straw that broke the camel’s back, reawakening my long-lost tech sensibilities to control what I view.
