What will we lose by cancelling Amazon Prime?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So with the increasing Balkanization of streaming services, Mrs. solost and I are reviewing what we subscribe to and looking at some hard choices, because we don’t want to just add and add and eventually be back to cable pricing, before we had cut our cable years ago.

Mrs. solost is saying “why do we still have Amazon Prime? It’s $140 a year now, and here’s not much good on Prime video that we watch.” (mostly true; there have been a few decent shows and movies, but if it was just a streaming entertainment service we probably would have canceled long ago). We don’t order a ton of stuff on Amazon, and when we do, according to her, we normally can get free 2-day shipping even without Prime. I don’t know how true that is, but when I have ordered non-Prime items on Amazon in the past, it seems like we’ve still gotten free 2-day shipping. Plus, since an Amazon distribution center opened a 10 minute drive from us, we often get our stuff the same day now. If we got it the next day instead or whatever, wouldn’t be the end of the world.

But, I’m wondering what else would be affected? Amazon has its tendrils into us like a spreading fungus. We have several Firesticks on our TVs-- would they still work without Prime? What about my Kindle? I very occasionally buy books from Amazon but mostly rent books from an online library (which works through Amazon, though). My son has an Echo Dot he uses with our account. I think, since we will still have an Amazon account, all that stuff will still work, except, no more Prime Video. I also pay an extra $9 a month for Amazon Music, which I understand will not work without Prime. But I can switch to Spotify or something.

2

I use Amazon Music which comes with Prime a lot.

3

Shipping is free if your order is over 25 dollars, so you just have to bundle small purchases. The primary convenience factor of Prime is being able to order little stuff with just a click, without worrying about shipping.

As for shipping speed, I just looked up a box of pencils I bought recently, without logging in, and it says:

FREE delivery Mon, Oct 10 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon

Or fastest delivery Thu, Oct 6. Order within 15 hrs 21 mins

So your calculation is:

Convenience factor: how much will you miss being able to order little stuff on the fly without paying shipping? How much will you miss almost always getting your stuff within two days?

Money: how often will you find another small item you don’t really need to bring your order total over 25 bucks?

Money: how often will you say, “fuck it, I’ll just pay standard shipping on this small order”?

Money: how often do you order stuff and need to guarantee quick shipping?

If that doesn’t add up to 140 bucks a year, drop it. You can always sign up again if you find yourself paying for shipping more often than you would’ve thought.

4

I actually watched a good Liam Neeson movie last night on Amazon Prime. They don’t have nearly as large an inventory as Netflix, but they do have some good stuff like, “Jolt”, with Kate Beckinsale. Also, as mentioned, there is the music, and there is also the increased service and better delivery time with packages.

5

Is Amazon music substantially different than the other music services at the same price?

6

@Johnny_Bravo, great shipping info, thanks. It sounds like shipping-wise we would be fine without Prime. So it’s more an issue of what we might lose with our Firesticks and Kindles, which I think will still work fine for what we need (streaming non-Prime stuff like Netflix and downloading online library books) without Prime…?

No, I don’t think so. I mainly subscribed to the extra $9/mo for Amazon Music because I often like listening to music when I work, and my work when I was in the office blocked Spotify but not Amazon.com. But I work at home full time now. So I could easlily switch to Spotify or some other music service.

7

I am not a Prime member but often find orders arrive in two days. I do make a point of not ordering stuff until I hit the $25 minimum. (And I think they notice that I do that because I usually get an offer of free shipping on anything, even under $25, for the next 24 hours. Of course, by then, there’s nothing I can think of to order, so the offer goes unused.)

8

You have nothing to lose but your chains…

9

The music service that comes with Prime is very limited compared to a paid Spotify membership. If you want a similar experience to Spotify, you have to pay an additional $9/month to get Amazon Music Unlimited.

10

With respect to the Kindle, IIUC the only thing that would change if you cancelled Prime is that you’d lose access to Prime Reading. Amazon has a limited selection of e-books that are free for Prime members to borrow and read. (It is, as I said, a limited selection, but I’ve found at least a couple of good books that way.)

11

This will date me, but I originally got Prime for the release of Grand Tour, a Prime exclusive. It’s largely run it’s course although we are still getting a few specials, but not enough to make it a big deal. The video component of Prime though has always been the least important feature to me, although I understand expectations vary.

We probably make small orders from amazon at least once a month, but fully acknowledge that it’s pretty easy to wait and bundle smaller orders to get free shipping, so it’s not a big deal although be aware, sometimes you add something to get to the dollar figure only to find out it doesn’t qualify (has to be fulfillment by amazon), so it can be a touch harder on rare circumstances.

The prime video is still good for a bunch of older, low quality stuff that may not be on Netflix (which I still have, subsidized by my TMobile phone plan or it would have been kicked) - not fun for watching, lots of fun for watching and mocking MST3K style. A bunch of the originals are good and worthwhile, (Good Omens, Boys, Legend of Vox Machina, etc), and probably would be worth the price of the sub if you’re a fan and don’t intent to buy copies of your own, but tastes vary.

Prime Music (NOT UNLIMITED) is the big one for me. Yes, the non-unlimited version is much more limited (duh), but I spend 3-4 hours a day using it as my primary music source. Sure I could use others, but most of the ones that are free don’t give me as much music as Prime does, and/or with really irritating commercials. All of which can be fixed for the paid version, but then you’re back to another sub price.

So for the OP the math may work out differently. But the good news for your Echos and sticks, is content you’ve purchased (for values of purchasing in this digital age) stay yours to play even without Prime. And skills and the Echo should work well, just expect it to try to find music from Spotify (if linked) or iheartradio or the like by default.

12

I joined Prime just to be able to watch RIngs of Power. After the first four episodes, I haven’t bothered to watch the last two, and probably won’t bother with it any more (reasons important only to me, let’s not have that discussion here). So I had the same discussion with myself. The other video choices are not exciting to me at all. However, so far, I’m going to stay with it. It’s a luxury, but one I can afford. That can easily change if I get fed up. This is the only streaming service I have, so it’s easy to keep track of.

13

Yes, both will work just fine without Amazon Prime.

14

I’m having the same discussion. We were watching Elementary, and just watched the first two episodes of season 3. And then it disappeared!

Rather ticked off at Amazon Prime at the moment.

15

We just cancelled it (or, failed to renew).

We do watch some of their stuff, but most of it is replacement-level. We can just watch something else on Netflix or some other service.

The shipping where we live is really slow. Nowhere near 2-day shipping. When we were in Santa Barbara, it was worth it for the free quick shipping. Now it’s not.

16

It’s highly unlikely that it’s Amazon’s fault. The rights expired and CBS put it on their own service.

17

Thanks for the hint. It seems that Paramount+ is coming to Switzerland later this year, so I hopefully it will have Elementary.

18

You will lose Thursday Night Football so keep your Prime. It’s terrible that TNF is not on broadcast TV as specified in the Declaration of Independence, but for now Prime is the only way to watch it.

19

I know, it’s a crime is what it is. I remember way, way back in the day a local affiliate would show University of Michigan games, but now I would need ESPN and the Big 10 Network to see them all. So I listen on the radio or go without. And of course Monday Night Football went to what, ESPN as well a few years back?

As for TNF, it would be a shame to lose, but I just checked the schedule for the season and not a lot of games I think I’d be interested in. That can change as the season shapes up, but I think I can live with just my Sunday live on-the-air football.

20

We are dropping Prime as well since 2-day shipping is not a reality here either. We are almost always 3-4 business days which is odd since we aren’t that far from a major Amazon hub. We only average 2 orders per month.

We don’t watch much of the Prime videos and their included music subscription sucks.