this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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Oh boy, more enshittification

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[–] NotMyOldRedditName 110 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Three cheers for ProtonVPN! Make Amazon walk the plank!

[–] swiffswaffplop 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

As someone who hasn’t sailed the 7 seas since PB and BitTorrent days. Is there a good guide on how to best utilize this now a days?

I literally pay for every single streaming service + YouTube tv and it’s ridiculous. Time to cut the cables again.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

PB and bittorent will always be there for you... use a vpn though

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Stremio + torentio or downloading your movies + jellyfin

[–] DrMario 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Veee—-peee—-innnn

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Someone else who uses ProtonVPN! Don’t see too many users out in the wild. I love it!

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[–] errer 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Cover your bases, wear an eye patch to the library. 😉

[–] ekZepp 89 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yar! 🏴‍☠️

[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I’ve been a Prime member from the very beginning, but I’m seriously reevaluating whether I should drop it. The value proposition is decreasing for me. At $99 I thought it was pretty good considering the perks like video and music. But then they crippled Prime Music a few months back so it’s a shadow of what it once was (pushing you to subscribe to Unlimited). Now Prime Video is getting ads. Those “extras” are becoming less compelling. So I’m paying $140 annually for just free shipping? Hmmm, these numbers don’t add up anymore.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I cancelled last year. Slower shipping is annoying, but it also encourages me to shop elsewhere, which is nice. I haven't missed Prime Video, and I'm considering cancelling other streaming subscriptions as well (Disney+ and Netflix left, and both raised prices for my ad-free tier).

At current prices, I could probably just buy physical media for nearly everything I care about and come out ahead.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Amazon typically hasn’t been two business days consistently for years for me. I also found out many of their prices are massively inflated for certain products. A lawn mower I was considering was at least 30% more expensive than the same one on a competing website.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

They've been pretty consistent for me, sometimes faster, probably because I live a few miles from one of their warehouses. But you're absolutely right about prices, I've found Target to be competitive or cheaper if they have it, and their delivery is just as fast as Prime.

[–] XbSuper 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Amazon pricing seems heavily weighted on whether you shopped around online or not. I think they have tracking cookies that check whether or not your comparing prices. If you do, they keep their prices reasonable, if not, they slowly jack them up until you start, then they back off a bit.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Great news is that Amazon has also added delivery fee for same day and overnight deliveries for Prime members. At least in UK

So basically it's too much payment for not much of benefits

[–] pete 3 points 1 year ago

Additionally, ordering from other sites was a gamble a few years ago. Now its a well mapped path and its pretty painless.

[–] natedog526 8 points 1 year ago

If they are gonna run ads, I may drop it and just stick with their ad streaming service freevee if they gonna do that.

[–] DTFpanda 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You still get free shipping as a non member if you buy like $25 worth of shit. And you might get it in 3 days instead of 1 (the horror)

But yeah, that's about all you're getting and no it's not worth it.

[–] thessnake03 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They just recently upped free shipping to $35 in stuff

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[–] NOT_RICK 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You’re getting it for 140? I think I pay 180. Seeing the service continually get worse and worse has me close to canceling too.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Just do it. For $140, you could buy like 10-15 DVDs and rip them onto a USB drive or something.

I also highly recommend your local library (if you're in an area with good library service), we get lots of shows and movies there for free.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Their change to Music already made me go and get Spotify instead.

Shoving ads in Video as well makes that shit an easy cancel.

[–] MisterMcBolt 46 points 1 year ago

“Must… make… exponential… profit… Line must go up!”

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Looks like I canceled Prime right on time. Literally just did it after having it for years because it no longer provides any meaningful benefit, and it's grossly overpriced for what it is.

When I used to get two-day shipping all the way here in bumfuck, South Dakota, then it was worth it, but it's faster now just to order from some other site.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Fun fact - if you order a bunch of stuff non-prime, the ship time will be like a week and a half or whatever. If you then upgrade to prime (even the free trial), the delivery estimate suddenly recalculates and it’ll be there in 2 days.

It’s artificially slowed, by obscene amounts, to encourage paying for the subscription. Which other sites don’t do.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I haven't received anything in 2 days since early 2020, and what finally made me cancel is they took forever to even ship one of my items that was in stock. I ordered two things, one was shipped by the seller and arrived in 3 or 4 days, the other was from the same seller but shipped by Amazon, and they didn't even initiate shipping until a week later.

I was paying for a service that's objectively worse than the norm.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Ad free is the only way for a service im paying anything for. If they introduce ads then i will no longer be paying.

[–] Oneobi 15 points 1 year ago

The minute something injects ads is the minute I pave my exit strategy.

I hate ads with a passion.

Amazon about to lose my membership. It won't hurt them but what it's done is made me consider whether it's something I want to support.

Companies need a new era of marketing because this generation reversing all their gains.

[–] chiliedogg 4 points 1 year ago

And if they don't offer a paid ad-free service, I just won't use it at all.

I hate ads, and I'm not giving one fucking second to them voluntarily.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Well that's getting fucking cancelled then. The constant FreeVee ad supported shit was annoying enough, but they can properly fuck off now. Prime is just a vehicle to sell you more shit.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

I would pay for Amazon Prime if they offered purely a free 2-day shipping only version, but I refuse to pay for Prime if it supports the media companies, so I don't pay for Prime. I have zero interest in DRM-filled "you will own nothing and be happy" streaming bullshit, and I have negative interest in the same thing with ads. Enshittification at its finest.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

I canceled mine a year or two ago. Tbh I have not missed it much.

I also did not miss the shipping part as much as I thought I would. If I need to make an order, I wait until I have enough needs to hit the $35 level for free shipping. Even though amazon claims otherwise, I usually end up getting stuff in 2 days just like I used to with Prime.

This has the added benefit of making it less likely for me to be lazy and order a bunch of smaller things. I thus end up getting those things locally.

[–] Poppa_Mo 12 points 1 year ago

Time to cancel Prime. Removing perks. Increasing prices. Saturating us with ads.

Too much money is never enough! We need to monetize monetization! Assholes.

Imagine if any of these rich assholes were actually good guys?

[–] Happenchance 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Amazon Prime shows begin to be pirated by Amazon Prime Subscribers, until the end of the billing ear when they are no longer Prime Subscribers.

[–] inclementimmigrant 6 points 1 year ago

Streaming was nice while it lasted but these companies have survived looking enough too become the villains they sought to replace. Sad but fuck them and hoist the sails I say.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum for me!

[–] SARGEx117 6 points 1 year ago

I get my prime half off.

The added cost is less than the difference so I'd still be paying less than a regular prime membership.

And even still, I'm canceling the second I get an ad.

Fuck your monetization.

[–] markr 5 points 1 year ago

Enshittification has just gotten started.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is exactly why I pay for a seedbox and a usenet provider. I get an .mkv with no ad.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I've been on the fence with prime for a while, this will be the end

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Does this affect the channels you subscribe too through Amazon prime as well? Fucking hope not lol

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