It’s Surprisingly Easy to Live Without an Amazon Prime Subscription
It’s Surprisingly Easy to Live Without an Amazon Prime Subscription
Maybe it’s time to consider quitting!
- The author canceled their Amazon Prime subscription on a whim and realized they didn't really need it.
- Leaving Prime meant slower shipping but the author was happy to wait and still found the selection and delivery speed satisfactory.
- Many people love Prime for its fast shipping and convenience, but some readers expressed ambivalence and considered canceling.
Archive link: https://archive.ph/3M27c
I cancelled Prime late last year, and haven't really missed it, either.
Leaving Prime also meant the end of free Amazon Prime Video (you can still rent or buy many movies without it), but I’ve been able to bear it.
While I had Prime, I think there was 1, maybe 2 instances where I wanted to watch something and it was actually included with Prime. Every other time, Amazon Video had the movie, but they wanted an additional fee to watch it, so this was absolutely no loss.
One thing to note: Every time I check out on Amazon, now, they offer me a reduced price 1-week "trial" of Prime, to get the expedited shipping, for like... $5 or so? If you cancel yours, and also see this offer: You can take the offer, submit your order (and get the free 2 day shipping), then once you get the shipping confirmation, go in and cancel the Prime subscription. Since you've had it for only a few hours, Amazon actually refunds the price you paid. In effect, you get the shipping benefits for free. We'll see if they close this loophole, but for now, it works.
Prime used to mean something. Guaranteed 2 day shipping with no minimum for no extra charge. $5 for next day shipping. Then next day disappeared. Then the 2 day guarantee disappeared. Then delivery times were in the 3-5 day range for most things. Then, in my university town, around the time of students returning to school for terms it would be 1-2 weeks. I’m not paying an ever increasing annual fee for that.
I'll go further, I stopped using Amazon entirely and I don't miss it.
The junky shopping experience is especially clear once you leave and come back.
I only ever order books from amazon anymore, and usually only when I get a gift card or a product isn't for sale elsewhere.
The prices aren't even that good anymore.
The crap people write nowadays.
It's surprisingly easy to live without any subscription. I don't have any. If you're tech savvy you can either block most ads that subscriptions give you, or bypass the service entirely and get free premium or just dl videos/music etc.
And as the services get worse there's little incentive to actually keep a subscription. Netflix is becoming pretty dogshit for example.
I've been living without it my whole life so I guess it's possible
This may be true at the moment, but Amazon can control how shitty the non-prime experience is.
Personally, I'm trying to avoid Amazon altogether. It's much worse now, and flooded with cheap defective shit. I've also been noticing that a lot of manufacturers don't sell on Amazon (guessing Amazon takes a big cut).
Dude... We're trying to live without Amazon and this guy is just giving up prime??? What a martyr...
Christ, we cancelled it a month ago and I feel so fucking stupid. Stupid that we had it for so long for... what? I don't need anything so quickly that a couple of days delivery makes a difference. Food, water, heat, somewhere to sleep are things I need on a strict schedule. Knock off earbuds and some silicone molds for frozen shot glasses can absolutely wait. AND IT'S STILL FREE SHIPPING, you just add to cart and buy once you hit $35.
Every time I've ordered something from Amazon, they always push Prime for fastest shipping. Then when you turn that down, they give you an option to pay a little more this one time to get your order shipped faster. I always pick the cheapest shipping option. The order generally comes just as fast as the fastest shipping, without paying the extra money.
They are going to ship according to whatever is easiest and cheapest for themselves if you pick the cheap shipping option. By now in most large population centers, Amazon warehouses are already stocked. Until they start cutting shipping costs, it will almost always arrive well before their estimates. So just save yourself the money and ditch Prime.
I wait for "try prime for 30 days" offers. I'll sign up for it, instantly cancel it to prevent recurring bills, and then order whatever it was I was thinking of over the last six months. Because once upon a time I'd be on Amazon all the time, browsing this and that, but it has become such a cesspool that I infrequently bother. If I wanted to wade through a sea of Chinese OEM crap and counterfeit products, then I might as well use Aliexpress and be done with it.
Yup. I stopped using Amazon for anything but maybe searching the closest thing to a unified search engine for goods, and when I find good information or a product I need, I will find somewhere else to buy it.
Turn Amazon into a search engine. Buy somewhere else.
I been anti-amazon for about 5 years now.
Nothing lost or needed. If I need something I go to local store to find it.
My only issue with Amazon is tools that uses their cloud services and Twitch. But since last December I decided to switch to YouTube with ad blocker.
Planning on de-google and de-microsoft within the next two years.
It’s a joke unless you need something overnighted or next day and as a bonus - it will usually be improperly packaged and delivered with malice.
Prime Video catalogue is a pale shadow of what it used to be. Exclusives have dwindled. Now they want 3 bucks for no ads on top of paying for Prime? Naw.
Counterfeits are everywhere. That’s what Aliexpress is for (half joking). Frequently have to check the manufacturer’s site when pricing or picture seems dubious.
One delivery driver commandeers our neighbors’ empty driveway, swings the back doors open and blasts shitty pop music at full volume while fumbling through deliveries for 30 minutes every other day.
Buying direct is now often the same price more or less and you can get in a week anyway for negligible shipping price. Or even free shipping if you spend x amount.
So we cancelled too.
We just dropped Prime a month or so ago and I can't see ever getting it again.
I wanted to cancel Prime for a long time due to all the creeping enshittification. The last straw were ads on the Fire TV boot screen (I switched to Shield TV Pro) and the notice that ads were coming on Prime Video. I immediately canceled after that mail. 90 EUR less from me. Next incentive: order less.
With ads being put on the videos now it's definitely not worth it.
I agree. Unsubscribed to Prime and Netflix. I'm not missing anything. Good riddance.
Who the hell has a prime subscription? Bigger question is how to live without using amazon at all. We need some kind of improved
In my country I can finally start to pay vendors by wiring money instantly without the need for third party payment services. Fucking banks took their sweet time. All this inefficiency basically leads to a tax on all internet commerce that empowers people like Musk or Thiel via paypal.
I found out that even without prime the delivery speed is sometimes the same here in Germany. They say it would take 1-2 days longer but quite often my amazon packages arrived early. Same for packaging cost. Sometime they adverdise the 0€ shipping costs with prime but it literally is also 0 without prime. I mean they are not lying, just not telling the whole truth xD
I decided to not renew my amazon prime account when it expired in November. I did end up using Amazon once since then. Products on Amazon are overpriced, in addition to the annual fee. I didn't feel like I was getting my money's worth. I didn't like that there were ads on prime video, or fees for grocery delivery that used to be included in the annual fee.
I found a bento box at Marshall's for about $6-7, and the exact same one on amazon for $20-25. Also fuck Bezos and the exploitation of workers, and Amazon's aggressive union busting. and they stole Amazon fresh delivery peoples tip money.
dropped it when they sent me the emails about adding ads, gf was halfway through a season of supernatural though so set it to expire at the end of the month.
they just took the next payment anyway and carried on my subscription. i had to go on again, cancel... again, and get a refund.
slimey sneaky bezos had his fingers in my wallet
I hate to be honest, but I used Amazon Prime a lot because:
- I cannot drive. Thus, getting to the store is difficult.
- I must bring in 3-4 items a week, so yeah, I save on shipping.
- Auto-subscriptions save a little.
- I have priced a lot of stuff over the years, and while Amazon is not always the best, the convenience is impressive.
- They have, multiple times, been incredibly helpful with customer service. Like above and beyond.
- COVID and nobody masks around here. I have an autoimmune condition, so it's important that I not leave unless it's a medical appointment or similar need.
- They just have stuff I can't find anywhere. Yes, as some have said, caveat emptor, but that's true for all the stores.
I also save a shit ton of money. When I used to browse Walmart or Target, I used to buy a lot of shit I didn't need. I don't get as distracted with focused buying. I also order from Aliexpress if I can wait 30 days, and I have only been ripped off three times in several years, for a total of maybe $35.
I'm not saying my way is better, and certainly not if it's better for you, but it's been a godsend to the house-bound.
I have prime for the no rush shipping. Every time I delay my same day or next day shipping to the 3-4 day no rush shipping I get a few dollars of digital credits which I use to buy ebooks. Over the course of a year it essentially pays for the cost of prime with free books I would have bought anyway.
I just genuinely don't understand why people think it's necessary. I use Prime once a year and it's when my boss gives me a gift card for Christmas. I guess I just don't understand what the typical person is buying every single month from Amazon to warrant a subscription - I know 1 or 2 people buying cat litter every month and having it delivered, but why? Just go to the store! I love in a rural town and I still trek to the store. Maybe if you have mobility issues or something but I just don't get it. Probably just the anti-consumer in me.
Cancelled two weeks ago, and while it's too early for me to have a fully informed opinion, so far I've noticed that if you just hold items in your cart until you reach some kind of threshold (and I admittedly don't know what that is) you can get free shipping anyway.
It's almost like I was paying all that money just so I could one off order anything on a whim. I'm an adult, I can exercise impulse control and stick it to Amazon in some small way by doing it. Win/Win.
Ive never understood the dependence on Amazon. It's not even a monopoly, I've never bought anything online that somewhere else didnt also offer the product, usually an online store specializing in that product.
I have never used amazon, much less paid for a subscription service for the pleasure of using it. I was hoping that the author atleast stopped using amazon alltogether. Ah well. Little victories I guess.
It actually makes your life better!
I deleted my Prime! So many good points on this post. My last 2 purchase from Amazon took 2 weeks to get here, which is fine but prime is advertised as 2 days. Amazon prime’s TV selection is for the most part trash & finally Amazon can burn in hell. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to cancel it.
There's only 24 hours in a day and I have plenty of things to do other than watch commercial-plagued programming on Amazon.
I've cancelled several years ago because I rarely buy anything online outside of games so it's just not worth it (also Prime Video's selection sucks ass)
The bastards still try to charge me about 4 times a year and I have to do a charge back with my bank.
Also if I ever have to actually buy something through amazon, even if I specifically tell the fuckers not to add prime to my account, they do it anyway.
Fuck Amazon.
I haven't used prime in idk how long. 2 day shipping hasn't been 2 days or even 4 days in years now. Every order with or without prime is at least a week. The only reason I use Amazon is ordering odd ball stuff you can't find in a store or the price difference is substantial enough to justify. I never need to pay for shipping since if I'm ordering it's a bulk order of stuff I need and it's free shipping over $25. I hate Amazon but i also gotta get by some how
No shit that it's easy to live with marginally slower (but still really pretty fast) shipping and access to a second-tier streaming service.
It's pretty much the definition of a luxury purchase.
I buy from Bezoco maybe once or twice a year, if I really can't find something anywhere else, and they always, always offer a free Prime trial.
If you don't know this already: you can cancel the Prime trial immediately and still get the full 30 days (or week or whatever) out of it.
Amazon moved a distribution center near me and now I basically get what prime delivery used to get me without prime. I can still get free shipping so long as my cart total is high enough, and I think that will remain because even independent retail websites and shippers offer that, so Amazon doesn't want to give people more reason to use them less. Getting rid of prime was easier than soooooo much other stuff I've ditched.
A lot of companies now offer two day shipping for free (if you spend enough of course), and it’s just as good. Hell, I bought some batteries for a UPS that died on Monday from a battery wholesale site, and they arrived today. And that’s with the shipping saying it could be at least a week. The competitive advantage of Amazon doesn’t seem like it’s there any more.
Another thing you realize when you quit Amazon is that you don’t really need to be ordering so much junk. You just don’t. I promise. And when you do need something, I feel like I’m more confident buying the jacket or whatever from the company that makes it instead of sitting through a thousand knock offs and hoping I picked the right one among all the AI written reviews and titles.
In fact, I have always lived without Prime and have never felt the need to have it.
Prime Video was nice, but I don't like the move with including ads. Since they fucked me over as a linux user by using dumb DRM, I don't really miss it.
Shipping: same as the author. I will likely get used to increased wait time. Shipping was never my main use case.
I will miss my free monthly twitch subscription. So I will likely not support my favorite streamer anymore (via twitch sub at least).
I'll see how it goes. But fuck the industry for their ad-ridden shit tour. I will rip any service out of my life that tries that bullshit.
I’ve never had one. I’ve never bought anything from Amazon.
I’m fine.
My family holds a prime membership and recently I've been seeing how long I could go for without needing to use it. Most things I was able to purchase on eBay. Most recently, I decided to buy pen stuff and JetPens was a good option. However they needed like $50 or something for free shipping so I splurged a little. The one pen ink refill I needed (Jetstream Prime SXR 600 0.5) was way too expensive on both jetpens and ebay so I had to purchase it on Amazon. Nonetheless, I think you can still buy on amazon without a membership so maybe deal with the longer shipping times but that's no biggie.
One of the final nails in the coffin for me was when I tried to specify the delivery date to a day I would actually be in, and they completely ignored the instruction and delivered immediately. Like, I pay for that option, and you're not delivering the service.
I've also been getting free trials for Prime every so often, so I still get the benefits when I might need them (eg before Christmas). They did make it very hard to cancel, though, half the links didn't work and the instructions were out of date and didn't match the pages.
I just bought new name brand tires from Amazon for $200 cheaper per tire than my local tire shop was selling them, and about 80 cheaper than other online stores that I checked. Plus free shipping.
Hate Amazon or not, they do still have good deals and free shipping for certain items is huge. Plus they ALWAYS have better selection than any local or big box store.
Amazon Prime exists for me to run a 30-day trial around Christmas, when I happen to come up with a few gift ideas I can't find elsewhere, and then to let it expire and never use it the rest of the year.
I had an issue recently where they sent me the wrong item (it was coded wrong in their system- their fault) and when I contacted support they wanted me to either be at home for an entire day for them to pick up the item or have me take it to a drop off location for them, then wait for several weeks for the return to be processed.
'Please allow 6-8 weeks shipping from Pueblo, Colorado...'
I had prime for maybe a year or something, but it just seems daft to pay more to avoid shipping charges when half the things ship free anyhow. Buying things remotely through the mail or whatever used to take weeks to get to you and there was no tracking to sit there monitoring the arrival in real time. It sucked, so people would buy things from the store nearby and skip all that. Now take your amazonian primates and get off my lawn...
I had amazon prime for free for 10 years. It was free for students back then. Then i finished uni and they never bothered to check. This went on for a very long time. Only 2 years ago they killed the subscription and i never subscribed again.
I'm one of those people who always hated amazon, but since moving out to a rural area without a car it ends up a lot easer, quicker and often cheaper to get most of what I need from there :(
They started putting commercials on Prime Video.
Nope, not paying for that. Certainly not paying EXTRA to remove 'em. Dick rocket Jeff can go eat shit.
My wife has it and exceedingly rarely I'll ask her to order something for me on it because it'll be the best price/quality/feature ratio I can find or it's just like one small cable and that's the only place I'll get free shipping but that's also extremely rare.
I do have the luck of living somewhere with countless alternatives, and they all deliver next day for free most of the time, maybe a limit of 20€ and over or something.
Prime video just isn’t all that good and it sounds like ads are coming and shipping is still free over like $25.
Only reason to have prime is if you also have their credit card and order a decent amount of stuff there and/or shop at whole foods a lot for the 5% back. Otherwise it does add up at all.
I cancelled my prime because free "2 day" was actually 3-4 day shipping despite living 8 minutes from a distribution center. Among other reasons too but my shipping times haven't changed much. Maybe an extra day or two now since their probably creating an artificial delay for non prime members.
The only time I use Amazon is when I'm shopping for PC parts and they've got the best deal (maybe one part every 3 years) or if they're the only source for something like an obscure PCB or whatever. Aside from that, it's really not helpful. People who have their regular weekly shipments are wild to me. So much easier to just get everything you need at the grocery store in one fell swoop every week. Don't even get me started on Prime shipping when I live in the same city as a distribution center. Prime Video is aids.
Amazon Prime is the biggest scam.
I've noticed that without prime you can still get free shipping if you just have a big enough order, so as long as you don't buy a ton of small purchases individually but instead save up what you need for bigger purchases then the only advantage prime has is the shorter shipping time. Which I've also noticed sometimes that the shipping without prime will often arrive a day or two earlier then it's original estimate, probably cause Amazon has optimized for that shorter 2 day shipping. It's still not usually 2 days but for most stuff it's either a week or less which is usually plenty fast for anything I get on Amazon.
I can't speak for the US, but at least in Canada Amazon has just been getting worse since I started using it. In 2019 I used it to get some great camping equipment at a ridiculously good price. During Christmastime last year I got a 50$ gift card from my company and I struggled to spend it after buying a $20 crystal ball. My household cancelled our prime subscription last year and I doubt we'll go back.
Just wait till you need to buy enough stuff to hit the $35 minimum for free delivery. It takes a maximum 4-5 days for stuff to arrive but sometimes they can arrive as early as 2 days. I never went on prime after my free trial.
I could kinda understand this if you live in a rural area and have had it for years...but still, first world problems, my god.
I get the 1 month free trial every 9 months or so lol
I get gift cards for Amazon because I used survey apps that pay me money and I have made quite a bit. So Amazon stuff is always free stuff for me basically. But Prime is worthless. Prime Video has absolutely nothing worth watching, and last week I ordered hair dye on my husband's Prime account on Saturday and it didn't arrive until Thursday, so what's the point?
I've been on the student discount for almost 7 years now so I've been paying half price for it, but I also like it cuz I watch a decent amount of shows. That being said, I could totally cancel for a month or two and not even notice it.
I've never had prime and never felt the need to get it. I don't order frequently from them so, when I do, I can hit the free shipping minimum easily. I have no problem waiting a bit extra for shipping. When they do get around to shipping my stuff, it usually takes just a day or two to get here.
I think I've used Amazon a grand total of twice in my life. Got a cheap knockoff of what I actually ordered both times.
Muthafuckas act like they forgot about eBay. But seriously, shipping times and prices are often better and they've always sided with me with refunds, even when sellers tried to pull sketchy shit.
I've never used any of the prime benefits other than free shipping when I had a big free trial. I forgot about it and I started getting charged, and immediately cancelled.
If I bundle my orders into $35+ ones, I still get free shipping. And with Amazon getting crappier and greedier each year, I get less and less there and more on other online marketplaces.
Prime is extra useless here, except for maybe the free shipping. Overnight shipping is the default here for all webshops, except Amazon lol.
There is no need to buy anything from those fucks ever
I generally wait more than a month for things to arrive, be it random stuff from aliexpress or books from bookdepository (may it rest in peace), blackwells or kennys. It's kinda the norm here, and we don't think much of it.
Maybe it’s buying a new PC, but it’s been awhile since I am excited to get a package. I got most of the parts off other websites, and did get a new monitor on Amazon and was nowhere near excited about it.
There was no build up in waiting for it to come in. With Amazon I just like “it’ll come in in two days”, but with my other parts I’m repeatedly checking the delivery time, planning out what to do when X part comes in, etc.
I'm really stingy when it comes to subscriptions and honestly paying for anything at all that I don't have to. But the few things that I and the wife are happy to drop a dime on are Prime, Netflix and unlimited cable and cell data. I got the Verizon NF and Starz deal last year, 1 year for both for $74 and I watch NF constantly. Every day. I'd pay $20/month for it easily. Similarly I'm always buying shrapnel on Prime. I know I could live without it but it's essential enough to us to warrant the outlay.
Yeah, just wait until amazon finds a way to legally force non-prime users in the US (since EU probably wouldn't be having any of that bull) to have to wait an extra week or 2 before your packages arrive.
Also, I had a strange sense of déjà vu while writing this comment. I know I haven't seen this post/article before, but both it and this comment are giving me major déjà vu.
Ordering anything off Amazon takes like a week minimum here with insane shipping costs, prime or not, while ordering from any local store you usually get it the next day or the day after that for like 2 euros for shipping max.
TBH, the games and books provide enough worth for me. Got the newest Dean Koontz book at the beginning of this month.
You mean to tell me Amazon prime hasn't been around since the dawn of life on earth????
Basically a "it works for me but not for some people" statement. Such a waste of my time to have read that.
Duh?