Amazon Prime is a remarkable success but also dystopian. It has made convenience and speed the norm, habituating consumers to buy more products. Prime’s flywheel effect - where more customers lead to more data and scale which attracts more customers - has fueled Amazon’s dominance. Prime subscribers spend twice as much and Amazon’s value has multiplied 97 times since 2005. While canceling Prime may not hurt Amazon, it can benefit local businesses by gaining a new customer. However, Prime has rewired how people think about what is possible to obtain and how fast, making a Prime-free life unimaginable for many.
Here are the things that constantly bring me back to using prime.
Customer service - I can get a rep on the phone quickly, and chat is actually functional. And rarely do i even need these because returns are super easy to self-service.
Logistics - I do not live in a big city. Most things take a minimum of 2 days to get to me. Amazon included, because they have to always go through the larger city near me (a few hundred miles away) and then go through local sorting. That said Amazon, is about 85% on the 2 day delivery, where most others are…5-7 days, even if i do in store pickup for some of the big box stores that ARE in town.
Site functionality - They 100% have dark patterns. And they 100% track what sells well and then copy it into their “amazon essentials” catalogue to siphon off profits from third parties. But their site is functional, search works, I can usually find what I need.
I still often seek out alternatives. Especially local and small shops. But when my choices become Amazon vs BestBuy or Amazon vs Cabelas/Academy/Dicks/Walmart or something similar, I usually choose based on ancillary policies like speed of delivery and least amount of time wasting with returns. Amazon often wins out there.
I live outside of a tiny country town in Australia, and local shops literally do not carry many of the sorts of items I need or, yes, want.
I work from home and rarely go into town, so paying twice as much and taking a day out of my life just isn’t my bag.
If I can get local and it’s not urgent, I will put together a consolidated list and go in some weekend when I have enough to make it worthwhile.
Sure, it probably makes me the devil, but unless I go move to a cabin in the woods and life a self-sustainable lifestyle, I can’t realistically avoid supporting some amount of evil just by existing under capitalism.
I try to make good choices where I can, and vote for people who, ideally, could effect real change.