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Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

The article suggests this is to a business spat with competitors in the video space, but that misses the overall reality of Prime-only items: That Amazon regularly and arbitrarily marks large swaths of items as Prime exclusive for no other reason than to force people into subscribing to Prime. This can include older Blu-rays that aren't hot items at all, to regular daily items like diapers and shaver blades.

If you try and add a Prime exclusive item to your cart and check out, they'll automatically add the Prime subscription cost to your cart. This is really the sole purpose of this maneuver. And given that it's been recently said that Prime has over 100 million subscribers, this dark pattern seems to work pretty well.

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It almost makes me want to cancel my prime subscription that I've had for 8 years. I really hate rewarding companies for this kind of behavior.

This is why I refuse to remain a Prime subscriber. I do use the monthly plan once or twice a year (particularly the Christmas shopping season), when I know I can advantageously receive a massive amount of value out of it.

(If you have Prime and buy a new $60 video game, you get like $14 off, so buying Prime for a month if you're going to buy a game is pretty much free.)

Not being a Prime subscriber has afforded me often finding cheaper prices elsewhere. I buy from Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Newegg, etc.

As for when I do shop Amazon: I wait until I have an order big enough for free shipping, which often means I am more hesitant to buy things rapidly and have more time to consider my purchases, it keeps my spending down overall.

This has definitely made me shop much more often with Walmart, Best Buy and eBay

I think these types of tactics should be viewed as evidence that Prime isn't worth it. If it provided good value for the money, customers would be more than willing to sign up voluntarily.

I had been a Prime subscriber ever since a few months after it started. Several years ago Amazon became a lot less competitive on price for low priced items if you didn't actually need it in two days (essentially they charge for shipping by charging higher prices). So I used Amazon a lot less and less, except for the times I actually needed something in two days. I finally cancelled when 10 out of the last 10 items I ordered showed up late. So, I basically paid more for an item, paid for a Prime subscription, and got no benefit.

Amazon is still fairly competitive on price for more expensive items. But those qualify for free shipping anyway.

At this point I wish Amazon would convert entirely to Prime-only and remove any last reason for people to casually shop there. Bonus points if the whole website went behind a login.

But they won't as since you point out they can probably gain baseline + n by tempting those n people into their parlour and then up-selling.

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