A better cynical view is that this is about lockin. You're much less likely to cancel your $99/year account if you'll have to transfer terabytes of photos to a different provider.
Acquiring new customers is always significantly more expensive than retaining existing customers.
Why would you cancel your Prime Subscription to begin with? As someone who gets more than the price of Prime on shipping items alone, all these additional services are just bonuses to what is already an insanely cost-effective subscription.
While I agree with you 100% I think that this isn't a very good argument against lock-in. i.e what if Amazon pricing model changes making it not cost effective, or what if they start limiting their services or what if a better service crops up and Amazon cannot compete etc...
Lock-in is always an issue to consider regardless of how shiny those golden handcuffs are, end of the day they are still handcuffs.
You can pay for a lot of two-day shipping with $100 a year. I don't want all these dubious "value-add" services, like Prime Instant Video, Kindle Library, Prime Music, and now this photo storage service.
I'm pretty sure I get $100/year worth of 2 day shipping out of Prime quite easily, but I'm starting to agree on the other points.
What's been bothering me is that the 2 day shipping has started to turn into 3 or 4 days, and the deliveries have started mysteriously getting statuses such as "customer refused delivery" or "unable to deliver" even when I'm home all day. This is entirely anecdotal, but I'm wondering if there isn't some sort of effect going on with drivers who have started to see more Amazon packages and interpreted as not being as serious as a delivery as other expedited shipments.
Prime packages are treated better than Express; tracked better and always delivered. In my PO nothing is more important. A misthrow of a media mail or regular parcel gets delivered the next day (misthrow = put in the wrong hamper and not noticed until the truck gets loaded; the correct carrier has left); whereas if a Prime parcel is a misthrow, they send one of the "gargoyles" (i.e. newly minted temporary $16.50 hr workers) to deliver it that day.
Sometimes people still don't understand Sunday delivery and don't look for it or expect it.
USPS get ~$1.50 per parcel from Prime. (trying to recall redacted pdf with that figure). EDIT orig reversed
True story> Because 100% prime delivery is required, after checking the nightly report and found one amazon not delivered, a supervisor had to knock on a customer's door after 8pm and ask if he could scan the package. The package was already in the garbage and had to be given to the sup. [This is an extreme case but it does reflect the "emergency" hyper nature given to Prime parcels.]
If in fact the status you receive from your Prime packages are "refused" or "unable" it could be many things.. from bad (they want to stop the "clock") or most likely other things: Dog in yard; no safe and secure place to put the parcel; It is raining like hell and your regular carrier knows you don't want wet diapers (oh, by the way Kimberly Clark Amazon delivered diapers are exposed on the bottom; great for store shelves but not good if you leave them on a wet set of stairs);
> If in fact the status you receive from your Prime packages are "refused" or "unable" it could be many things.. from bad (they want to stop the "clock") or most likely other things: Dog in yard; no safe and secure place to put the parcel; It is raining like hell and your regular carrier knows you don't want wet diapers (oh, by the way Kimberly Clark Amazon delivered diapers are exposed on the bottom; great for store shelves but not good if you leave them on a wet set of stairs);
Unfortunately that's simply not true. I live in an apartment building that doesn't allow pets, and we have dedicated spots for mail to be delivered, particularly for USPS.
What if they need to price hike the service again? Also losing tax incentives in many states starts to swing the value proposition, but features like this will raise it.
Also, this opens the door to amazon tapping into multiple-prime-accounts-per-household, which would be a nice benefit for them.
Since we share it across my family, sure we would likely keep the $100/yr, even on the few purchases a month we make. I have occasionally used Prime video, but wouldn't shed a tear if we had to give it up. I can't name a single other thing I would consistently use from Prime.
More recently, however, Google Shopping Express has taken the bulk of my non-perishable purchases - the pricing on Amazon is no longer favorable compared to GSX or my local store. This pricing issue is magnified when looking at small quantities (i.e., 1 unit, that's not ). Often GSX items (or similar items) will be on sale at one store or another. Also finding the reviews on GSX to be less gamed.
If Google started charging per-delivery for GSX, I would still use it (but less often).
- I couldn't care less about the video offer - and it is mandatory, useless, unusable and increases the price
- I don't care about 'bonus' features I didn't sign up for. I signed up for (mostly) free shipping
Given that, I am happy to leave that service behind and if shipping becomes to expensive I might reconsider the default 'go to Amazon and check there' behavior.
There's always the possibility that you won't necessarily always want to direct so much of your shopping on Amazon as to recoup that Prime cost. A new player may enter or a current one change such that price, selection, service, etc. makes it more compelling to direct more of your commerce through them. There is also the possibility that Amazon itself changes to be less attractive as a commerce option.
This move by Amazon is absolutely about lock-in. Get their tentacles into as much unrelated to commerce as possible and you will likely keep your commerce with them too.
Not everybody is you. We let our Prime subscription lapse as we don't buy enough stuff from Amazon to justify it. This photos offering has my wife reconsidering rather strongly.
Don't forget that shipping is still free if you are willing to batch your purchases so that they total at least $35. Amazon also ding non-prime members on shipping speed.
Acquiring new customers is always significantly more expensive than retaining existing customers.