Amazon Now Offers Monthly Prime/Prime Video Subscriptions (price, membership, expensive)

[Scooby Snacks]

Amazon has just started offering a monthly rate for its Prime subscription service, as well as offering the Prime Video service as a standalone. The Prime Monthly is $10.99/month and the video only (ostensibly to function more as a Netflix competitor) is $8.99/month. Although it's more expensive over the whole year than an annual Prime subscription, the monthly rate is an alternative for those who can't or don't want to pay the entire $99 of an annual membership at once.

Amazon rolls out monthly subscriptions for Prime and Prime Video | Android Central

[Sundaydrive00]

I don't see the point in paying more for a limited service. For $99 I get free 2-day shipping, prime video, prime music, prime photos, Kindle lending library, Prime early access and 3 free books from Audible. Or for $9 more a year I can just have prime video?

I can see Prime monthly being useful, as it would be more for people who don't want Prime year round. Its more about the convenience of having 2 day shipping during the Holidays, or during a month or two period when you know you'll be ordering a lot from Amazon. Or for college students to order and receive their textbooks quickly if they've already used up their 6 months of free Prime. Because even if you order $49 worth of merchandise ($25 for books), its still going to take 5+ business days.

[Scooby Snacks]

Originally Posted by Sundaydrive00

I don't see the point in paying more for a limited service. For $99 I get free 2-day shipping, prime video, prime music, prime photos, Kindle lending library, Prime early access and 3 free books from Audible. Or for $9 more a year I can just have prime video?

I can see Prime monthly being useful, as it would be more for people who don't want Prime year round. Its more about the convenience of having 2 day shipping during the Holidays, or during a month or two period when you know you'll be ordering a lot from Amazon. Or for college students to order and receive their textbooks quickly if they've already used up their 6 months of free Prime. Because even if you order $49 worth of merchandise ($25 for books), its still going to take 5+ business days.

I have heard a few different points of view on Amazon's strategy for offering two more plan options. The video streaming only subscription service is being offered now to compete more directly against Netflix. However, it fails miserably at that IMO because Amazon has the nasty habit of offering only the first few episodes of the first season of a TV show with Prime membership, then charging for succeeding episodes. I also heard they have added advertisements in some of their video content. Also, by offering the video only streaming service at a high price relative to the annual Prime membership, Amazon can try to convince people to buy Prime by arguing that full Prime members pay the same and get all the benefits, so why not just get the whole thing?

And the monthly complete Prime plan is an option for those who can't afford the annual membership fee or those who want to try it on a trial basis. The fact that it costs so much more to pay for Prime monthly has led some to speculate that Amazon may increase the cost of the annual Prime membership soon.

As an aside, it seems to me that Amazon is aggressively pushing Prime onto customers. They're much worse about it than a couple of years ago; their tactics (BUY PRIME! BUY PRIME! YOU WANT PRIME, DON'T YOU???!!!) remind me of nagware I was getting from Microsoft pushing me to upgrade to Windows 10. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I have scaled back my Amazon shopping to a trickle. I feel like I'm not valued as a customer because I don't want Prime and won't buy it.