I cancelled Prime last year after getting fed up with Amazon in several ways. Bringing ads to Prime Video was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I do still end up ordering from time to time, and the checkout process for non-Prime members is horrific. Multiple Prime sign-up offers that I always need to carefully read so I don’t click the wrong thing, illogical default shipping options, with more tricks to try and get the user to sign up for Prime while choosing shipping, after having already declined multiple times.
I don’t know why any non-Prime customer would want to sign up for Prime after such a user-hostile experience full of dark patterns.
I graphed out my orders since the start of my Amazon account. There was a steady uptrend over 20 years, with yearly growth since 2018. All of that ended 2023. My orders fell off a cliff, dropping by 60% in 2024. The treatment of non-Prime customers isn’t winning me back, it’s pushing me further away. I think my goal for 2026 will be not to order anything from Amazon. It’s been such a bad experience. Apparently their goal of being the world’s most customer-centric company only applies to Prime users.
I hope this judgement will get them to change their ways, but I’m assuming they will do as little as possible to comply, and still pushing Prime hard.
Prime ain't what it used to be. Used to be reliably 2nd day delivery, by a real shipping company, and good movies added, etc.
Now it's as slow as "free" delivery, by a random contractor who does God knows what to the package, and prices aren't even better than Walmart or Target on many things.
The "avoid subscribing to prime" shuffle you have to do to even order anything anymore drives me away too, I only use Amazon if it's more than 5% cheaper.
I really have to wonder if non-Prime and Prime deliveries go through the same shipping pipeline to simplify the process.
When I order without Prime, it seems my order just sits for a few days, then it hits my credit card and I get it 2 days later. Almost like giving everyone free 2 day shipping wouldn’t cost them anything at this point, so they just artificially delay normal users to make the service worse.
Occasionally the order will trigger right away and I’ve gotten non-Prime stuff in 1 day with free super saver shipping.
A much simple explanation is that each order is assigned a priority f(elapsed time, is prime) prime orders starting much higher so the processing of your order gets delayed behind all the incoming prime orders until its priority catches up due to longer elapsed time
They obviously have some metric that if you buy something, you’re likely to buy something again within two days so by holding the first shipment until you do the second purchase, they combine shipping and save costs.
When ordering without Prime it says you have 24 hour (I think) to add other items without incurring additional shipping charges. I don't remember Prime doing this, and there is little benefit to the customer to care, because it's all "free" anyway.
I ordered something on Sunday, I had until Monday to add additional items. I was charged on Wednesday evening, it shipped Thursday (today), and should show up tomorrow.
I can buy the priority method. Sit it on until a lull in demand, or 3-4 days pass, whichever comes first. That's how it feels.
Even though thad had this order for 4 days so far, they are effectively giving me 1-2 day shipping once it finally ships.
I've never had Prime. Instant gratification isn't a draw for me and I can build up a shopping cart over months between orders. Funnily enough, about 75% of my boxes come with Prime tape on them. It used to signify expedited handling. Now it's just a branding exercise.
>Prime ain't what it used to be. Used to be reliably 2nd day delivery
Amazon delivery in LA is incredibly fast, frequently it says "will be delivered by 4am"
I hate Amazon, not encouraging anyone, but LA is a special zone.
apart from the free shipping aspect, do they actually delay shipping non prime orders if you live in a metro area? The whole FedEx business model originally was not "you pay extra for overnight" (which you would) but actually "because we deliver everything overnight, we don't need warehouses and all our rolling stock is empty every day, so it's cheaper for us"
I've wanted to quit Prime a bunch of times, but my recent experiences in the Bay Area:
* Sometimes I want my order on my Prime day, but they insist on delivering it to me 3 hours from when I ordered it.
* When my son got COVID, we ran around town looking for COVID tests. Target was out of them entirely. So I ordered them on Prime and they showed up later that day. A bunch of them. And 3x cheaper than the COVID+FLU tests I found at CVS later that day.
* Yeah, ads on Prime suck. But I'm rewatching a 90s show and ponied up $3/mo for no ads.
Screw Jeff Bezos, but then again.. I got COVID tests when I needed them.
> Yeah, ads on Prime suck. But I'm rewatching a 90s show and ponied up $3/mo for no ads.
The $3/month for no ads felt like they were nickel-and-diming the customers.
I was paying something like $129/year for Prime. The idea of paying $3/month on top of the $129/year I was paying for Prime felt so petty.
Had they just raised the price of Prime, I probably would have shrugged and carried on. But adding a monthly charge on top of a yearly charge, nope. I was done.
This of course was on top of allowing the store to be flooded with low quality junk being resold from Alibaba, counterfeit products all over the place, pushing to send shipments in their retail boxes, review gaming, them ripping off popular products to sell through their own private labels, and other such practices that have eroded my view and trust of Amazon over the years.
I ordered some headphones from Amazon a month ago, because the company that makes them was sold out in the color I wanted. I felt the need to lookup how to tell authentic from counterfeit headphones while I was waiting for the shipment, so I could validate what I received was real. I’ve received counterfeit goods before from Amazon. I heard they keep everything in the same bin, so it’s luck of the draw when picked (I have no way to validate that). No other store makes me worry about things like this, just Amazon. If brick-and-mortar stores were like this they’d be out of business in a week.
I get it -- I go through the same calculus every year. I also have the associated credit card, and.. well.. it all ends up paying for itself in the end.
I'll move to a secondary tier Amazon market where boring retail isn't quite as compromised as the bay area and the equation will probably change for me, but I'm also likely to end up in a rural mountain area and it might be a lifeline for me.
I haven't had issues with Alibaba stuff, and there have been just enough instances where Amazon delivered where local or alts couldn't. Like the light bulbs in my bathroom.. Ace Hardware doesn't stock my item, I couldn't order them elsewhere, but Amazon connected me to a vendor who fulfilled in about 2 weeks. And yes, I went without light in my bathroom for 2 weeks and was looking the whole time.
> I don’t know why any non-Prime customer would want to sign up
At least for me, it's easy -- the Prime credit card, which has no extra fee beyond Prime itself. I get 5-7% back, instead of the 1-2% with my other credit cards. It literally pays for itself and more over the course of a year. The faster shipping is just a bonus.
And I'm not buying junk I don't need either. It's literally just regular toiletries, my normal grocery shopping at Whole Foods (also 5% off), and then just replacing all the things in my home when they wear out or break -- kitchen things, bedding, electronics, and so forth. All things that are usually cheaper on Amazon than anywhere else anyways. (I still use Target.com for things that are cheaper there.)
It’s usually cheaper if you can source it from the manufacturer even paying their shipping rate. In fact the pricing structure on amazon often seems to include this shipping from manufacturer charge in the total cost just you aren’t aware of it.
You still get 3% back on that card without prime on amazon fwiw.
For good or for bad, I've switched to Walmart for many of my orders as well as home delivery of groceries now and then and they have been decent. It's good to have competitors who are catching up.
Home Depot reuses SKUs for different products. When they fulfill an order from a local store it's a gamble if you're going to get the item you wanted. You also can't exchange those orders online and are forced to go to the same store it came from.
Best feature for home depot (and lowes) is that you can always constrain your query to the store. And when you do this, each product's page will show the the aisle and row the item is located at. (yes, I know the smartphone app will help you here but 100% of smart phone apps are bad, as are those who recommend them) Just spend a few minutes writing down your items & aisles and go visit the store. Trust me, it's better. The convenience of delivery just is not worth the stupid roulette that online retail has become.
It's not any different than going to Walmart yourself and getting groceries -- they just put them in plastic grocery bags. I've never had a problem with anything refrigerated or frozen. (Well, I've never ordered ice cream.)
The key is to be home when they deliver it; so, you can put those things away immediately. They offer two-hour delivery windows and usually deliver within the window. In my experience -- I'm disabled and use them for groceries almost weekly -- about 5% fall just outside the delivery window. (Usually 10-20 minutes late.)
I feel someone will soon start a website "melted-icecream.com", where someone tracks orders all over the country, from major online suppliers, and graphs how warm the ice cream is.
they don't do anything special for frozen items .... it's just as if you get it in bags from the store. .... add in additional time for neighborhood deliveries if any ..... usually they arrive semi-frozen .... you can track the delivery driver from the store (where they hopefully keep it in a cold room) to your home... for me it takes them from 20 mins to 1 hour for delivery ...
> I think my goal for 2026 will be not to order anything from Amazon
This has been my position for upwards of 5 years. Between the quality / UX / social issues - well frankly I'd rather spend money elsewhere (although not at all is likely)
A few years ago, I got a new phone and a new number. I eventually went to Amazon, entered password, and then was prompted for the OTP, which was sent to my previous number (which I no longer had access to). I kept trying things until I was completely locked out of the account. I emailed them, no help. So, while being locked out of my account, I couldn't cancel my subscription to Kindle (lost all of the books, too). I just kept getting charged month after month (of which I'd just forget about it after getting angry for a minute).
I'd hope that they fixed this. If an account is locked, it seems like it would be common sense to place a hold on any subscriptions associated with it.
> I'd hope that they fixed this. If an account is locked, it seems like it would be common sense to place a hold on any subscriptions associated with it.
The problem with this is you can deny someone's service very easily just by knowing publicly associated data (e.g. email address) and intentionally getting the password wrong a few times.
> So, while being locked out of my account, I couldn't cancel my subscription to Kindle (lost all of the books, too). I just kept getting charged month after month (of which I'd just forget about it after getting angry for a minute).
Most places have some law where you must be able to cancel by calling or some other path. But as a last line stop gap, you can contact your credit card company and deny the charges based on the inability to cancel.
In fact, this is one of the explicit value propositions of an intermediary payment company.
Did the situation get resolved or are you still being charged? I need a resolution here STAT!
In my personal experience, Amazon has an acceptable customer support when compared to Google, but nobody with that type of scale can even touch Apple's support experience.
lol you think they're going to actively put any effort towards something that isn't legally required and loses them money? Nah, there's no way they're going to implement that. I hope you issued chargebacks on your card for those charges.
I had a similar experience with Google. Got locked out of gmail and Youtube premium kept billing. Couldn't log in to cancel, couldn't even find a phone number to call to cancel, there's no gmail customer support whatsoever. Youtube premium apparently has some customer support but you have to be logged in to use it. Ended up having to cancel my credit card.
When I worked there (more than a decade ago) senior leaders and old-timers were extremely proud of the fact that they did things like sending "your Prime membership will renew in (a month - I think) - be sure to cancel if you don't want it to" emails. This was quite different from typical subscription services providers at the time.
In fact, I had more than one old-timer mention that they would ask employment candidates about the Prime pricing and renewal strategy and that candidates who said something along the lines of "it's best for people to subscribe and then never use it so we make margin on the service revenue" (along the lines of gym business models) would be rejected.
They really wanted people to want to be Prime members (this was even before Bezos' famous "you'd be irresponsible not to be a Prime member" comment...)
Amazon started going downhill when they started losing their founding builders and started hiring cisco and other silicon valley insiders at executive levels. The Amazon Way is now a quaint retrospective, and the quality and attractiveness are quickly moving to the lowest common denominator.
Amazon is bad, but as others note, it’s insultingly transparent more than anything. But the worst in my recent history is Duolingo. Constant pestering to upgrade your subscription, fine, but once you do, it frequently “forgets” the subscription (through the App Store) and goes back to nagging you, only fixed by digging a few screens into the profile and tapping “restore purchases”. Bigger issue when your family is using it and doesn’t understand you’re already subscribed. Paid for two family subscriptions this way.
It keeps nagging me to upgrade to the family plan or plus or whatever. And if I ignore it enough it enrolls me in a free trial of the family plan without me even asking every once it a while. The amount of up-selling they try to push on you now is so annoying.
If anyone has any recommended alternatives where I can learn Japanese I'm interested. Despite all the crap Duolingo has, it has been very convenient when it comes to spending 30 minutes at the end of the day doing some Japanese lessons.
> It keeps nagging me to upgrade to the family plan or plus or whatever. And if I ignore it enough it enrolls me in a free trial of the family plan without me even asking every once it a while. The amount of up-selling they try to push on you now is so annoying.
Is this through their own storefront, or through a mobile storefront (Apple/Google)? While it's bad either way, Apple and Google specific styling around their subscription confirmation prompts, so I hope they haven't circumvented those somehow.
They got me a little a couple of months ago. I had a free prime trial, then clicked cancel which was easy enough but it didn't cancel because I didn't notice after cancel there was an 'are you sure you really want to cancel' which I missed. Such is the way of the game I guess.
I genuinely can't fathom these numbers. As in: it could be $25B or $250M and it would mean the same to me.
Does this materially impact Amazon?
I'm (really) not a fan of Amazon, but to me that's an existential amount of money. I don't think I've ever worked anywhere where that kind of money wouldn't be a "ok, I guess we're closing down, turn off the lights when you leave" situation, and I've worked at some large companies.
I'm not usually exposed to financials I guess but my burn rate for my last (very small) company was about $4-5M/y roughly. This amount of money would keep us all gainfully employed for about 500 years.
Amazon will pay $1 billion to the government as a penalty and set aside $1.5 billion for consumers. The settlement terms have most of the details. [0]
Amazon will do an automatic payout to some people for up to $51. No need to claim anything for that. I'm guessing they'll mail checks or prepaid debit cards or something.
Then Amazon will make a website, within 30 days, and post it on their site (and I'm sure news media will also post it) that will be for manual claims. These claims are also for up to $51 and people will have 180 days to manually claim.
After that, if there's still money, then Amazon will repeatedly do more $51 automatic payments to more people until they're out of money (basically more lax automatic qualification of Prime members from June 23, 2019 to June 23, 2025).
This wasn't a class action lawsuit, so the process will be a bit more strict. But yes, ultimately there is a pool of money set aside for payments and everyone will get a tiny bit ($51).
"Shipping is 2 day." That doesn't mean it will be shipped as to arrive within two days from ordering, but when we ship it (which may be that day, or may be three days later) you'll get it within 2 days...
> harmed by their deceptive Prime enrollment practices
I'm still confused by this part.
I didn't use Prime for a long time. I remember lots of buttons inviting me to sign up, just like YouTube asks me weekly if I want to subscribe to premium.
But I don't remember anything seemingly deceptive, and none of the news articles seem to actually provide any details. So what precisely was deceptive?
And even the cancellation part, it's just two confirmation screens. It doesn't seem bad. It honestly seems about the same as any other website subscription I've ever had. You click to cancel, say yes I really don't want the benefits (this is the only extra step), and then click to confirm the cancellation.
It's pretty heavily dark patterned for me. When you go checkout there is a big prime banner inviting you to click now that looks the the default "next screen" button, and smaller fainter text below saying "continue without enjoying prime benefits".
Something similar happens again with the shipping. I only ever buy enough to get free shipping, but it never defaults to that, it tries to trick you by defaulting to paid, and then when you scroll to change your shipping to free, it again makes "join prime" the most default looking option to pick.
I'm pretty sure in the past there was an extra nag somewhere but the above is my most recent experience. Maybe legal but certainly feels like you're dealing with a scammer.
With prime they also default you to slower shipping options some of the time. I haven’t quite figured out what or why yet though. It might be related to ordering multiple items in tandem.
I've been given the option to delay shipping (and be given a digital credit) or choose a certain day to have multiple orders come in the same box. I don't think that was ever the default option though.
And, as noted in the article, it still wrongfully states decline Prime and pay for shipping despite shipping already being free if you are willing to wait for delayed shipping.
Since I cancelled Prime, I have saved a fortune in addition to my $100. Not just on Amazon, but period. Super convenient and fast resulted in me buying more, now I am just buying much less stuff, make fewer orders less often. even waiting to go to a store I figure out a way to solve a problem without buying anything, and sometimes to need goes away.
I guess I have Trump to thank for it, never would have cancelled Prime if it wasn't for the US boycott.
I cancelled prime because like all "prepaid" things, it's basically a scam or they wouldn't offer it.
When I used to have it, half of the items were "not eligible for prime" and many more were "add-on items" where you had to spend $25 or whatever before you could ship them free (in which case you don't need prime anyway). It was basically worthless.
This is the resolution of a years-old FTC case against Amazon, which included an internal program called "Project Iliad" to lower cancellation rates by increasing the number of steps involved, among other things. The cancellation process has changed between the initial filing and now.
Wait.. you mean "Today, the Trump-Vance FTC..." is an exaggeration? Personally I never knew that we were supposed to prefix administration names infront of agencies but guess I'm a dope.
It was nowhere near as bad as the giant gym chains or any other number of businesses.
I can think of a lot of membership and subscription services that have been far harder to cancel that I wish the FTC would do something about. A few extra clicks to cancel Prime is nothing in comparison to the gauntlet required to cancel some gym memberships. I remember a story where someone forgot to cancel their gym membership before moving across the country but the gym's policy required that you cancel in-person at the gym. They had to pay the monthly fee until their next trip back home, then lose an hour traveling to the gym to fill out the cancellation paperwork.
They did that. The FTC had a simple click-to-cancel rule that was supposed to start enforcement this year. It was struck down on procedural grounds during appeal in July.
I don't know anything about the Iliad. I asked generative AI how the name fit in, or why it was appropriate for the project. Adding the response below, in case it helps others.
-----
The name “Project Iliad” is almost certainly a reference to Homer’s Iliad, the ancient Greek epic poem about the Trojan War.
The connection works as a kind of corporate in-joke or metaphor:
The Iliad is long, complex, and arduous — much like the cancellation process Amazon designed. By naming the project after an epic full of prolonged struggle, the team was signaling (perhaps ironically) that customers would have to endure an "epic battle" just to cancel.
Conflict and attrition are central to the Iliad’s story. The war drags on, wearing down opponents. In Amazon’s context, Project Iliad’s design was to wear down users’ will to cancel through friction.
This is even a somewhat less aggressive flow than it used to be, I think. I dug up this screenshot of a part of the cancellation process as it existed when I went through it in 2018 or 2019, which confused me at the time: https://i0.wp.com/ebookfriendly.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/...
I had an annual subscription, and the options on that page made it seem like if I were to cancel that I'd actually lose access immediately, forfeiting the remaining value I'd already paid for. That wasn't in fact the case, but clearly it was designed to guide you into using the "Remind Me" button instead, which I imagine is a very leaky bucket—surely many people who fully intended to cancel would wind up missing the notification three days before renewal and get billed for another year.
Additionally, the text of the buttons and lack of explanation of what's going to happen gives that screen some finality: if I click "End my Benefits" does that mean they end immediately with no recourse? The next page actually showed that you could end and get a refund, or end at the end of the already-paid period, but it was obviously designed to make you uncertain.
You should read the original complaint. It alleged that Amazon made is really easy to inadvertently sign up for Prime, but much more difficult to cancel. See the PDF below and the screenshots that has.
Upon filing of the complaint, Amazon removed these dark workflows quickly.
> Clicking the link did not end Prime membership. Instead, it took the consumer to another page with a heading that read: “End Your Amazon Prime Membership.” The page contained a button labelled “End Your Prime Membership.” Pressing the button did not end Prime Membership.
...
> Once consumers reached the Iliad Flow, they had to proceed through its
entirety—spanning three pages, each of which presented consumers several options, beyond the Prime Central page—to cancel Prime.
...
> Also, on page one of the Iliad Flow, Amazon presented consumers with three
buttons at the bottom. “Remind Me Later,” the button on the left, sent the consumer a reminder three days before their Prime membership renews ... “Keep My Benefits,” on the right, also took the consumer out of the Iliad Flow without cancelling Prime. Finally, “Continue to Cancel,” in the middle, also did not cancel Prime but instead proceeded to the second page of the Iliad Flow.
> Finally, at the bottom of Iliad Flow page two, Amazon presented consumers with
buttons offering the same three options as the first page: “Remind Me Later,” “Continue to Cancel,” and “Keep My Membership” (labelled “Keep My Benefits” on the first page). See Attachment Q, at 4. Once again, consumers could not cancel their Prime subscription on the second page of the Iliad Flow. Choosing either “Remind Me Later” or “Keep My Membership” took the consumer out of the Iliad Flow without cancelling. Consumers had to click “Continue to Cancel” to access the third page of the Iliad Flow.
...
> Therefore, to complete the Iliad Flow and cancel a Prime membership, the
consumer needed to click a minimum of six times from Amazon.com: Prime Central -> “Manage Membership” -> “End Membership” -> “Continue to Cancel” -> “Continue to Cancel” -> “End Now.”
> “Remind Me Later,” the button on the left, sent the consumer a reminder three days before their Prime membership renews
This feature didn't work. They just helpfully never reminded you you were about to get billed. I doubt that was accidental. I tested this several times.
Nope. I got bit by "unexpected" Prime annual renewal charges multiple times. They were certainly authorized, but I think there should be some consumer protection that any renewal period longer than say 3 months should have mandatory renewal warnings with enough reasonable time for cancellation.
California requires a warning a month in advance for anything a year or longer. Pointing out this law has gotten me a few refunds from services that failed to comply and renewed my subscription without telling me.
> And even the cancellation part, it's just two confirmation screens.
Call me a fool, but I fell for this and paid them for several months.
First, I don't think it was just two screens (the article mentions 3).
Second, unless you read really carefully, they made it appear that you had indeed unsubscribed, when you hadn't. I think the messaging was something along the lines of "OK, you have access to it until the end of the month". I was a monthly subscriber, so I took it to mean it would stop at the end of that month. But what they were really saying was something along the lines of "... and maybe you can think about it some more to see if it's worth it for you, and if you still want to cancel, click here". Only it wasn't as obvious as how I wrote it.
> It honestly seems about the same as any other website subscription I've ever had.
Not for me. For all the subscriptions I've canceled, Amazon Prime was the only one I fell for and ended up paying continually. Yes, other sites may have multiple steps, but the verbiage was always much clearer that you still hadn't unsubscribed.
It's when the button that signs you up for Prime is the blue button marked "Continue" or something similarly vague, on top of defaulting your shipping options to the paid, expedited ones, and changing the card you are using if there are multiple and one benefits Amazon more than the other (i.e. Amazon Store Card, the non-Amex option), where it gets cumulatively ridiculous.
I canceled Prime about 18 months ago, and now every single time I go to check out on Amazon, before the checkout page there's a splash screen a the gigantic, bright blue CHECK OUT WITH PRIME button, and then under that, in 8pt font with grey-on-white text, a "No thanks, continue without Prime" link. The lack of any subtlety would be hilarious if it wasn't so irritating. Throw the book at them.
I'm a stickler for reading details, and they still got me once by making the 'sign up to pay for prime' "offer" looking/reading very similar to the 'free trial' offer. The customer service chat straightforwardly canceled it and refunded the fraudulent charge, but the way all of their dialogs are set up and stylized its obvious they're trying to induce mistaken (ie fraudulent) transactions.
I would like Amazon to be fined another Billion for not notifying customers about the annual renewal. They sneak the charge on to your credit card, and you have no easy way to find out what the charge is for.
Generally a fan of Prime. I’ll admit the shipping is pretty addictive. The rest of Prime is pretty meh. It’s a good deal on shipping and then a bunch of second-rate other stuff tacked on.
On both .com and AWS, Amazon is reaching a stage of maturity where they’re running out of new customers. While still a fan of both, they’re both getting annoying as innovation slows and they get more annoying with a focus on doing things to make your use “sticky” vs making you trip over yourself to buy something because it’s great.
Amazon is full of counterfeit or low quality junk that one needs to navigate. AWS is muddling things with far too many random services thrown at the wall vs just being really good at a few core things. In today competitive environment account teams can’t really explain why we should use AWS apart from “we’re AWS” which is again an answer from a company aging into more stagnating maturity.
The fine, while more than a rounding error, is still small. However it will hopefully help cut down on some of Amazon’s more annoying behaviors.
> It’s a good deal on shipping and then a bunch of second-rate other stuff tacked on.
It is and it isn't. The cost of shipping is built into the price of most of the items. You get a good deal if you buy things where pricing is more or less fixed, or if you buy things one at a time, but if you purchase several items at the same time, you can often save money if you purchase from a vendor that has better unit prices and charges shipping, or offers free shipping with a minimum order.
I see this all the time with my hobby purchases. Amazon has everything (mostly), but it's more cost efficient to put together orders of multiple parts at other vendors. Sometimes just one part at another vendor works too, if it fits in an flat envelope and they charge appropriately for envelope shipping.
It’s exceedingly rare for a vendor to be cheaper on shipping (and in total) than Amazon is for me. Especially if you consider shipping speed and return hassle/expense.
Really depends on what you buy, but about half the time I buy from a vendor direct I end up regretting it if I’m in a hurry or not 100% certain of the product before ordering.
Buying a 6-pack of pinballs. Amazon is $17, shipping included with prime [1], Marco is $10 + $13 shipping [2]. Amazon wins, but if you also need some 555 bulbs, Amazon is $5 for ten [3], and Marco is $2.25, shipping stays at $13.
One pack of pinballs and one pack of bulbs is $22 or $25.25, but one pack of pinballs and three packs of bulbs is $32 at amazon vs $30 at Marco.
Time to arrive varies, but Amazon is quoting me a week for the pinballs at the moment, and Marco got me my last order in a week. Also, I have no doubts about Marco's supply chain.
I see similar things when ordering parts for my midlife crisis car. There's a couple things where it is better to get parts on Amazon, but most things it makes more sense to go to a niche specific site or a car parts vendor.
I kept Prime when they rolled the video streaming service into it. I had already been toying with the idea of canceling to break the addictive habit of using their fast shipping. Now that they've gone ads inserted into nearly everything including "included with prime" content, I'm just over it. Laziness and knowing my annual renewal is months away still keep me from experiencing the cancel hell that is in my future
It's really not a cancel hell like say Comcraps or a gym membership. It's several pages of trickily-worded and misleadingly-styled buttons meant to make you mess up and not click the ones you need to click. From a real computer (ie no "mobile" myopia) you'll be done with it in under 5 minutes. I think you could even do it right now and still keep your benefits until your actual expiration, but I'm not exactly sure as I only ever do 1 month free trials or $2 "1 week" trials if I need something quick in the middle of a project.
(This is not to say that they totally don't deserve fines for violating users' trust with user-adversarial design in the first place, just to point out that these dark patterns are mostly mitigable annoyances that they make up for on volume)
> I’ll admit the shipping is pretty addictive. The rest of Prime is pretty meh. It’s a good deal on shipping
It's not a good deal on shipping because shipping can be had for free without Prime for $25 or $35 orders. It's a paid course where they train you to be an impulse buy addict.
I found out recently that I've been paying for Prime Video since 2020. I think I did legitimately sign up for it. That's not my complaint.
But it's fairly scummy how it doesn't seem to send you any email, the payments have a very vague generic coding like "AMZ2318971239", and the actual subscription management is super buried. I only noticed it, after years of using Amazon a fair bit, when I went deep into my account panes looking for something else.
I don't really understand all the fuss about Amazon Prime.
I found it really easy to cancel. They even refunded me when I canceled my subscription after the free trial expired (forgot to cancel before that despite being notified).
Clicking passed the "look at what you will lose if you cancel" screen is not my idea of "hard".
Yes, they push for subscriptions, usually using promotional offers. It is called marketing, and Amazon is relatively mild in that regard.
Maybe it could create a precedent and make the majority of subscription services pay.
My experience is they're more aggressive about prime ads when they think they can get you. So I'd get a bunch of ads and an extra screen to join prime student, and the buttons are deliberately confusing.
But I agree. It's just an extra button you have to press. Annoying, but not the worst thing a company has done to me
You might want to clarify that the document you're linking to does NOT have the words "Biden-Harris FTC" in it, but simply that the action was taken by that Administration's FTC. In fact, the article doesn't mention Biden or Harris in any capacity.
The salient point is that "Trump-Vance" is being stamped on everything in an effort to build the Admin's brand.
My immediate reaction to the title was "Bezos must not have written a large enough check to the library fund" or whatever else the orange man wants funded. yeah yeah, Bezos isn't in charge blah blah. Someone from the smile logo didn't write a check.
Yeah, these things are silly and I don't even know the audience for them. I remember seeing a lot of local infrastructure projects around with the attribution "President Biden BBB Infrastructure Bill." Does anyone really care? Politics have become really stupid.
Amazon makes $50B per year from Prime, and there are an estimated 240 million subscribers. $10/user is an insanely cheap price for user acquisition (basically equivalent to a 1 month free deal), and any company will happily take this deal 10 times out of 10.
I moved my prime account to be on a family plan. Their systems sent me, IDK, 15 messages telling me my prime benefits were going away and to sign up. Either they completely do not cross validate that I had moved to another prime subscription, or, based off my read of this article, they really just wanted two people in the same household paying for prime for no reason.
For me prime still works fine most of the time. And so much random crap is overnight nowadays! Nothing like ordering a vent cap, finding it doesn't quite fit due to peculiar siding, and immediately returning and overnighting a different one for free. I just wish they'd pick up returns if they are rare enough, having to make a 10 minute stop to do it myself is completely unacceptable ;)
> its the typical "are you sure" shit every site has
Saying "everyone does it" doesn't make it legal or right.
Going after Amazon and winning a ruling against is a good first step in eliminating these exploitive practices everywhere.
Which because they have gotten away with it for so long, everyone else has been copying (or well I guess this has been going on for decades in various forms) them.
Ex, netflix, which has decided to pop up a 'we noticed there are people who don't live with you using your account, click here to pay us another $9/month' every time it starts on my TV, presumably because my underage child, who legally lives with me, uses it on her phone when she is away at school for 5 months a year.
And then when someone clicked the default pay us button, I was unable to figure out how to remove the charge without actually calling and telling them I was canceling after 20+ years. (the whole extra member thing wasn't showing up in the web ui, no idea why, maybe its because of the TV clicking process).
I cancelled Prime last year after getting fed up with Amazon in several ways. Bringing ads to Prime Video was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I do still end up ordering from time to time, and the checkout process for non-Prime members is horrific. Multiple Prime sign-up offers that I always need to carefully read so I don’t click the wrong thing, illogical default shipping options, with more tricks to try and get the user to sign up for Prime while choosing shipping, after having already declined multiple times.
I don’t know why any non-Prime customer would want to sign up for Prime after such a user-hostile experience full of dark patterns.
I graphed out my orders since the start of my Amazon account. There was a steady uptrend over 20 years, with yearly growth since 2018. All of that ended 2023. My orders fell off a cliff, dropping by 60% in 2024. The treatment of non-Prime customers isn’t winning me back, it’s pushing me further away. I think my goal for 2026 will be not to order anything from Amazon. It’s been such a bad experience. Apparently their goal of being the world’s most customer-centric company only applies to Prime users.
I hope this judgement will get them to change their ways, but I’m assuming they will do as little as possible to comply, and still pushing Prime hard.
Prime ain't what it used to be. Used to be reliably 2nd day delivery, by a real shipping company, and good movies added, etc.
Now it's as slow as "free" delivery, by a random contractor who does God knows what to the package, and prices aren't even better than Walmart or Target on many things.
The "avoid subscribing to prime" shuffle you have to do to even order anything anymore drives me away too, I only use Amazon if it's more than 5% cheaper.
I really have to wonder if non-Prime and Prime deliveries go through the same shipping pipeline to simplify the process.
When I order without Prime, it seems my order just sits for a few days, then it hits my credit card and I get it 2 days later. Almost like giving everyone free 2 day shipping wouldn’t cost them anything at this point, so they just artificially delay normal users to make the service worse.
Occasionally the order will trigger right away and I’ve gotten non-Prime stuff in 1 day with free super saver shipping.
> it seems my order just sits for a few days, then it hits my credit card and I get it 2 days later
I have Prime and this is the majority of my orders. Lately I have been seeing a lot of free overnight deliveries tho, so maybe something is brewing.
I suspect they’re doing some “intelligent batching” of some sort to save costs on shipping SOMEWHERE. But it’s all inscrutable to me.
I do miss the “$5 digital credit for forgoing prime shipping” I used to abuse.
A much simple explanation is that each order is assigned a priority f(elapsed time, is prime) prime orders starting much higher so the processing of your order gets delayed behind all the incoming prime orders until its priority catches up due to longer elapsed time
They obviously have some metric that if you buy something, you’re likely to buy something again within two days so by holding the first shipment until you do the second purchase, they combine shipping and save costs.
When ordering without Prime it says you have 24 hour (I think) to add other items without incurring additional shipping charges. I don't remember Prime doing this, and there is little benefit to the customer to care, because it's all "free" anyway.
I ordered something on Sunday, I had until Monday to add additional items. I was charged on Wednesday evening, it shipped Thursday (today), and should show up tomorrow.
I can buy the priority method. Sit it on until a lull in demand, or 3-4 days pass, whichever comes first. That's how it feels.
Even though thad had this order for 4 days so far, they are effectively giving me 1-2 day shipping once it finally ships.
Except they don’t combine shipping on separate orders afaik
Yep, the shipping is pretty unreliable these days on Amazon.
I've never had Prime. Instant gratification isn't a draw for me and I can build up a shopping cart over months between orders. Funnily enough, about 75% of my boxes come with Prime tape on them. It used to signify expedited handling. Now it's just a branding exercise.
>Prime ain't what it used to be. Used to be reliably 2nd day delivery
Amazon delivery in LA is incredibly fast, frequently it says "will be delivered by 4am"
I hate Amazon, not encouraging anyone, but LA is a special zone.
apart from the free shipping aspect, do they actually delay shipping non prime orders if you live in a metro area? The whole FedEx business model originally was not "you pay extra for overnight" (which you would) but actually "because we deliver everything overnight, we don't need warehouses and all our rolling stock is empty every day, so it's cheaper for us"
I've wanted to quit Prime a bunch of times, but my recent experiences in the Bay Area:
* Sometimes I want my order on my Prime day, but they insist on delivering it to me 3 hours from when I ordered it.
* When my son got COVID, we ran around town looking for COVID tests. Target was out of them entirely. So I ordered them on Prime and they showed up later that day. A bunch of them. And 3x cheaper than the COVID+FLU tests I found at CVS later that day.
* Yeah, ads on Prime suck. But I'm rewatching a 90s show and ponied up $3/mo for no ads.
Screw Jeff Bezos, but then again.. I got COVID tests when I needed them.
> Yeah, ads on Prime suck. But I'm rewatching a 90s show and ponied up $3/mo for no ads.
The $3/month for no ads felt like they were nickel-and-diming the customers.
I was paying something like $129/year for Prime. The idea of paying $3/month on top of the $129/year I was paying for Prime felt so petty.
Had they just raised the price of Prime, I probably would have shrugged and carried on. But adding a monthly charge on top of a yearly charge, nope. I was done.
This of course was on top of allowing the store to be flooded with low quality junk being resold from Alibaba, counterfeit products all over the place, pushing to send shipments in their retail boxes, review gaming, them ripping off popular products to sell through their own private labels, and other such practices that have eroded my view and trust of Amazon over the years.
I ordered some headphones from Amazon a month ago, because the company that makes them was sold out in the color I wanted. I felt the need to lookup how to tell authentic from counterfeit headphones while I was waiting for the shipment, so I could validate what I received was real. I’ve received counterfeit goods before from Amazon. I heard they keep everything in the same bin, so it’s luck of the draw when picked (I have no way to validate that). No other store makes me worry about things like this, just Amazon. If brick-and-mortar stores were like this they’d be out of business in a week.
I get it -- I go through the same calculus every year. I also have the associated credit card, and.. well.. it all ends up paying for itself in the end.
I'll move to a secondary tier Amazon market where boring retail isn't quite as compromised as the bay area and the equation will probably change for me, but I'm also likely to end up in a rural mountain area and it might be a lifeline for me.
I haven't had issues with Alibaba stuff, and there have been just enough instances where Amazon delivered where local or alts couldn't. Like the light bulbs in my bathroom.. Ace Hardware doesn't stock my item, I couldn't order them elsewhere, but Amazon connected me to a vendor who fulfilled in about 2 weeks. And yes, I went without light in my bathroom for 2 weeks and was looking the whole time.
> I don’t know why any non-Prime customer would want to sign up
At least for me, it's easy -- the Prime credit card, which has no extra fee beyond Prime itself. I get 5-7% back, instead of the 1-2% with my other credit cards. It literally pays for itself and more over the course of a year. The faster shipping is just a bonus.
And I'm not buying junk I don't need either. It's literally just regular toiletries, my normal grocery shopping at Whole Foods (also 5% off), and then just replacing all the things in my home when they wear out or break -- kitchen things, bedding, electronics, and so forth. All things that are usually cheaper on Amazon than anywhere else anyways. (I still use Target.com for things that are cheaper there.)
Try the PayPal Debit card if you are in the US (and I think UK) .... you choose the category each month for a 5% cashback.
Same here. I was shocked when I first read the offer and am still shocked now that I get such a large cash back rate. It easily pays for itself.
It’s usually cheaper if you can source it from the manufacturer even paying their shipping rate. In fact the pricing structure on amazon often seems to include this shipping from manufacturer charge in the total cost just you aren’t aware of it.
You still get 3% back on that card without prime on amazon fwiw.
For good or for bad, I've switched to Walmart for many of my orders as well as home delivery of groceries now and then and they have been decent. It's good to have competitors who are catching up.
Walmart + Target + Home Depot cover much of what I would have used Amazon for, and all offer free shipping in some way without joining any club.
Walmart pickup is great.
Home Depot reuses SKUs for different products. When they fulfill an order from a local store it's a gamble if you're going to get the item you wanted. You also can't exchange those orders online and are forced to go to the same store it came from.
Best feature for home depot (and lowes) is that you can always constrain your query to the store. And when you do this, each product's page will show the the aisle and row the item is located at. (yes, I know the smartphone app will help you here but 100% of smart phone apps are bad, as are those who recommend them) Just spend a few minutes writing down your items & aisles and go visit the store. Trust me, it's better. The convenience of delivery just is not worth the stupid roulette that online retail has become.
I do this every trip. I take screenshots of the page per item (usually only a handful) once I get to the parking lot.
Then, I optimize my trip around the store to never double back.
It's worth it.
Do frozen foods get delivered still frozen?
I live 15 minutes away from the nearest wal-mart and frozens/refrigerables are my biggest concern.
It's not any different than going to Walmart yourself and getting groceries -- they just put them in plastic grocery bags. I've never had a problem with anything refrigerated or frozen. (Well, I've never ordered ice cream.)
The key is to be home when they deliver it; so, you can put those things away immediately. They offer two-hour delivery windows and usually deliver within the window. In my experience -- I'm disabled and use them for groceries almost weekly -- about 5% fall just outside the delivery window. (Usually 10-20 minutes late.)
I feel someone will soon start a website "melted-icecream.com", where someone tracks orders all over the country, from major online suppliers, and graphs how warm the ice cream is.
Would be interesting.
Once melted, ice-cream is never ice cream again.
they don't do anything special for frozen items .... it's just as if you get it in bags from the store. .... add in additional time for neighborhood deliveries if any ..... usually they arrive semi-frozen .... you can track the delivery driver from the store (where they hopefully keep it in a cold room) to your home... for me it takes them from 20 mins to 1 hour for delivery ...
How is this a concern? Does Amazon not sell frozen food (no fresh food from Amazon around here)? Otherwise why would Walmart be unable to
Walmart doesn't include ice like Amazon does, but for me it doesn't make a difference unless the delivery driver is goofing off
> I think my goal for 2026 will be not to order anything from Amazon
This has been my position for upwards of 5 years. Between the quality / UX / social issues - well frankly I'd rather spend money elsewhere (although not at all is likely)
A few years ago, I got a new phone and a new number. I eventually went to Amazon, entered password, and then was prompted for the OTP, which was sent to my previous number (which I no longer had access to). I kept trying things until I was completely locked out of the account. I emailed them, no help. So, while being locked out of my account, I couldn't cancel my subscription to Kindle (lost all of the books, too). I just kept getting charged month after month (of which I'd just forget about it after getting angry for a minute).
I'd hope that they fixed this. If an account is locked, it seems like it would be common sense to place a hold on any subscriptions associated with it.
> I'd hope that they fixed this. If an account is locked, it seems like it would be common sense to place a hold on any subscriptions associated with it.
The problem with this is you can deny someone's service very easily just by knowing publicly associated data (e.g. email address) and intentionally getting the password wrong a few times.
> So, while being locked out of my account, I couldn't cancel my subscription to Kindle (lost all of the books, too). I just kept getting charged month after month (of which I'd just forget about it after getting angry for a minute).
Most places have some law where you must be able to cancel by calling or some other path. But as a last line stop gap, you can contact your credit card company and deny the charges based on the inability to cancel.
In fact, this is one of the explicit value propositions of an intermediary payment company.
Did the situation get resolved or are you still being charged? I need a resolution here STAT!
In my personal experience, Amazon has an acceptable customer support when compared to Google, but nobody with that type of scale can even touch Apple's support experience.
You get what you pay for? The "Apple Tax" provides support.
lol you think they're going to actively put any effort towards something that isn't legally required and loses them money? Nah, there's no way they're going to implement that. I hope you issued chargebacks on your card for those charges.
I had a similar experience with Google. Got locked out of gmail and Youtube premium kept billing. Couldn't log in to cancel, couldn't even find a phone number to call to cancel, there's no gmail customer support whatsoever. Youtube premium apparently has some customer support but you have to be logged in to use it. Ended up having to cancel my credit card.
It's sad to see it come to this.
When I worked there (more than a decade ago) senior leaders and old-timers were extremely proud of the fact that they did things like sending "your Prime membership will renew in (a month - I think) - be sure to cancel if you don't want it to" emails. This was quite different from typical subscription services providers at the time.
In fact, I had more than one old-timer mention that they would ask employment candidates about the Prime pricing and renewal strategy and that candidates who said something along the lines of "it's best for people to subscribe and then never use it so we make margin on the service revenue" (along the lines of gym business models) would be rejected.
They really wanted people to want to be Prime members (this was even before Bezos' famous "you'd be irresponsible not to be a Prime member" comment...)
Amazon started going downhill when they started losing their founding builders and started hiring cisco and other silicon valley insiders at executive levels. The Amazon Way is now a quaint retrospective, and the quality and attractiveness are quickly moving to the lowest common denominator.
Amazon is bad, but as others note, it’s insultingly transparent more than anything. But the worst in my recent history is Duolingo. Constant pestering to upgrade your subscription, fine, but once you do, it frequently “forgets” the subscription (through the App Store) and goes back to nagging you, only fixed by digging a few screens into the profile and tapping “restore purchases”. Bigger issue when your family is using it and doesn’t understand you’re already subscribed. Paid for two family subscriptions this way.
It keeps nagging me to upgrade to the family plan or plus or whatever. And if I ignore it enough it enrolls me in a free trial of the family plan without me even asking every once it a while. The amount of up-selling they try to push on you now is so annoying.
If anyone has any recommended alternatives where I can learn Japanese I'm interested. Despite all the crap Duolingo has, it has been very convenient when it comes to spending 30 minutes at the end of the day doing some Japanese lessons.
> It keeps nagging me to upgrade to the family plan or plus or whatever. And if I ignore it enough it enrolls me in a free trial of the family plan without me even asking every once it a while. The amount of up-selling they try to push on you now is so annoying.
Is this through their own storefront, or through a mobile storefront (Apple/Google)? While it's bad either way, Apple and Google specific styling around their subscription confirmation prompts, so I hope they haven't circumvented those somehow.
It seems to be through their own storefront in the app. Thankfully it doesn't automatically subscribe you at the end of the free trial.
Oh boy, can't wait to get my $4 off coupon in June of 2030.
They got me a little a couple of months ago. I had a free prime trial, then clicked cancel which was easy enough but it didn't cancel because I didn't notice after cancel there was an 'are you sure you really want to cancel' which I missed. Such is the way of the game I guess.
$2.5B.
I genuinely can't fathom these numbers. As in: it could be $25B or $250M and it would mean the same to me.
Does this materially impact Amazon?
I'm (really) not a fan of Amazon, but to me that's an existential amount of money. I don't think I've ever worked anywhere where that kind of money wouldn't be a "ok, I guess we're closing down, turn off the lights when you leave" situation, and I've worked at some large companies.
I'm not usually exposed to financials I guess but my burn rate for my last (very small) company was about $4-5M/y roughly. This amount of money would keep us all gainfully employed for about 500 years.
Is this one of those situations where we sign up and get a bit of money from the company, or will we have already been contacted?
Amazon will pay $1 billion to the government as a penalty and set aside $1.5 billion for consumers. The settlement terms have most of the details. [0]
Amazon will do an automatic payout to some people for up to $51. No need to claim anything for that. I'm guessing they'll mail checks or prepaid debit cards or something.
Then Amazon will make a website, within 30 days, and post it on their site (and I'm sure news media will also post it) that will be for manual claims. These claims are also for up to $51 and people will have 180 days to manually claim.
After that, if there's still money, then Amazon will repeatedly do more $51 automatic payments to more people until they're out of money (basically more lax automatic qualification of Prime members from June 23, 2019 to June 23, 2025).
Basically ~30 million people get up to $51.
[0] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Amazon-ROSCA-Or...
This wasn't a class action lawsuit, so the process will be a bit more strict. But yes, ultimately there is a pool of money set aside for payments and everyone will get a tiny bit ($51).
My guess is 95%+ of the restitution will be in the form of a free year of Amazon prime. I'm pretty cynical though.
It explicitly says "refunds" in TFA.
> Amazon will be required to pay a $1 billion civil penalty, provide $1.5 billion in refunds back to consumers [...]
I would have assumed their downfall would have been "free 2 day shipping" since it takes about 4 days for me to get anything from them.
They have an answer for that:
"Shipping is 2 day." That doesn't mean it will be shipped as to arrive within two days from ordering, but when we ship it (which may be that day, or may be three days later) you'll get it within 2 days...
The two days before you received the package was two days. QED.
> harmed by their deceptive Prime enrollment practices
I'm still confused by this part.
I didn't use Prime for a long time. I remember lots of buttons inviting me to sign up, just like YouTube asks me weekly if I want to subscribe to premium.
But I don't remember anything seemingly deceptive, and none of the news articles seem to actually provide any details. So what precisely was deceptive?
And even the cancellation part, it's just two confirmation screens. It doesn't seem bad. It honestly seems about the same as any other website subscription I've ever had. You click to cancel, say yes I really don't want the benefits (this is the only extra step), and then click to confirm the cancellation.
It's pretty heavily dark patterned for me. When you go checkout there is a big prime banner inviting you to click now that looks the the default "next screen" button, and smaller fainter text below saying "continue without enjoying prime benefits".
Something similar happens again with the shipping. I only ever buy enough to get free shipping, but it never defaults to that, it tries to trick you by defaulting to paid, and then when you scroll to change your shipping to free, it again makes "join prime" the most default looking option to pick.
I'm pretty sure in the past there was an extra nag somewhere but the above is my most recent experience. Maybe legal but certainly feels like you're dealing with a scammer.
With prime they also default you to slower shipping options some of the time. I haven’t quite figured out what or why yet though. It might be related to ordering multiple items in tandem.
I've been given the option to delay shipping (and be given a digital credit) or choose a certain day to have multiple orders come in the same box. I don't think that was ever the default option though.
And, as noted in the article, it still wrongfully states decline Prime and pay for shipping despite shipping already being free if you are willing to wait for delayed shipping.
Since I cancelled Prime, I have saved a fortune in addition to my $100. Not just on Amazon, but period. Super convenient and fast resulted in me buying more, now I am just buying much less stuff, make fewer orders less often. even waiting to go to a store I figure out a way to solve a problem without buying anything, and sometimes to need goes away.
I guess I have Trump to thank for it, never would have cancelled Prime if it wasn't for the US boycott.
I cancelled prime because like all "prepaid" things, it's basically a scam or they wouldn't offer it.
When I used to have it, half of the items were "not eligible for prime" and many more were "add-on items" where you had to spend $25 or whatever before you could ship them free (in which case you don't need prime anyway). It was basically worthless.
This is the resolution of a years-old FTC case against Amazon, which included an internal program called "Project Iliad" to lower cancellation rates by increasing the number of steps involved, among other things. The cancellation process has changed between the initial filing and now.
Wait.. you mean "Today, the Trump-Vance FTC..." is an exaggeration? Personally I never knew that we were supposed to prefix administration names infront of agencies but guess I'm a dope.
But it was never as bad as for most telecoms.
It was nowhere near as bad as the giant gym chains or any other number of businesses.
I can think of a lot of membership and subscription services that have been far harder to cancel that I wish the FTC would do something about. A few extra clicks to cancel Prime is nothing in comparison to the gauntlet required to cancel some gym memberships. I remember a story where someone forgot to cancel their gym membership before moving across the country but the gym's policy required that you cancel in-person at the gym. They had to pay the monthly fee until their next trip back home, then lose an hour traveling to the gym to fill out the cancellation paperwork.
They did that. The FTC had a simple click-to-cancel rule that was supposed to start enforcement this year. It was struck down on procedural grounds during appeal in July.
Scale is important here. Small harm across tens of millions of people adds up.
There is a reason telecom donates a lot to congress.
you'd think they'd have better opsec then to let the nefarious purpose of the project be openly referenced by the title.
I don't know anything about the Iliad. I asked generative AI how the name fit in, or why it was appropriate for the project. Adding the response below, in case it helps others.
-----
The name “Project Iliad” is almost certainly a reference to Homer’s Iliad, the ancient Greek epic poem about the Trojan War.
The connection works as a kind of corporate in-joke or metaphor:
The Iliad is long, complex, and arduous — much like the cancellation process Amazon designed. By naming the project after an epic full of prolonged struggle, the team was signaling (perhaps ironically) that customers would have to endure an "epic battle" just to cancel.
Conflict and attrition are central to the Iliad’s story. The war drags on, wearing down opponents. In Amazon’s context, Project Iliad’s design was to wear down users’ will to cancel through friction.
Why would you put any validity to that response what so ever?
This is a quick visual walk thru of the pattern before they fixed it:
https://youtube.com/shorts/FYnr1llUVG0?si=xzMV-Q7NHdtfoKSs
This is even a somewhat less aggressive flow than it used to be, I think. I dug up this screenshot of a part of the cancellation process as it existed when I went through it in 2018 or 2019, which confused me at the time: https://i0.wp.com/ebookfriendly.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/...
I had an annual subscription, and the options on that page made it seem like if I were to cancel that I'd actually lose access immediately, forfeiting the remaining value I'd already paid for. That wasn't in fact the case, but clearly it was designed to guide you into using the "Remind Me" button instead, which I imagine is a very leaky bucket—surely many people who fully intended to cancel would wind up missing the notification three days before renewal and get billed for another year.
Additionally, the text of the buttons and lack of explanation of what's going to happen gives that screen some finality: if I click "End my Benefits" does that mean they end immediately with no recourse? The next page actually showed that you could end and get a refund, or end at the end of the already-paid period, but it was obviously designed to make you uncertain.
Source of screenshot: https://ebookfriendly.com/how-successfully-cancel-amazon-pri...
It seems like they've been adjusting some of the language on the screens in the years since, but still in super confusing ways: https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonprime/comments/wdy84t/cancell...
You should read the original complaint. It alleged that Amazon made is really easy to inadvertently sign up for Prime, but much more difficult to cancel. See the PDF below and the screenshots that has.
Upon filing of the complaint, Amazon removed these dark workflows quickly.
https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/FTC-Amazon-c...
For ending membership, start on page 44:
> Clicking the link did not end Prime membership. Instead, it took the consumer to another page with a heading that read: “End Your Amazon Prime Membership.” The page contained a button labelled “End Your Prime Membership.” Pressing the button did not end Prime Membership.
...
> Once consumers reached the Iliad Flow, they had to proceed through its entirety—spanning three pages, each of which presented consumers several options, beyond the Prime Central page—to cancel Prime.
...
> Also, on page one of the Iliad Flow, Amazon presented consumers with three buttons at the bottom. “Remind Me Later,” the button on the left, sent the consumer a reminder three days before their Prime membership renews ... “Keep My Benefits,” on the right, also took the consumer out of the Iliad Flow without cancelling Prime. Finally, “Continue to Cancel,” in the middle, also did not cancel Prime but instead proceeded to the second page of the Iliad Flow.
> Finally, at the bottom of Iliad Flow page two, Amazon presented consumers with buttons offering the same three options as the first page: “Remind Me Later,” “Continue to Cancel,” and “Keep My Membership” (labelled “Keep My Benefits” on the first page). See Attachment Q, at 4. Once again, consumers could not cancel their Prime subscription on the second page of the Iliad Flow. Choosing either “Remind Me Later” or “Keep My Membership” took the consumer out of the Iliad Flow without cancelling. Consumers had to click “Continue to Cancel” to access the third page of the Iliad Flow.
...
> Therefore, to complete the Iliad Flow and cancel a Prime membership, the consumer needed to click a minimum of six times from Amazon.com: Prime Central -> “Manage Membership” -> “End Membership” -> “Continue to Cancel” -> “Continue to Cancel” -> “End Now.”
You know what was the best part?
> “Remind Me Later,” the button on the left, sent the consumer a reminder three days before their Prime membership renews
This feature didn't work. They just helpfully never reminded you you were about to get billed. I doubt that was accidental. I tested this several times.
Nope. I got bit by "unexpected" Prime annual renewal charges multiple times. They were certainly authorized, but I think there should be some consumer protection that any renewal period longer than say 3 months should have mandatory renewal warnings with enough reasonable time for cancellation.
California requires a warning a month in advance for anything a year or longer. Pointing out this law has gotten me a few refunds from services that failed to comply and renewed my subscription without telling me.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.x....
> And even the cancellation part, it's just two confirmation screens.
Call me a fool, but I fell for this and paid them for several months.
First, I don't think it was just two screens (the article mentions 3).
Second, unless you read really carefully, they made it appear that you had indeed unsubscribed, when you hadn't. I think the messaging was something along the lines of "OK, you have access to it until the end of the month". I was a monthly subscriber, so I took it to mean it would stop at the end of that month. But what they were really saying was something along the lines of "... and maybe you can think about it some more to see if it's worth it for you, and if you still want to cancel, click here". Only it wasn't as obvious as how I wrote it.
> It honestly seems about the same as any other website subscription I've ever had.
Not for me. For all the subscriptions I've canceled, Amazon Prime was the only one I fell for and ended up paying continually. Yes, other sites may have multiple steps, but the verbiage was always much clearer that you still hadn't unsubscribed.
It's when the button that signs you up for Prime is the blue button marked "Continue" or something similarly vague, on top of defaulting your shipping options to the paid, expedited ones, and changing the card you are using if there are multiple and one benefits Amazon more than the other (i.e. Amazon Store Card, the non-Amex option), where it gets cumulatively ridiculous.
I canceled Prime about 18 months ago, and now every single time I go to check out on Amazon, before the checkout page there's a splash screen a the gigantic, bright blue CHECK OUT WITH PRIME button, and then under that, in 8pt font with grey-on-white text, a "No thanks, continue without Prime" link. The lack of any subtlety would be hilarious if it wasn't so irritating. Throw the book at them.
Ah thanks, I did some digging and found some screenshots from 2017 and 2022 respectively:
https://i.insider.com/6226b418990863001998d7a9?width=1200&fo...
https://i.insider.com/6226b454dcce010019a7243a?width=1200&fo...
The "no thanks" on the second one does seem particularly egregious. I'm curious if there's a screenshot of the current one you describe.
The "I do not want fast, free shipping" in the first screenshot is insulting. The worst kind of dark pattern guilting.
Mine also uses wording that strongly implies I'll be paying as much as $7 for shipping without Prime, on an order with free shipping.
I'm a stickler for reading details, and they still got me once by making the 'sign up to pay for prime' "offer" looking/reading very similar to the 'free trial' offer. The customer service chat straightforwardly canceled it and refunded the fraudulent charge, but the way all of their dialogs are set up and stylized its obvious they're trying to induce mistaken (ie fraudulent) transactions.
I would like Amazon to be fined another Billion for not notifying customers about the annual renewal. They sneak the charge on to your credit card, and you have no easy way to find out what the charge is for.
Why not make it a trillion!
Generally a fan of Prime. I’ll admit the shipping is pretty addictive. The rest of Prime is pretty meh. It’s a good deal on shipping and then a bunch of second-rate other stuff tacked on.
On both .com and AWS, Amazon is reaching a stage of maturity where they’re running out of new customers. While still a fan of both, they’re both getting annoying as innovation slows and they get more annoying with a focus on doing things to make your use “sticky” vs making you trip over yourself to buy something because it’s great.
Amazon is full of counterfeit or low quality junk that one needs to navigate. AWS is muddling things with far too many random services thrown at the wall vs just being really good at a few core things. In today competitive environment account teams can’t really explain why we should use AWS apart from “we’re AWS” which is again an answer from a company aging into more stagnating maturity.
The fine, while more than a rounding error, is still small. However it will hopefully help cut down on some of Amazon’s more annoying behaviors.
> It’s a good deal on shipping and then a bunch of second-rate other stuff tacked on.
It is and it isn't. The cost of shipping is built into the price of most of the items. You get a good deal if you buy things where pricing is more or less fixed, or if you buy things one at a time, but if you purchase several items at the same time, you can often save money if you purchase from a vendor that has better unit prices and charges shipping, or offers free shipping with a minimum order.
I see this all the time with my hobby purchases. Amazon has everything (mostly), but it's more cost efficient to put together orders of multiple parts at other vendors. Sometimes just one part at another vendor works too, if it fits in an flat envelope and they charge appropriately for envelope shipping.
It’s exceedingly rare for a vendor to be cheaper on shipping (and in total) than Amazon is for me. Especially if you consider shipping speed and return hassle/expense.
Really depends on what you buy, but about half the time I buy from a vendor direct I end up regretting it if I’m in a hurry or not 100% certain of the product before ordering.
Here's an example from my recent life:
Buying a 6-pack of pinballs. Amazon is $17, shipping included with prime [1], Marco is $10 + $13 shipping [2]. Amazon wins, but if you also need some 555 bulbs, Amazon is $5 for ten [3], and Marco is $2.25, shipping stays at $13.
One pack of pinballs and one pack of bulbs is $22 or $25.25, but one pack of pinballs and three packs of bulbs is $32 at amazon vs $30 at Marco.
Time to arrive varies, but Amazon is quoting me a week for the pinballs at the moment, and Marco got me my last order in a week. Also, I have no doubts about Marco's supply chain.
I see similar things when ordering parts for my midlife crisis car. There's a couple things where it is better to get parts on Amazon, but most things it makes more sense to go to a niche specific site or a car parts vendor.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Ball-Baron-Polaris-Non-Magnetic-Pinba... [2] https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/PB116-6 [3] https://www.amazon.com/CEC-Industries-Bulbs-W2-1x9-5d-T-3-25... [4] https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/165-5002-00
I kept Prime when they rolled the video streaming service into it. I had already been toying with the idea of canceling to break the addictive habit of using their fast shipping. Now that they've gone ads inserted into nearly everything including "included with prime" content, I'm just over it. Laziness and knowing my annual renewal is months away still keep me from experiencing the cancel hell that is in my future
It's really not a cancel hell like say Comcraps or a gym membership. It's several pages of trickily-worded and misleadingly-styled buttons meant to make you mess up and not click the ones you need to click. From a real computer (ie no "mobile" myopia) you'll be done with it in under 5 minutes. I think you could even do it right now and still keep your benefits until your actual expiration, but I'm not exactly sure as I only ever do 1 month free trials or $2 "1 week" trials if I need something quick in the middle of a project.
(This is not to say that they totally don't deserve fines for violating users' trust with user-adversarial design in the first place, just to point out that these dark patterns are mostly mitigable annoyances that they make up for on volume)
> I’ll admit the shipping is pretty addictive. The rest of Prime is pretty meh. It’s a good deal on shipping
It's not a good deal on shipping because shipping can be had for free without Prime for $25 or $35 orders. It's a paid course where they train you to be an impulse buy addict.
Amazon's 2024 net income (profit) was $59B on $638B revenue.
The median US household income is $80k and has a savings rate (profit) of 3.6%, or $2880.
This $2.5B fine is equivalent to the average US household being fined $115 or, basically, a traffic ticket.
I found out recently that I've been paying for Prime Video since 2020. I think I did legitimately sign up for it. That's not my complaint.
But it's fairly scummy how it doesn't seem to send you any email, the payments have a very vague generic coding like "AMZ2318971239", and the actual subscription management is super buried. I only noticed it, after years of using Amazon a fair bit, when I went deep into my account panes looking for something else.
I don't really understand all the fuss about Amazon Prime.
I found it really easy to cancel. They even refunded me when I canceled my subscription after the free trial expired (forgot to cancel before that despite being notified).
Clicking passed the "look at what you will lose if you cancel" screen is not my idea of "hard".
Yes, they push for subscriptions, usually using promotional offers. It is called marketing, and Amazon is relatively mild in that regard.
Maybe it could create a precedent and make the majority of subscription services pay.
> I don't really understand all the fuss about Amazon Prime.
Oh, the fuss is because Amazon is big. The big players receive a lot of scrutiny.
> I found it really easy to cancel.
I find it a lot easier to sign up. I think that's the issue at play here.
My experience is they're more aggressive about prime ads when they think they can get you. So I'd get a bunch of ads and an extra screen to join prime student, and the buttons are deliberately confusing.
But I agree. It's just an extra button you have to press. Annoying, but not the worst thing a company has done to me
I wonder if there are going to be any consequences for the execs who pushed for, or at least green-lit, the decisions to operate Prime that way.
Nah, jk. Of course not.
The proposed remedy seems fine. What stuck out to me is the "Trump-Vance" attribution: I haven't seen something like that since the election.
Anything that happens during this presidency (even if started under biden) gets a trump by-line...
And as you're implying, this action began under the "Biden-Harris FTC": https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/06/...
You might want to clarify that the document you're linking to does NOT have the words "Biden-Harris FTC" in it, but simply that the action was taken by that Administration's FTC. In fact, the article doesn't mention Biden or Harris in any capacity.
The salient point is that "Trump-Vance" is being stamped on everything in an effort to build the Admin's brand.
My immediate reaction to the title was "Bezos must not have written a large enough check to the library fund" or whatever else the orange man wants funded. yeah yeah, Bezos isn't in charge blah blah. Someone from the smile logo didn't write a check.
Yeah, these things are silly and I don't even know the audience for them. I remember seeing a lot of local infrastructure projects around with the attribution "President Biden BBB Infrastructure Bill." Does anyone really care? Politics have become really stupid.
Edit: A search reveals that this was apparently controversial at the time: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/21/biden-infrastructur.... The shamelessness of "Trump-Vance" here funny.
Didn't you know that this administration is all about feeding lies?
Amazon makes $50B per year from Prime, and there are an estimated 240 million subscribers. $10/user is an insanely cheap price for user acquisition (basically equivalent to a 1 month free deal), and any company will happily take this deal 10 times out of 10.
i canceled my amazon and now use ebay for everything.
I moved my prime account to be on a family plan. Their systems sent me, IDK, 15 messages telling me my prime benefits were going away and to sign up. Either they completely do not cross validate that I had moved to another prime subscription, or, based off my read of this article, they really just wanted two people in the same household paying for prime for no reason.
For me prime still works fine most of the time. And so much random crap is overnight nowadays! Nothing like ordering a vent cap, finding it doesn't quite fit due to peculiar siding, and immediately returning and overnighting a different one for free. I just wish they'd pick up returns if they are rare enough, having to make a 10 minute stop to do it myself is completely unacceptable ;)
They should do legalshield next
Adobe. The only "free trial" subscription I actually had to pay to cancel. Despicable company.
The FTC sued Adobe last year for subscription dark patterns.
https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/2...
I’ve never heard of legalshield. What’s their deal?
You have to email them to cancel
There was a FTC rule about to go into effect that would require it be as easy to cancel as it is to subscribe to a service. A court struck it down on procedural grounds. https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/click-to-cancel-rule-ha...
Some more discussion earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45365712
The actual win isn't the fine, it's
> and cease unlawful enrollment and cancellation practices for Prime.
which thank god, Amazon deserves to be in the hall of fame for their multiple beg screens.
Huh, I was wondering why cancelling after a free trial recently was easier than the last time I cancelled a few years ago.
It is two screens, three clicks - not hard at all.
https://www.amazon.com/mm/pipeline/cancellation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddxPcnMG0fE
That’s double the amount of screens and triple the amount of clicks it should take.
I subscribe to as many things as I can through Apple because I can instantly unsubscribe without companies wasting my time.
It should be one click.
It’s one click buy and three click “unbuy”. Strange that the latter hasn’t yet been patented - perhaps the click count isn’t done yet.
I'm honestly confused, cancelling prime doesn't seem hard lol, its the typical "are you sure" shit every site has
> its the typical "are you sure" shit every site has
Saying "everyone does it" doesn't make it legal or right. Going after Amazon and winning a ruling against is a good first step in eliminating these exploitive practices everywhere.
Which because they have gotten away with it for so long, everyone else has been copying (or well I guess this has been going on for decades in various forms) them.
Ex, netflix, which has decided to pop up a 'we noticed there are people who don't live with you using your account, click here to pay us another $9/month' every time it starts on my TV, presumably because my underage child, who legally lives with me, uses it on her phone when she is away at school for 5 months a year.
And then when someone clicked the default pay us button, I was unable to figure out how to remove the charge without actually calling and telling them I was canceling after 20+ years. (the whole extra member thing wasn't showing up in the web ui, no idea why, maybe its because of the TV clicking process).
Cool...another "Historic" fine that represents a tiny percent of a companies quarterly profits.
Huh I forgot to cancel and called and they refunded me lol.