“Amazon’s Prime service, which offers free streaming video and book borrowing to Apple iOS device users, has seen its annual price increase from $79 per year to $99 per year, while student members will also see a price hike,” AppleInsider reports.
“The new annual fee marks the first time Amazon Prime has seen a price increase in its nine-year history. Amazon Student members will also now pay $49 per year for their membership,” AppleInsider reports. “In its email announcing the change in pricing, Amazon noted that Prime subscriptions have remained unchanged ‘even as fuel and transportation costs have increased.’ It also noted that 20 million items are now available for two-day shipping, while 40,000 movies and TV shows are available on Prime Instant Video, and a half-million books can be borrowed for Kindle.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related article:
Amazon likely to add $20-$40 more to cost of Amazon Prime – February 3, 2014
Amazon’s bogus anti-Apple crusade – January 14, 2014
Yeah and songs on iTunes are rarely 99 cents anymore.
U hear that folks? California screws Amazon on sales tax requirements and the cost is passed on to you, the consumer. See how the liberal cancer is sucking the life and spirit out of this country? This will have a backlash on par with Netflix’s attempt to separate DVD and streaming accounts! I hope it’s epic! Keep voting for loser liberals, and it will get far worse.
I guess California sales tax is why they raised the price in the UK as well.
Do you think a multi-national, multi-billion dollar corporation isn’t going to raise prices where ever they can to recoup the losses for stuff like the above where ever it occurs? Wow. I wish I lived in a world as small as the one your mind lives in.
If they were passing the cost onto us, they’d be charging a hell of a lot more than $99 a year.
Oh yes, Arnold did such wonderful things for California.
How do you think we got into this mess in the first place?
Just like what Bush and the Republicans did to this country, the Conservatives screw things up and immediately after a Democrat gets elected they start whining about how bad things are.
Democrats mess things up, the Republicans are the ones that have to look like a-holes to fix your mess. Get your facts straight. Playing the blame card is getting old.
Oh, iMaki. You’re so funny!
@iMaki: Huh? You been smoking too much weed? According to Amazon, (http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=468512) sales tax is charged in the following states. Can you count how many of these are red states??
Arizona
California
Connecticut
Georgia
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Massachusetts
Nevada
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Buy local, forget amazon.
We are California. We are the droopy tail that always wags the dog. We are Detroit, New Orleans, Chicago, Baltimore and others… we just have a yellow smiley face slapped on our abysmal economy.
This article says “book borrowing to Apple iOS device users”. I was under the impression that this was exclusive to kindle owners. Anyone know how to utilize this feature? I can’t find any instructions on amazon or the innerweb.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html
The answer is “no”. Info here.
For Canadians Amazon Prime is already a very bad choice .
You don’t get the”free” video and that 2 day shipping usually tuns in to 2-3 weeks with lots of S&H tacked on.
total ripoff
I’m not an Amazon Prime member, but $99 still seems like a good deal to me even if it only covered the free 2 day shipping.
Seems like Bezos is taking a page from the cable companies playbook.
I am, or have been a member. At $79 I felt I was getting my moneys worth from free shipping. The addition of streaming media content and book lending hasn’t done much for me, but the fact is, at $79, I was subsidizing those who can take advantage of those services. At $99 that subsidy becomes a profit center for Amazon. Since I’m actively cutting back on the amount of stuff I order, maybe it’s time to rethink the value of Amazon Prime.
You’re right, pvmd.
I use Amazon for most of my CD and gift shopping. The $79 a year was great and less than $2 a month more won’t affect me that much.
The video playback is a plus as I don’t have cable. I also have it signed in on three iPads for kids and my Mother.
The music side has advantages for AutoRip, which I didn’t care for at first but have come to like, and the cloud player, which I use on my company Android phone for music.
BTW, quiviran, Prime was $79 about 7 years ago just for shipping when fuel cost were much lower. That’s not a big leap for that much time and added features. (it has nothing to do with your misunderstanding of the cable business).
How many small businesses and jobs were lost because of Amazon? 500K? 800K? Loss to local economy? How many does Amazon Employ? Buy locally if you can.
Make sure you don’t rupture any hemorrhoids while you’re pulling those numbers out of your ass.
That explains their support of online taxes. This way they kill competitors who are not mainly using subscription systems from books to express delivery, AND earn more from sheeple locked into the Amazon ecosystem.
perhaps they should allow you to sign up without the crappy streaming services, at a lower price?
2nd this.
I have prime.. May not keep it.
I think I may have turned on the streaming stuff once. I don’t order much off amazon to benefit from prime anymore.
I have been a “Prime” subscriber for about 5 years now. Because Prime now includes movie downloads (free and reduced pricing) and I am not a big “movie” person, I will re-subscribe in my wife’s name. I can still get the shipping benefit and she will get the benefit of movies.
To better fund checks to U.S. DOJ honchos’ and their puppet judges’ favorite “charities.”