Amazon Prime on Pace to Become More Popular Than Cable TV

Megalith

Megalith

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Recent estimates of Amazon’s popular shipping and entertainment service suggest that more US households will be subscribers of Amazon Prime than cable or satellite TV in the near future. Nearly 79 million US households now have a Prime membership, up from around 66 million at the end of last year. That compares to a projected 90 million US households that will pay for cable or satellite TV this year.

...more US households may have an Amazon Prime subscription than a pay TV subscription as soon as next year. The implication here is not that Amazon’s Prime Video service is more popular than TV; the main reason most people subscribe to Amazon Prime is still the fast delivery of products. But it is an indication that Prime is moving toward becoming a “no-brainer” for more than just wealthy Americans. To that end, Amazon has been courting lower-income American households with discounts for those on government assistance, as well as a monthly payment option for those who don’t want to cough up $99 for an annual subscription.
 
Amazon has certainly made it enticing to join the party. Prime shipping, Prime video, Prime Music, good prices - I think the cost more than pays for itself. I found a box of older receipts - lots of stuff from NewEgg and a few things from Ebay. I gotta say, I rarely even think of either of them anymore. Amazon has the same prices (+/- of course), but the Prime shipping is the deal winner for me. I've had problems with NewEgg in the past - might not be all their fault, but I don't has many issues with Amazon deliveries. Ebay can have really slow shipping (realize it is the sellers, but it's still an issue).
I have Echo's all over my house. The recent "intercom" feature is awesome. I can now have an Echo drop in instead of my family yelling all the time (time for bed! Brush your teeth!).
 
I have Prime for the shipping and Kindle stuff. The shipping stuff is sucking pretty hard lately. USPS for everything. USPS doesn't deliver to my door much. If I have to drive to the mailbox or the post office, why not drive to the store? Of course you can't specify UPS or FexEx.

Amazon Prime video has very little video that I want to watch. I like The Grand Tour, but I can't imagine it lasting more than a few years. Every once in a while they'll get a movie that isn't on Netflix, but that's about it.

Netflix is doing a great job keeping me away from the Kindle lately, so that might be the end of Prime for me. Probably won't renew Prime next time.
 
Poseur said:
I have Prime for the shipping and Kindle stuff. The shipping stuff is sucking pretty hard lately. USPS for everything. USPS doesn't deliver to my door much. If I have to drive to the mailbox or the post office, why not drive to the store? Of course you can't specify UPS or FexEx.

Amazon Prime video has very little video that I want to watch. I like The Grand Tour, but I can't imagine it lasting more than a few years. Every once in a while they'll get a movie that isn't on Netflix, but that's about it.

Netflix is doing a great job keeping me away from the Kindle lately, so that might be the end of Prime for me. Probably won't renew Prime next time.
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Prime has some decent exclusive shows. Goliath, Betas, Man in the High Castle, and Sneaky Pete are all well made.
 
Same day shipping, prime video and the fact that I'm a student subscription mean it's great value for me. Prime Video also has Korean subs for most movies so my wife prefers it to Netflix (which we also have).
 
It's become a decent value if you watch enough video or if you buy a boatload of amazon stuff that you need in 2 days. I assume that the fee+whatever sales they make because you have prime subsidizes the video and audio content. It's definitely nice to get stuff in 2 days, but 99% of the time, I could wait...of course at least half the time if I had to wait on Amazon to ship it (the if you don't have prime we sit on your order penalty), I'd look at other places. For example, I'd look at places like B&H, which actually ship the same day if you order early enough (something amazon did 5 years ago).
 
Poseur said:
I have Prime for the shipping and Kindle stuff. The shipping stuff is sucking pretty hard lately. USPS for everything. USPS doesn't deliver to my door much. If I have to drive to the mailbox or the post office, why not drive to the store? Of course you can't specify UPS or FexEx.

Amazon Prime video has very little video that I want to watch. I like The Grand Tour, but I can't imagine it lasting more than a few years. Every once in a while they'll get a movie that isn't on Netflix, but that's about it.

Netflix is doing a great job keeping me away from the Kindle lately, so that might be the end of Prime for me. Probably won't renew Prime next time.
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i have both prime and netflix. i use netflix wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more than prime video, but i dont keep prime for the video in the first place. its an added incentive that keeps me happy with the amount i DO spend on prime.
although, i would be much happier if prime could pick up some of the shows i like that the networks decided not to renew with netflix.
 
Poseur said:
I have Prime for the shipping and Kindle stuff. The shipping stuff is sucking pretty hard lately. USPS for everything. USPS doesn't deliver to my door much. If I have to drive to the mailbox or the post office, why not drive to the store? Of course you can't specify UPS or FexEx.
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I ordered a chair mat and that's coming UPS, but that's unusual these days. Almost everything I order is handled completely by Amazon's own shipping.
 
and in response to this cable tv providers who also offer internet service have implemented data usage caps. Gotta make that money back somehow!

My father works for a large cable tv company and he has told me on a different occasions how their tv subscribers are dropping like flies.
 
I have had Prime for years now. I'm rural, so free shipping is awesome out in the sticks.

I keep forgetting they have Video/Music. Every time I go look, I don't really see much that I care to watch.

Nice that it's there I suppose, if I ever do see something to do with it.
 
Brian_B said:
I have had Prime for years now. I'm rural, so free shipping is awesome out in the sticks.

I keep forgetting they have Video/Music. Every time I go look, I don't really see much that I care to watch.

Nice that it's there I suppose, if I ever do see something to do with it.
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Try living in Alaska. Until recently slow internet and low caps. I have been up here since 2000 and have always had data caps. Now we finally got pretty good service. Gigabyte service with 1 Tb a month but for $175 a month.
 
I love prime just for the fact when I need to order something I don't have to think about factoring in shipping cost. I order stuff when i want/need it and juts don't care. The fact that the grand tour is on amazon prime just sweetens the deal for me.
 
I looked up how many US households exist to try to better understand it. There are 125 million. Which to me is pretty amazing, even after all these years of the internet and various alternative services 72% of US households still pay every month for one of the 2 TV services. For comparison this article says 800k subscribers cut TV in 2016, that represents less than 1% of their subscriber base. That to me is a number much smaller than I would think it should be.
 
Glad people are catching up. I ditched cable TV 9 years ago. Commercials drove me insane. Not just the breaks every 15 minutes, but the constant fast talking, overzealous, volume peaked continuous nonsense.
 
Toepunch said:
Try living in Alaska. Until recently slow internet and low caps. I have been up here since 2000 and have always had data caps. Now we finally got pretty good service. Gigabyte service with 1 Tb a month but for $175 a month.
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Man I have Shentel and I have 50 down and 10 up, with a 750GB cap. It cost me after taxes and fees 162 a month. We went to all streaming. I save on cable bill but now my internet prices are out of control. If I go over its 10 bucks every 50 GB block.
 
not really shocking... amazon delivers things i want, cable TV ... not so much
 
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