So, MajorBabs has been discussing Amazon Prime, and I am thinking about subscribing; I'm going to ask MajorBabs to move her post here.

I got my first Kindle for Christmas, and have a free month of Amazon Prime, which I have hardly touched. I have borrowed a book; you can borrow one a month. I have Netflix, and find that they have a better selection of movies/shows to stream than Amazon does. The 2 day shipping would be great, but I don't really need it. It would be a nice bonus. I haven't been very impressed by the borrow selection, but I haven't had a ton of time to explore the borrow options. I have noticed that the borrow selection is substantial, so perhaps I just need to get better at searching the borrow selection.

Prime members, what do you think?

Are Prime members finding enough high quality books to borrow to make an $80 yearly subscription worth it? Is there another perk with Prime that I am missing other than the streaming, 2 day shipping and book borrowing? I'm torn; in many ways Prime seems like a great deal. But I am interested in learning what Prime members think. If I don't need the streaming, is it just wiser to spend that $80 on books that are already on my reading list rather than searching the borrow section?

Thank you!!

I was looking into it a few weeks back. As I recall, you also qualify for free shipping with Amazon, so if you buy anything from them on a regular basis, there is a savings.

I can't remember why I didn't sign up. I think I was too busy watching something on Netflix.

Prime members get a lot of free stuff. As a prime member, I have been watching "Cheers" for free. Non-prime members pay $1.99 per episode. The free shipping really does add up to quite a bit of savings. It also includes all my family members.

It's what, $75 per year or something like that? Prime only offers free shipping on items shipped directly from Amazon. That is about half of my purchases. For what I buy every year from Amazon, it wouldn't be worth it for me. As for the other benefits, that depends on what you use.

Mrs. RC had Amazon Prime free for one month after she got the Kindle Fire. I think she only watched one movie with it. We get free shipping anyway on orders over $50 if everything is from Amazon. She decided not to renew.

Cheers (all seasons) is currently available for streaming on Netflix.

The free shipping savings may add up over a year, but doesn't Amazon still offer free shipping on orders over $25 to everyone?

I became a member of Amazon Prime about when it started. I do a great deal of shopping on Amazon -- Keurig coffee cups, computer stuff, clothes and shoes, linens, towels, cat stuff (not food or litter), gifts, small appliances, unusual spices and herbs, kitchen utensils, CD's and BluRay's, a watch, winter gear, and books. The prices at Amazon are generally better than I can get locally, particularly since I live 20 miles from the nearest real shopping mall. However, that price difference would be narrowed if I paid for shipping. I might still do much shopping at Amazon even if I paid for shipping, because it saves me a great deal of time and almost always offers me a broader selection than is available locally (if at all). Just a bit north of New York City, I live in the boonies.

When I do a search I select the box on the left to include only Prime products. Amazon sells for many retailers, some of which participate in Prime and some of which do not. It is often the case that whatever I want is available on the Prime plan. I believe that it saves me a couple of hundred dollars a year.

Then I shop in truly local stores for locally-produced things, such as organically-produced meats (including the world's best smoked bacon), vegetables, Hosmer Mountain soda, honey, maple syrup, pottery, flours, flowers, and most other food.

Several years ago there was an estimate that shopping over the Web had reduced America's greenhouse gas emissions by a noticeable percentage. It is far more efficient to have a UPS truck touring the neighborhood than to have all the cars in the neighborhood off at the shopping mall. Plus, my hybrid and my SmartCar each rack up a lot fewer miles. The hybrid, a 2006 model bought in April 2005, just crossed the 50,000 mile mark. One of the solutions to our environmental problems lies in rethinking the way we do production, distribution, storage, and delivery of goods of all kinds. Prime represents a "just-in-time" solution for consumers, bypassing the trucks that tear up our Interstate highways by hauling goods from manufacturers, to distribution warehouses, to chain warehouses, to stores, to consumers. Amazon warehouses are a single point of distribution and storage.

I know what this does to Mom and Pop stores. I shop in those stores when there are people there who actually know their products. There has not been such a bookstore around here since I arrived in 2000. I miss the Ann Arbor Borders store of the early 1990s before K-Mart ruined it.

We save a lot of money on shipping with amazon prime. I don't use the video stuff myself much (it's on the prime main accountholder's account and I don't feel like logging out and in to use it). But all three of us in this account use the free shipping a LOT. I haven't added it up, but I'm betting we save hundreds of dollars a year.

Since I find it hard to resist LM K, ( ) I'm pasting comments I made in the TV thread here.

Do I feel Amazon Prime is worth? For me, I say YES. But like most things in life, whether it is worth it or not is highly personal. Below are some of my feelings on Amazon Prime:

I check out Amazon's daily deals -- every day. Now that I have a kindle, I check out the kindle daily deals as well. Many of the deals I buy don't cost much -- many are less that the $25 minimum you need to buy to get free shipping -- partly because I only buy them if it's something I'm looking for or a great book of DVD and the price is really great. I usually make a number of these buys a month. I also buy a lot of my supplements and vitamins on line since I can get them cheaper, don't pay taxes and with the Prime, shipping is free. The savings in shipping add up quickly -- much quicker that I thought when I did the trial month.

I've "borrow" a number of kindle books as an Amazon Prime member and so far since December when I got my kindle, I've had free access to $40 or $50 dollars worth of books. And that doesn't count the Amazon Instant videos I've watched for free. I love old movies and TV shows and Amazon Instant has a surprisingly big selection. Big enough that I easily have 300 free movies and old-time TV shows on my waiting list. So for me, I'm making out on the deal. It doesn't hurt that I earn Amazon gift cards/points with my credit card purchases. Since I pay for almost everything by credit card which I pay off at the end of the month I earn lots of dollars to use at Amazon. I used some of them to buy my kindle and my Tivo -- which I got for almost 80% off because I bought it when it was a Gold Box deal item so it was 50% off and I got during a "lightning deal" when the price was dropped even lower but only for a very short time. Amazon's does this during the holiday season for a number of years and I have gotten some really great deals on electronic, DVD sets, jewelry. I never would have both the Tivo if the price hadn't been so incredibly cheap. I think it was around $60.

For me, Amazon Prime works because I buy a lot from Amazon, I watch the free videos (I don't have cable or Netflix so I really save a bundle) and read the free kindle books. If you don't buy a lot -- especially a lot of low cost items, have a kindle or have other ways to get your videos, then Prime isn't for you. For me, Amazon is a way to save money because if I go to the store to buy vitamins, I end up buying other things -- I'm like a dog that is easily distracted by a passing squirrel -- only with me it's magazines, food I shouldn't eat, etc.

I've had Prime since it first came out and it has been very much worth it even though I don't have a kindle.

In terms of Christmas, birthdays, Mother's Day etc and other gift giving times its probably saved me over a few thousand dollars in shipping costs as I live on the West Coast and have all my family east of the Mississippi. Plus as a procrastinator the 2 day free shipping is a godsend.

I also have Prime as a companion to Netflix via my blu ray player and though its library is not vast they have been expanding it in interest of grabbing market share from Netflix.

And finally we got my mother a kindle a couple of years ago and she was spending so much on books that she finally got prime and loves their borrow library.

So the short answer is $80 is completely worth it for shipping savings alone.

I forgot about that benefit because, like you, all my family lives 1000+ miles away -- and I am a procrastinator. . (We need a "hang head in shame" smiley.)

I, too, have been a Prime subscriber since it first came out. I shop quite a bit for friends/relatives in other states and figure, just this past holiday season alone, to have saved over $100 on shipping. We also have a Roku box and watch quite a few older TV programs and movies from the selections that they have (and have just increased).

Between Amazon Prime and Netflix I was able to drop my premium cable service to the tune of about $60/month. Between the Netflix and Amazon Prime it costs me $14.25 a month.

I guess it depends on how and when you use it...

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I signed up for Amazon Prime's 30-day trial a couple of years ago, and quickly realized that it was worth it for me, just for the free 2-day shipping (and $3.99 overnight).

I work from home, walk to the post office and neighborhood market, and often end up only getting into the car 3 or 4 times a month, when I do a Costco or major grocery run. (I last gassed-up my car's my 12-gallon tank in early November, and I've driven less than 200 miles since then.)

If I were driving to and from a job, I'd be in a position to stop by Target when I needed a new pot or knife or something. As it is, I just go on Amazon and it arrives 2 days later. It's not the big items that really make it pay for me -- it's the little things that might send me to the store.

In addition, you can share your Prime Membership (at least the free shipping part) with several family members, and they don't have to live in the same household. My mom recently asked me to get a book for her, shipped in with Prime, and she'd pay me back. No, better, I put her on my Prime membership and now she can order what she likes on her charge card, and get free shipping because I shared my Prime with her.

I do occasionally watch Amazon streaming video -- I have it on my main TV's TiVo and on my bedroom TV's Roku -- but I generally prefer Netflix' selection. And I have one book checked out on the Kindle lending, but haven't started reading it yet.

It's the shipping that's the reason it's valuable for me, and the KIndle lending and streaming video are just lagniappe.

You folks are making me rethink Amazon Prime. I didn't know you could add family members.

It does sound like a multiple-shared account can more quickly add up to being a savings.

I found this comment. Take it as one persons opinion:



http://consumerist.com/2009/12/an-argum ... prime.html

YMMV. "Invariably" (actually not, but sometimes) there are vendors offering lower prices, but with the extra shipping & handling not reflected in the advertised price. And sometimes, that extra shipping and handling may be as much or more as the price itself, making the out of pocket double the price, or more.

Some of that, to me, is closer to a scam by the vendor, not by Amazon, so that if someone sorts by price, theirs will show up as the best. A lot of this is done by scammy vendors outside of Amazon, so that they'll be high in the Google Product Search rankings. I just did a Google search on a Logitech Revue (Google TV) because I am familiar with it. It came back as being $71 online for a new one. But when I looked, I found that new ones ranged around $130 - $150 including shipping and taxes (if applicable), and then one unrated vendor offering for $71.99 plus $40.00 shipping.

My recommendation is look up the stuff you are interested in and check its pricing. Shipping and handling is part of the price, and for a lot of vendors, part of the profit. I buy a lot of used books on Amazon, often for as little as $.01 plus $3.99 shipping and handling (standard for the used books). That' a $4.00 book, and that's what I used to judge whether or not it's worth it.

I am suspicious of this post. It is at complete variance with my own experience. Sometimes the Prime price is lower than the price offered by the vendor who wants you to pay shipping and handling charges as well. I have had only one instance where ordering from another retailer and paying shipping and handling was cheaper. This post may be by someone whose business is being hurt by Amazon. There is an alternative solution for such vendors: adapt.

I agree with Tolland.

I agree wholeheartedly. I can easily prove the guy wrong. There have been more than a few times I gone to Amazon and have not been logged in. I'll see something that I want to buy and have to log in before I check out. I am a big bargain hunter and am good of keeping track of prices in my mind so I know I would have noticed an increase in price after I logged in as an Amazon Prime member.

As to reviews, I'm like you in that I am skeptical about overly glowing reviews -- especially when it comes to books by authors I'm not familar with I look to the negative views first. If the comments mention something along the lines that the assembly was difficult, I cross that item off my list. The three worst words in the English language, as far as I am concerned are "some assembly required." That ranks up there with the doctor saying "this will hurt a bit." I'm bad about not writing reviews -- especially when a product or service is really good. Some day I might actually write a review (besides giving feedback on shipping) at Amazon.

As to Miki's book, I suspect they were written by her supporters in defense of of the mean old Obots who are attacking Miki -- by telling the truth. Being birthers, they don't know how to write a review that doesn't sound like it was written by the author trying to sell some books. They are incapable, it seems at subtleties or cutting and pasting comments from other birthers. Say me mean, but I find it karmic justice that someone so hateful has problems selling enough books to pay back the $10,000 she spent going through a vanity press.

I am boycotting Netflix.

Family members are a major reason we have it. Over the whole family, we are ordering a ton of stuff. Plus, it's all two-day and often we get things overnight because they are being drop-shipped from warehouses nearby anyway. Amazon has started doing used books and CD's too so about half the time I will find a used book is available with "fulfillment by Amazon" with the free two-day into the bargin.

We get something from Amazon everyday. Our mailman thinks we are the only reason Amazon is still in business.