After nearly a decade of subscribing to Amazon Prime, starting with a measly student account way back when, I’ve recently decided to not renew my membership with the online shopping giant. Including taxes, the annual fee for the privilege of having items shipped to my doors for free in two days (among other perks, admittedly) have ballooned to $120, and in this year of all years (hello, coronavirus), I am not seeing the value in paying that.
Ever since the pandemic started, I’ve been super conscious about spending, so my Amazon account is sort of just languishing, with hardly any purchases made. Even at the times I did purchase something, I’ve selected the slow shipping method, out of some sense of moral obligation to not further overload the surely massively overloaded system. If I didn’t need something absolutely right away, then I can wait the few extra days. These warehouse workers and delivery persons have a tough enough job without me adding any additional unnecessary burden.
Hashtag virtual signal.
So with utilization having gone way down, and getting comfortable again with slow shipping, (I was never a big watcher of Prime video) the forces combined to allow me to stop subscribing to Amazon Prime. The clock has turned back to the early 2000s, and I have to accumulate over $25 dollars worth of product in order to get free standard shipping. No more impulse purchases or last minute buys like a box of paper clips shipped to me on the same day, which is quite okay and not really problem in the grand scheme. How’s this for a novel idea: if I need a particular item immediately, I can physically go to a store!
In the beguiling voice of Stefon: these days, Target has everything.
Cha no yu.