My very first purchase on Amazon took place on Friday, January 21, 2011, 14 years ago which I ordered a thumb drive and I believe it came in a reasonable amount of time considering at the time I did not have prime membership.
Over 14 years of being on Amazon, quite a bit of stuff has changed over the years, some of the changes are quite welcomed, and actually improves the quality of the whole entire shopping experience overall unfortunately some of the changes Amazon has decided to make is not welcomed in my opinion, does not improve the quality of the whole entire shopping experience. In fact, makes me question whether I want to continue to do business with Amazon or go to other retailers.
Well, I will not be covering every single thing that Amazon has changed whether it is for the good or for the bad I will only be covering the main items that I think affect the majority of the people and that has affected me.
Amazon gift cards no longer expire:
19 years ago specifically on Saturday, October 1, 2005 Amazon had announced that any gift cards issued on or after October 1 do not expire. In 2005 I had not used Amazon at least I can’t find any record that I did, so six years later in 2011 on Friday, January 21, 2011 this was fantastic.
The same year Amazon had announced that any gift cards issued on October 1 would not expire they also welcomed a new change by launching Amazon Prime that would allow customers to enhance the shopping experience by being able to receive free shipping on most items.
Prime video or Amazon Prime Video a little history:
One year later after Amazon made a change to the gift card, launched Amazon Prime, they launched a video streaming service called Amazon Unboxed, of course of 19 years the name obviously changed to what we know the streaming service today but if we go back in time, here are the various names that Amazon called the streaming service.
2006: Amazon Unboxed launched on September 7
2011: Amazon Insta Video
2015: Amazon video
2018: Prime video or Amazon Prime Video. (According to Amazon’s assistant Alexa, the assistant says the name is Prime Video, but if you ask the assistant, what is prime video she refers to prime video either “prime video“ or “Amazon Prime Video”.)
However, you wish to refer to streaming service Prime video or Amazon Prime Video it had its ups and downs, some people are very happy with what is available while other people are quite disappointed.
According to Amazon assistant, she said that Prime video or Amazon Prime Video has always been included with prime membership, if you don’t wish to subscribe to Amazon prime you could always subscribe just to Prime video or Amazon Prime Video as a subscription at $8.99 per month with a one month trial for eligible customers.
In 2024 Amazon decided to make a slight change to Prime video or Amazon Prime Video depending on how you wish to call the streaming service, besides for accounting inflation by increasing the price, Amazon decided to follow suit with the other streaming platforms to include advertisements before a TV show or movie would play and also have advertisements throughout the program.
Any TV shows, movies that you rent or purchase would be excluded from this.
If you wish to subscribe to Amazon streaming service with advertisements, it will cost you $8.99 per month w/ ads, for Amazon prime members this is included with your membership so free. For Amazon streaming service with no ads if you are an Amazon prime member it will cost you $2.99 and four non-prime members 3.99 per month.
A little history of Amazon music service:
In 2014 Amazon launched a service originally called Amazon MP3, then in May of 2023, they change the name from Amazon MP3 to Prime Music which is what it is called today.
Two years after Amazon launched Amazon MP3, in 2016 Amazon launched another streaming service called Amazon Music Unlimited, and it kept that name which is still used today.
While Prime Music and Amazon Music Unlimited is almost the same today are quite different especially today.
Prime Music is included with your Amazon prime membership at no additional cost, access to the music selection is quite extensive, according to the Amazon assistant over 2 million songs, podcasts completely ad-free***. While these features are not entirely completely gone from prime music, you do have limitations such as: limited to the number of skips per hour*, similar tracks are added to your playlist. If you request a specific playlist you created to be played, and your playlist is shuffled and no way to turn this off*.
Amazon Music Unlimited is not included with your Amazon prime membership, to get the features of Amazon Music Unlimited it will cost extra, you will have access to the complete** Amazon music library 2,000,000+ songs, does not appear that there is any limitation on the number of songs you can skip per hour, similar tracks is not added to your playlist, and if you request a specific playlist that you created to be played, your playlist is not shuffled unless you choose to turn this feature on. This is awesome ad free***.
** = some music may not be available due to licensing, geo restrictions, explicit filter turned on, not part of the Amazon music library.
*** = As to ad-free, some streams/channels/stations may have ads, this may not be controlled by Amazon, but controlled by the third-party such as the station who is made available on Amazon music unlimited.
Amazon Prime:
In 2005 for the United States Amazon introduced Amazon prime which enhanced the shopping experience by having expedited shipping not having to meet a threshold in order to receive free shipping for most eligible items and allowing free returns for eligible items as well as long as you’re within the timeframe to return the item.
Since Amazon prime launched back in 2005 in the United States, not much has changed as regards to the concept, but over the years they have expanded to include more stuff with the Amazon prime membership besides, just dealing with shipping, they have added access to a wide variety of different content on prime video, prime music, and a discount at Whole Foods Market on eligible items. Amazon purchased Whole Foods market on June 16, 2017.
Every now and then Amazon will have exclusive discounts and deals for prime members, especially around the holidays where you can snag up some great items and at a fraction of what they would normally cost.
MY OPINIONS:
While I do not think Amazon is a horrible company, I think over the years they have made some decisions that I don’t think is the best for its customers where they no longer guarantee two day free shipping for prime members, they now say we will ship within two days, but even then it seems that they are are doing way with that entirely. I wonder if took on more than what they could truly handle?
At least once or twice in the year, Amazon is in the news for allowing someone to sell counterfeit items and seems to only take action when they make the news for national headlines yet it doesn’t seem they have any type of quality control to ensure that what is being sold on Amazon is a genuine product and not a counterfeit.
I personally don’t like that. Amazon decided to change this for prime members or for those who pay $8.99 per month to now have ads, when has always been an ad free experience and then to charge an extra fee to have an ad free experience.
I don’t like that. They also decided to change Amazon music where I want. Certain features turned off I need to pay an additional subscription fee.