About a week ago, my partner received an email from Amazon saying that effective February 2023, when our current subscription is set to renew, they would be raising the price of Prime from $79.99 CAD to $99.99 CAD.

This got me thinking - is Prime really worth the cost?

Previously, my partner and I both had individual student accounts while we were studying, and at $39.99 CAD/year, it was certainly a great deal, especially considering we weren’t living together at the time. Since moving in together a year ago, I decided I could safely get rid of my account and we could just use hers for the two of us. 

When I got rid of my account, I found that my inclination to use Prime significantly decreased. I think that’s because for me, Amazon has quickly lost the lustre it once had, and has lost much of the value it once held for me for a few different reasons. 

First, free one, two, or even same day shipping isn’t really a novelty anymore, as plenty of retailers have caught up in this regard. Plus, not everything that you want to need is necessarily sold and shipped directly by Amazon, so those items may not be a) eligible for Prime shipping, meaning they will take longer to arrive and b) may not be covered by Amazon’s return policies. Aside from that, the environmental impact that free one or two day shipping has is astronomical, so unless it’s something you urgently need, you can likely wait a few extra days for it to arrive. 

Second, Amazon has begun to feel more and more like wish.com. Sure, you can find some decently reputably retailers on the platform, but it’s incredibly time-consuming and tedious to sort through the junk and fake reviews to find something that’s actually worthwhile. This is true of many retailers that offer “marketplaces” for third party vendors, but the ubiquity of Amazon makes this a much more prevalent problem. This article on trying to find an SD card just goes to show how Amazon has quickly turned into a scammer’s paradise. Even Prime Day has begun to feel more like a garage sale than anything else, where all the cruft that didn’t sell well is now on full display. 

Third, Amazon routinely touts the many benefits of having a Prime membership, but aside from shipping and video, I’ve completely forgotten that Amazon even offers photo and music storage as other service offerings. Aside from a literal handful of pretty decent original series (Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Boys, Fleabag, Upload) Prime Video often feels more like Sony’s Crackle streaming service than it does Netflix or Disney+, meaning, not great at all.

Lastly, Prime shipping is so ultra convenient that I’ve found it’s made me a lazy shopper. For a long time, I operated under the assumption that by having a Prime membership, I was getting the best price, but that’s not always the case. In fact, over the last 6 months, I’ve been doing more comparison shopping and found that more often than not, I can get better deals outside Amazon than within. What this means is that my Prime membership is working against me, not for me. And yes, I had to wait a few days extra for my items to arrive, but my wallet has been thanking me for that. 

Beyond those practical reasons, there are some moral reasons for me to quit Amazon entirely. Amazon has routinely been under fire for horrendous worker conditions in their warehouses, pushing their employees to the brink to ensure swift delivery times. And with the recent historic success of Amazon’s first labour union, Amazon has ramped up their anti-union rhetoric globally, trying to squash any further attempts to organize while also trying to overturn the first ALU entirely. 

The anti-worker sentiment also goes as far as Amazon not keeping pay in line with inflation and the cost of living. Here in Canada, they recently increased their minimum wage rates from $16/hour to anywhere from $17-$21.65/hour. However, if you look at the average cost of living in Canada, that’s $23/hour, meaning Amazon’s rates still fall shy of where workers need it to be. Yes, this is a larger problem within Canada, where provinces need to increase minimum wage across the board, but for a company that rakes in billions upon billions in pure profits each year, paying below the cost of living is yet another slap in the face to their workforce that they already treat with disdain. 

Amazon has done untold damage to established industries, from chain bookstores to actively going after smaller companies with their Amazon Basics line of products. So if you want to get rid of your Amazon subscription, my recommendation would be to try and shop local as much as possible. Yes, you may need to pay slightly more and wait a little longer, but you can rest easy knowing that your hard earned dollars are being spent in the right areas.