Octopus Overlords

If they wanted to give it for free, they could just get rid of it. They would just give everyone free 2-day shipping on eligible items and offer free streaming on their current prime library. I have no way of running the numbers, but if Amazon offered free 2-day shipping for everyone they'd probably do amazing business. They might also turn the shipping companies into chaos. Lasership has enough problems as it is.

Anyone else noticed the new "add-on items" thing? I only remember seeing it as of this past week, and it's pretty annoying. It seems to apply to items under $20, and it's basically "this item can only be bought when the order total is $25 or more". It could be an option they're offering for other sellers using Amazon fulfillment, but it's kind of frustrating when a search pulls up a bunch of results, most of which are add-on shipping, especially since the "prime eligible" filter seems like it leaves them in.

Chaz wrote:Anyone else noticed the new "add-on items" thing? I only remember seeing it as of this past week, and it's pretty annoying. It seems to apply to items under $20, and it's basically "this item can only be bought when the order total is $25 or more". It could be an option they're offering for other sellers using Amazon fulfillment, but it's kind of frustrating when a search pulls up a bunch of results, most of which are add-on shipping, especially since the "prime eligible" filter seems like it leaves them in.

I've noticed it. It's not all items under $20, probably just those that don't make sense for Amazon to ship alone. Hasn't been a big problem for me, I just save the add-on until I have a qualifying order or find an alternative that has regular Prime shipping.

You can buy it alone, it's just not free shipping unless it's with a >$25 order. Pretty sure that's what you meant, just wanted to clarify.

They've been doing that for a few months, and it has caused me problems a few times. If you read Amazon's official statements on it, they're doing it to increase the number of things they can offer their customers free shipping on.

Which would be great, if they hadn't move a whole crap-ton of items that were previously free over to it.

Also if they weren't still charging me the same price for Prime as before while reducing the number of items I can get shipped free. Part of the appeal of going Prime was that I could increase the number of small items I'd order from Amazon without having to worry about order minimum. Now I have to worry about order minimums again.

And can you order add-on items by themselves? When I put one in my card alone, it doesn't give me the checkout option at all.

Chaz wrote: And can you order add-on items by themselves? When I put one in my card alone, it doesn't give me the checkout option at all.

Every add-on I've come across has an option for another seller. Some of them are even lower priced with free shipping, which is weird.

Here's an example:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/ ... dition=new" target="_blank

And another one:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/ ... dition=new" target="_blank

Yeah I just noticed the add-on thing. I feel like they moved a bunch of stuff off of normal prime to add-ons. I used to never see them now every little thing I want to buy has them. They keep this up and I will revert to super saver instead. If I am already worried about a minimum I can wait a couple of extra days for my items and not pay the yearly fee. Their streaming isn't hat good, especially since I already pay for Hulu.

I was under the impression that these were the small items that wouldn't have qualified for Prime before, but now they'll let them be on Prime if you meet the minimum spend. I didn't look at it too closely, though, and if they're just changing the way this works and removing items out of no-strings-attached Prime, it really sucks.

What prompted me to post this was that I was looking for a new blender bottle. I found this one, which is an add-on item. Just about a year ago, I ordered this exact same item with free Prime shipping. Now I can't do that.

What's weird is that other colors are available with free Prime shipping, but the add-on item is the one that turns up in the search.

I don't know why that is, or why search results are turning up add-on items first when regular free shipping ones are available, but it's making the site less convenient to use. Being convenient is one of the major things Amazon Prime has going for it, and they're starting to lose that.

Yeah, I went back through my order history when they made the switch and found several items that I'd gotten with regular Prime that had become add-on only. I'm sure they did add new items that weren't Prime at all before, but a lot of Prime items got downgraded, too.

Part of the appeal of Prime is that, living out in the boonies, buying items not available at the tiny local places means an hour in the car and $10 worth of gas. Prime gave me an option if I wasn't up for a road trip when I ran out of something. The add-on program has impacted that value.

Though I've not yet had any big problems with it, I'm not a big fan of the Add-on item program, I'm hoping it goes away. In the meantime, I'd recommend ordering from third party sellers if it makes more sense to.

As far as streaming goes, I think it's been getting better. I'm especially excited about the original content that Amazon Studios is working on, and I know some shows like Downton Abbey and Justified are Amazon-exclusive.

I don't tend to buy small items but went back and none of my small items are add-ons now fwiw. Unless a whole lot of items fell out of Prime I don't think I'd even consider losing it.

Hasn't affected me at all, but if you think about their model, and their relatively recent addition of things like food/staple items that seem to be picking up in popularity, how can they justify a situation where a customer buys a tube of toothpaste for $2.29, and they ship it out by itself via 2 day Fedex? Even with subscribed Prime customers, I doubt that is sustainable.

Oh, I won't be giving it up. I'm still way too far from any specialty shops. It only takes a half a dozen items a year for Prime to pay for itself.

so I turned off netflix because I have prime. (the savings on shipping pays for itself every year)
now I am trying the streaming, and its a huge pain to figure out what i can or an;t watch. Is there a way to only get back search results for stuff that I can stream for free? I am tired of clicking things, and then being unsure if I am about to get charged 2 bucks or not.

Jaymon wrote:so I turned off netflix because I have prime. (the savings on shipping pays for itself every year)
now I am trying the streaming, and its a huge pain to figure out what i can or an;t watch. Is there a way to only get back search results for stuff that I can stream for free? I am tired of clicking things, and then being unsure if I am about to get charged 2 bucks or not.

On Amazon.com there's a "Prime instant video" section with only Prime eligible video. On the PS3 and 360 Amazon dashboard app I'm pretty sure there's a Prime section.

Also, if you search on Amazon for video, check the 'Prime only' button on the side, just as if you were searching for Prime only products.

LawBeefaroni wrote:

Jaymon wrote:so I turned off netflix because I have prime. (the savings on shipping pays for itself every year)
now I am trying the streaming, and its a huge pain to figure out what i can or an;t watch. Is there a way to only get back search results for stuff that I can stream for free? I am tired of clicking things, and then being unsure if I am about to get charged 2 bucks or not.

On Amazon.com there's a "Prime instant video" section with only Prime eligible video. On the PS3 and 360 Amazon dashboard app I'm pretty sure there's a Prime section.

I haven't checked in a few weeks, but last I used it, the 360 Amazon app _only_ showed Prime movies. If you want to watch something that you need to rent, you have to order it on your PC, and then wait for it to show up in the library section of the 360 app.

Fretmute wrote:

LawBeefaroni wrote:

Jaymon wrote:so I turned off netflix because I have prime. (the savings on shipping pays for itself every year)
now I am trying the streaming, and its a huge pain to figure out what i can or an;t watch. Is there a way to only get back search results for stuff that I can stream for free? I am tired of clicking things, and then being unsure if I am about to get charged 2 bucks or not.

On Amazon.com there's a "Prime instant video" section with only Prime eligible video. On the PS3 and 360 Amazon dashboard app I'm pretty sure there's a Prime section.

I haven't checked in a few weeks, but last I used it, the 360 Amazon app _only_ showed Prime movies. If you want to watch something that you need to rent, you have to order it on your PC, and then wait for it to show up in the library section of the 360 app.

That could be it, I know I've watched on the 360 and had no problems finding Prime. Never bought on the 360.

You can buy/rent titles on the PS3.

I am not sure about those apps but I found using my PC to browse the Amazon Prime video section of Amazon and then designating things i was interested in to be in the Watchlist made it far easier for me once i went to my TV and bluray wifi player to watch.

As an example, I put The Shield season one in my watch list, from that i could easily get to other seasons with having to do a lot of hunt and pick with a remote

I really do wish they'd consolidate shows, though. I hate having an entry for each season.

They're still stuck in the DVD mindset. Hell, even the website of Netflix breaks pages across seasons because of the DVD tie-in. The streaming interfaces handle it a bit better.

Oh, I know why they do it. They use the same page listing for the season rental, the retail disks, and the free Prime version. I just wish they'd alter their client software to show multiple seasons together.

Yeah, that's the biggest knock on the Amazon Prime streaming. If they spend any amount of effort organizing it like Netflix? Goodnight moon. Or maybe they're just planning on buying Netflix outright.

Even Netflix sucks at organizing. How flipping hard is it to give some decent search options? Pulling all 1980's horror movies shouldn't be a snap. But alas it is not. The ONLY reason I can think that they don't do it is that they are worried about the overhead from the querying. I can't imagine it would be that hard to do.

Octavious wrote:How flipping hard is it to give some decent search options? Pulling all 1980's horror movies shouldn't be a snap. But alas it is not.

This logic seems almost LordMortisian in nature.

Octavious wrote:Even Netflix sucks at organizing. How flipping hard is it to give some decent search options? Pulling all 1980's horror movies shouldn't be a snap. But alas it is not. The ONLY reason I can think that they don't do it is that they are worried about the overhead from the querying. I can't imagine it would be that hard to do.

I use Instant Watcher for Netflix.

For example, 80's horror.

Octavious wrote:Even Netflix sucks at organizing. How flipping hard is it to give some decent search options? Pulling all 1980's horror movies shouldn't be a snap. But alas it is not.

Our Netflix account is now hosed thanks to the fact that our kids watch more shows on Netflix than we do. All of the suggestions Netflix provides based on your viewing habits? All kids' shows. When I bring up Netflix on the 360, it's pages and pages of cartoons and kids' sitcoms.

They have a "Netflix for Kids" that filters out all the adult programming. I would pay dozens of dollars for a "Netflix for Adults" that did the exact opposite.

What's that Netflix? You think I might enjoy "Power Rangers Samurai" or "Fanboy & ChumChum"? Well, I'm pretty sure you're dead wrong.

Netflix is testing some type of profile settings under an account that would allow you to do exactly what you're talking about - set up one for yourself, your wife, you kids, etc... so that recommendations don't get ridiculous. Not really sure why it took so long or what the holdup is.

Smoove_B wrote:Netflix is testing some type of profile settings under an account that would allow you to do exactly what you're talking about - set up one for yourself, your wife, you kids, etc... so that recommendations don't get ridiculous. Not really sure why it took so long or what the holdup is.

The craziest part is that they used to have this in the olden days and nuked it. And now it's taking eleventy aons to bring it back.

The problem was that you could never remove a profile. After I left town, I still had my ex's profile with her separate DVD queue lurking in the background of my account until they pulled the feature.

Boudreaux wrote:

Octavious wrote:Even Netflix sucks at organizing. How flipping hard is it to give some decent search options? Pulling all 1980's horror movies shouldn't be a snap. But alas it is not.

Our Netflix account is now hosed thanks to the fact that our kids watch more shows on Netflix than we do. All of the suggestions Netflix provides based on your viewing habits? All kids' shows. When I bring up Netflix on the 360, it's pages and pages of cartoons and kids' sitcoms.

They have a "Netflix for Kids" that filters out all the adult programming. I would pay dozens of dollars for a "Netflix for Adults" that did the exact opposite.

What's that Netflix? You think I might enjoy "Power Rangers Samurai" or "Fanboy & ChumChum"? Well, I'm pretty sure you're dead wrong.

YES!!!!

Boudreaux wrote:

Octavious wrote:Even Netflix sucks at organizing. How flipping hard is it to give some decent search options? Pulling all 1980's horror movies shouldn't be a snap. But alas it is not.

Our Netflix account is now hosed thanks to the fact that our kids watch more shows on Netflix than we do. All of the suggestions Netflix provides based on your viewing habits? All kids' shows. When I bring up Netflix on the 360, it's pages and pages of cartoons and kids' sitcoms.

They have a "Netflix for Kids" that filters out all the adult programming. I would pay dozens of dollars for a "Netflix for Adults" that did the exact opposite.

What's that Netflix? You think I might enjoy "Power Rangers Samurai" or "Fanboy & ChumChum"? Well, I'm pretty sure you're dead wrong.

YES!!!!

Although, I would never have seen the old IMAX "dueling jets" episode starring a young Michael Cera, had it not been for my kids taking over ye olde Netflix account. If you're a Michael Cera fan, it's amusing and ironic to see him as an actual boy, as opposed to the man-boy he is now.

Smoove_B wrote:Netflix is testing some type of profile settings under an account that would allow you to do exactly what you're talking about - set up one for yourself, your wife, you kids, etc... so that recommendations don't get ridiculous. Not really sure why it took so long or what the holdup is.

NOW NETFLIX, NOW!!

Zaxxon wrote:

Smoove_B wrote:Netflix is testing some type of profile settings under an account that would allow you to do exactly what you're talking about - set up one for yourself, your wife, you kids, etc... so that recommendations don't get ridiculous. Not really sure why it took so long or what the holdup is.

The craziest part is that they used to have this in the olden days and nuked it. And now it's taking eleventy aons to bring it back.

What?! They got rid of that feature? That was one of the best tools for managing things. I had my queue, the wife had hers, and we had one for tv series. By setting the tv series to have 1 at a time out, we always ensured we had the next disc and the series and only the next disc, with our other DVD slots being used for movies from the other queues.

My Netflix instant queue is about 300 items long. I'd dearly love to have sub-queues - one for TV shows, one for documentaries, one for movies, maybe even an 'actively watching' queue.

LawBeefaroni wrote:

Octavious wrote:I use Instant Watcher for Netflix.

THIS!

Anonymous Bosch wrote:

Octavious wrote:How flipping hard is it to give some decent search options? Pulling all 1980's horror movies shouldn't be a snap. But alas it is not.

This logic seems almost LordMortisian in nature.

LOL SHOULD be a snap. Sigh...

nasai wrote:

LawBeefaroni wrote:

Octavious wrote:I use Instant Watcher for Netflix.

THIS!

Doesn't help me on the PS3. Technically I could use playon, but I haven't used it in ages. Last time I was using it, it didn't support hi def or surround sound. It was f'n great at organizing stuff though.

Octavious wrote:

nasai wrote:

LawBeefaroni wrote:I use Instant Watcher for Netflix.

THIS!

Doesn't help me on the PS3. Technically I could use playon, but I haven't used it in ages. Last time I was using it, it didn't support hi def or surround sound. It was f'n great at organizing stuff though.

I just do my queue on the PC and then use that to pick out movies when I'm on the PS3 or 360. Heck, if I'm feeling lazy I just pull out my phone, search and add a movie via Instant watcher, and then pull it up on the queue on the PS3.