Apple Music for us, pay for the Family Plan annually for $99....so $8.25 per month for anything I want to listen to (and in whatever order) from a bigger digital library than that available from Spotify. Went with Apple over Spotify after being a Spotify person for several years. That said, not a thing wrong with the Spotify either. For us, it was easier as we're already heavily invested in the Apple universe with phones, watches, macs, etc. The Music integrates better for us.

This is ridiculous. I can't listen to music tracks in order, or skip more than a few tracks without them asking for money. On an album that I already own. THAT I BOUGHT FROM AMAZON.

The Amazon app on windows is now fucking with the memory on my PC, it's locking up and I can't open new windows.

Done with it

Now I'm pretty sure that amazon just fucked prime members.

Proof that MBAs can ruin any functional product, concept, or idea. Their powers are limitless.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
https://www.inc.com/jason-aten...-everyone-angry.html

That article actually does a good job of breaking down the reason for the change (the music companies make it expensive to have a contract allowing on-demand song streaming), and comparing Prime Music to the other music streaming services (TL;DR version: the free versions all do the same shuffle-only thing, and Amazon's paid version is slightly cheaper).

I can understand being upset with the change because that's not how Prime Music was before.

I can't understand the sentiment of "Screw Amazon, I'm not paying extra, I'm going to Spotify/Apple/Pandora instead!" Because Spotify/Apple/Pandora/etc. all work the same way on their free tiers, with users being unable to select a specific song, only shuffle. Prime Music was the last holdout allowing specific song/album selection at no additional cost, but they finally had to cave too.

And at the paid tier level, where you're able to select specific songs/albums, Prime Music Unlimited is still a dollar cheaper on a monthly subscription than the other streaming music providers' paid tiers ($9 vs. $10), and $10 cheaper on an annual subscription ($89 vs. $99).

So Prime Music still works out to be the best deal for a music streaming service, even with having to pay for Amazon Prime and pay a bit more for Prime Music Unlimited, unless you only have Amazon Prime for the music and simply never use any of the other Amazon Prime perks like free expedited shipping, product price breaks, photo storage, free ebooks, free games, Try Before You Buy, Prime Video, etc.

Reasonable point. I generally don't use perks outside of expedited shipping and videos. Perhaps I should.

But a couple of counterpoints:
1. Prime has about doubled in annual cost over the years without an appreciable benefit in member services / quality, at least from my perspective.
2. I increasingly have to shop more for what I want. Unless I want a specific make/model of something and am just checking for availability / price, I need to wade through endless lists of made in prc shit to find something made in an acceptable country. And then I need to probably wade through a list of fly by night sellers, none of whom I trust with my PI/Financials or the product - I buy from amazon as the seller or some known name brand only. It's increasingly difficult to buy something by searching while avoiding shit made in prc / sold by a fly by night. So, I'm paying double the membership fee for less quality experience.

Before you state the obvious, I've already started to buy things direct or other alternatives to Prime. I'm close to dropping Prime.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
I need to wade through endless lists of made in prc shit to find something made in an acceptable country.

Definitely true, especially on small electronics.

I recently tried to buy a couple surge protectors on Amazon, and it took significantly longer than usual to wade through all the cheap no-brand Chinese stuff that'd likely burn my house down.

People keep saying prime music is free. It is not. I pay for prime and prime music is/was one of the things included in that that helps me justify renewing it at its ever increasing prices.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Definitely true, especially on small electronics.

I recently tried to buy a couple surge protectors on Amazon, and it took significantly longer than usual to wade through all the cheap no-brand Chinese stuff that'd likely burn my house down.

Likewise. I wanted to buy a good, decent, safe extension cable. To be in the 21st century and have to worry about who makes an extension cable and whether or not it will be safe to use is fucking ridiculous. I wouldn't have worried about buying an extension cable 30 years ago like I do today.