Yesterday, I’ve cancelled the Amazon Prime subscription, and I feel really good about it (even though the subscription is really low in Poland, I just didn’t want to have it).
I’ve replaced it with few other things:
- allegro smart subscription (to save on deliveries from Polish local online marketplace allegro.pl)
- an occasional subscription just for one month when I want to watch some specific show (or even find and purchase DVDs for things I like to rewatch often)
- smaller online/offline relatil shops whenever applicable
For anything else I’ve never been using Amazon services, so it is kind of no-brainer for me ¯_(ツ)_/¯
The convenience is too much for me to give up. It was easy to just go buy pretty much anything within walking distance or a short subway ride when I lived in a European capital, but in the suburbs in the US it’s a hassle to get most things other than groceries.
Plus the 5% cash back on all Amazon and Whole Foods purchases (the two places that make up 90% of all we buy) adds up to a lot for us, many times more than what we pay on membership.
And even if I really was ready to give those things up out of principle, I’d never get my wife on board with it.
The US suburban setup is defintiely built for car dependency and big box stores, which makes Amazon way harder to quit than in most European cities with their walkable neighborhoods and local shops.