Note that all those nice features of Amazon Prime only apply to the U.S. version. The Canadian version is $79/year and only includes two-day shipping. I wouldn't be surprised if most other international versions of Prime are only shipping at present.
Interestingly, after having had Prime for a year and not having renewed it, I've noticed that Amazon.ca seems to have deliberately downgraded their free super-saver shipping. It used to be that if you ordered something early Monday you could receive it by Friday. Not every time, but most of the time. Now super-saver orders arrive the following week reliably. They also make "standard" non-free shipping the default selection where super-saver used to be default if your order was large enough to qualify. I'm not a huge fan of companies that make their premium offers more attractive by making the basic offerings worse, and then make the worst possible option default.
As for all-you-can-consume media... As a canuck I doubt this will ever come under one subscription within my lifetime. Media rights are a fustercluck up here. Even Canadian Netflix is a pale, pathetic shadow of U.S. Netflix.
As someone living in the US, I happen to have Amazon Prime + Netlix (disc + streaming) and Hulu Plus (keep meaning to cancel, but actually like some of the b-movies). None of the streaming services actually have decent content available on a regular basis. Want to see the original of Conan the Barbarian? It got replaced on Netflix by the crappy remake just after it's release.
All three are mostly useful for assorted TV series viewing. Little, of interest, movie-wise is available on them on a regular basis.
I'm actually reevaluating the whole Netflix/Hulu subscription thing.
It's 50€/year in Germany with 2-day shipping and a mediocre quality, dubbed movie selection.
Not being able to access the same content from anywhere in the world was supposed to be the problem that the Internet was going to fix, right? (Region restrictions are getting me depressed)
I think that would be the majority actually, the list may be a lot longer but the only ones I've been able to confirm are USA, UK, and Canada (perhaps someone could fill me in).
UK, we get the movies and shows. I don't think the selection's as good as the US.
I also get free books, but the few times I've looked it seemed a pretty poor selection of crap. Certainly nothing that I've purposefully gone to get has been free.
Comments
Note that all those nice features of Amazon Prime only apply to the U.S. version. The Canadian version is $79/year and only includes two-day shipping. I wouldn't be surprised if most other international versions of Prime are only shipping at present.
Interestingly, after having had Prime for a year and not having renewed it, I've noticed that Amazon.ca seems to have deliberately downgraded their free super-saver shipping. It used to be that if you ordered something early Monday you could receive it by Friday. Not every time, but most of the time. Now super-saver orders arrive the following week reliably. They also make "standard" non-free shipping the default selection where super-saver used to be default if your order was large enough to qualify. I'm not a huge fan of companies that make their premium offers more attractive by making the basic offerings worse, and then make the worst possible option default.
As for all-you-can-consume media... As a canuck I doubt this will ever come under one subscription within my lifetime. Media rights are a fustercluck up here. Even Canadian Netflix is a pale, pathetic shadow of U.S. Netflix.
As someone living in the US, I happen to have Amazon Prime + Netlix (disc + streaming) and Hulu Plus (keep meaning to cancel, but actually like some of the b-movies). None of the streaming services actually have decent content available on a regular basis. Want to see the original of Conan the Barbarian? It got replaced on Netflix by the crappy remake just after it's release.
All three are mostly useful for assorted TV series viewing. Little, of interest, movie-wise is available on them on a regular basis.
I'm actually reevaluating the whole Netflix/Hulu subscription thing.
It's 50€/year in Germany with 2-day shipping and a mediocre quality, dubbed movie selection.
Not being able to access the same content from anywhere in the world was supposed to be the problem that the Internet was going to fix, right? (Region restrictions are getting me depressed)
And there are countries for which there is no Prime at all.
I think that would be the majority actually, the list may be a lot longer but the only ones I've been able to confirm are USA, UK, and Canada (perhaps someone could fill me in).
UK, we get the movies and shows. I don't think the selection's as good as the US.
I also get free books, but the few times I've looked it seemed a pretty poor selection of crap. Certainly nothing that I've purposefully gone to get has been free.