Amazon knows why you’re coming to their site, and it’s certainly not because they’re the world’s largest online retailer and you can order basically any product from them—you just want your Transparent and your Mozart in the Jungle and your Man in the High Castle. So they’re now offering a stand-alone video subscription for $8.99/month to get you your fix without all the distractions normally offered by the site’s Prime service. That’s one dollar less than Netflix’s new rate, which begins next month for existing subscribers. Shots fired.
Amazon is also introducing a new $10.99/month option for general Prime memberships, which includes all the other goodies that Prime currently comprises, in addition to the video component. Here’s the catch, though: both the monthly Amazon Video and Amazon Prime plans come out to more annually than the current $99/year cost of a Prime membership.
According to Variety, Amazon says its customers have been asking for more month-to-month flexibility. But we counter with the following: haven’t we all already become reliant on Amazon? Is anyone really going to remember to turn their Prime membership on and off by month, or even find themselves going a month without a need for any of the e-retailer’s services? We doubt it. Amazon is wonderfully convenient, but it’s insidious, and it’s basically a fixture in the average American life at this point.
Moral of the story: if you want Amazon Video, stick with the annual plan and save yourself some money.