I think that’s a big part of it. I noticed a huge deterioration in reliability as soon as Amazon switched from using UPS or FedEx to their own Amazon Prime delivery trucks.
I used to do precisely that, but I haven’t been able to find that option on their site for two or three months. I figured they probably removed it to prevent people from not seeing what they wanted to sell. I’ll need to look harder for that option if it’s still there. My membership doesn’t run out until July.
My metro area has about 2.6 million people. Amazon has two large regional fulfillment warehouses within 20 miles of where I live. In the rural part of the state, Amazon still relies on UPS and FedEx, and their service seems to be better, according to my friends and family who live there. Again, that seems to point to the underpaid and inexperienced drivers they hire for their own delivery trucks.
Odd, I mean yes our metro area is bigger (close to 7.5 million), but 2.6 million is plenty larger enough to have good distribution. Our delivery people are in Amazon branded trucks, perhaps we are just lucky and have a more efficiently managed distribution center/delivery workers.
And the “free to me” is near the top, at least on their website. I’m not sure how it looks if accessing Prime Video through a FireTV, Roku, AppleTV, etc. This is how it looks on my browser:
No disagreement here, but they aren’t just underpaid and inexperienced; they are also under duress. Mind you, it’s all just stuff I’ve “heard,” but the source is very reliable. The Amazon-owned vans are closely monitored via GPS, which these days isn’t all that unusual, but it is known to the driver that at any given time, they may be, and often are, subject to real-time surveillance, with management watching the efficiency with which they execute their route. That includes the movements of the vehicle as well as its stop time between movements. In the likely case a driver becomes disoriented or misdirected, be it driving or on foot, the “negative” time spent driving or walking in redundance or confusion is logged as such in the driver’s performance record. It is known that this elevated pressure has resulted in all kinds of mis-deliveries, careless handling of packages (e.g., hurried tossing over porch railings and up stairways), drivers running across oncoming traffic, and even drivers being relieved of their duties mid-route, with a replacement driver showing up otherwise unannounced at a delivery stop and demand for surrender of the high-visibility vest coming in an ensuing cell call. The turnover that results is largely to blame for the typified “inexperience,” which takes its place in the vicious circle and produces poor service. In the course of building and staffing its own delivery fleets, Amazon has transformed itself from wealthy and productive citizen providing quality service to overgrown and odious predator, running its empire on the backs of slaves.
I usually access Prime Video on a tablet. I can no longer find the “free to me” link on the Android tablet app interface. It used to be at the top right, but it’s no longer there. I just checked their website on my Mac, and the link is in the same place as the image you posted. Thanks.
I’ll almost certainly let my membership lapse it l when it runs out in July. I’m no longer seeing any value in the yearly fee, nor do I want to do business with such an aggravating company that has devolved into a greedy giant that treats its employees and customers with such little regard.
Odd, at the very top of the home page of my Amazon Prime Video app on my phone there is a toggle switch that says “free to me”. Not trying to beat a dead horse, but it sounds like they aren’t doing a very good job of having a fairly consistent UX/UI experience across devices.
My sister has Prime. If I want something Amazon, I just pay her to order it. But I usually look elsewhere first as many bad experiences with quality from many of their small vendors. If it doesn’t come from ‘Amazon’ I won’t buy it.
She calls it ‘drone delivery’ because they seem to deliver at all hours and even on Sunday. Only a few things were lost and they came from California. She wishes there was a checkbox to not deliver on Sunday. No need for that. I get irked at people around Christmas time complaining they didn’t get stuff in time when they ordered it on the 23rd and expected someone else to work on Christmas day cuz they couldn’t be bothered to order earlier. Rude!
With scenes like this in LA last year (and I don’t think it’s any better now) it’s no wonder people on west coast don’t get their stuff;
^^^ This. If it’s 3rd party … no way. I’ve had a few really bad experiences. Luckily Amazon made them right. I no longer buy anything that is not listed as PRIME.
You have to look everywhere for the best price these days. And third party sellers will charge you quadruple at times … or have a price so low it seems odd … but then want to tack on a 50 dollar shipping fee. You really have to wade through and beware of the scummy sellers.
i will admit, the third party sellers on Amazon are sketchy at times, and as RKK said they tend to mark things up quite a bit and sometimes you don’t “notice” because you just want the convenience of buying things in your pajamas. If it says sold by Amazon and ships by Amazon you usually are pretty safe.
I try to avoid using Amazon. Criminals “porch poaching” is a regular occurrence now, so I’d rather NOT give criminals incentive to come up to my door. And Amazon once relied on the Post Office to deliver packages, and now they have rando “gig” workers who drive their own cars and wear regular street clothes delivering packages.
I feel a lot better supporting local businesses and buying my items from physical stores. Back to buying physical books too. No more kindle.
