It ain't just a river in South America

I’ve been putting together a playlist for my own enjoyment. It consists of favorites of mine that I know well, which is fortunate because Amazon Music Prime will not let me listen to most of them. I buy them, generally at $1.29 per song, and download them to my own device, and then I listen to them.

I started Prime membership many years ago. For $25 a year, I got free shipping on my orders and access to certain movies and music. Now, Prime costs $139 per year. I get that inflation is a scourge right now, but today’s price is five times greater than the original price and, from my perspective, I get less for more.

I think of a song I want, we’ll call it Song A. I search for it in Amazon’s digital music. I find Amazon's list of mp3s of that song. Sometimes my options are: 

Streaming (with a “Listen Now” button) OR $1.29 to buy MP3

If I click “Listen Now,” the chances are 50/50—or sometimes it seems like one in three—that instead of Song A, Amazon will “shuffle” and I’ll hear Song G or Song P. No matter how much I click on Song A, it won’t play.

But I can buy it for $1.29.

Other times, my choices are:

Listen with Music Unlimited OR $1.29 to buy MP3

Music Unlimited is a subscription service, costing $9.99 a month. So for an extra $119.88 a year, on top of the $139 a year I pay for Amazon Prime, I might be able to hear the song that I choose. I wouldn’t know for sure because I am not going to subscribe.

What good is my $139 Prime subscription if I have to pay another $120 to listen to the Amazon Music selection online? If I want to hear the song before I decide whether I want to buy it as an mp3, I go find it for free somewhere else on the web, usually on YouTube. 

Here’s something interesting. I started to write this post a couple days ago, doing a first draft in Word. I got tired partway through, so I saved the Word document in my OneDrive account in the cloud under the working title Amazon Music Sucks. Today I got an email from Amazon Prime (no-reply@amazon.com). Subject line: Updates to Amazon Music for Prime members. Content:

Hi Janette Kok,

We have added new on-demand features to give you more control over your listening experience. This is an addition to 100 million songs ad-free in shuffle mode.

• You can create your own playlist with your favorite songs and listen with unlimited skips and offline.
• We’ve improved your selection of All-Access Playlists. These are playlists personalized for you and always available to listen on demand and offline.
• We’ve created a new playlist just for you called ‘My Mix’. It refreshes daily based on your music tastes and listening history.
• Each week, we make select new release albums from top artists available on-demand for a limited time.

Learn how to manage your listening experience on the Amazon Music mobile app or web here.

Learn more (button)

In addition to music and podcasts, Prime members also enjoy fast, free delivery, movies, books, games, prescription savings, grocery delivery and in-store savings, photo storage, exclusive deals and shopping events, and a free one-year Grubhub+ membership. For a complete list of benefits, click here.

It’s almost like some spybot read the Word document draft stored in my OneDrive account. Talk about killing me softly with your song.

My two favorite phrases in this email are "100 million songs ad-free in shuffle mode" [read: "not actually the songs you'd choose to hear"] and "on-demand for a limited time" [read: "Good luck finding what you want; give us $120 and we'll think about it"]. I guess Jeff Bezos went to the P.T. Barnum School of Business. 

Well, Amazon and your minions, here are some of my thoughts. I’m going to retire within the next year. (Go read my emails to my family to find out when, you intrusive creeps.) After that, I’m going either to cancel my Prime membership or let it lapse—whichever is more personally advantageous to me. When I’m retired, I won’t need free delivery as much because I’ll have the time to drive around in the real world to buy what I want in person. So I’ll be shopping on Amazon much less. Much less. You were convenient when I was busy and during the pandemic, but now…well, let me go find that song that goes, Na, na, na, na. Na, na, na, na. Hey, hey, hey, good-bye. Will you let me play it online, or will I have to purchase it?

There. Fixed your graphic for you.

See the Egress, Bezos.