It’s happening: Amazon Video with commercial interruptions

@capguncowboy I already have difficulty justifying the cost of Prime. Adding commercials without rolling back the cost will be the end of my visit in the Amazonverse.

@ruouttaurmind I agree 100% – they raised the cost of Prime last year and not by a small amount. I have the shipping benefits (shared with my brother-in-law), but I don’t use their streaming service. So far, I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything.

This most recent revelation just solidifies my stance that I don’t need it.

@capguncowboy Some services won’t play if you have an adblocker- I bet Amazon would figure out how to do that. I really don’t mind commercials though. (I also can’t figure out how to turn my adblocker off.)

@unksol

Big whoop. There’s no reason to think it would ever come to prime.

The only reason I have to believe it may come to Prime is the upper level Amazon insider who told me it was coming to Prime. She tells me this is the test platform for the rolling plan. Also expected is a reduction of shipping benefits for Prime subscribers among other reduced benefits and upsell opportunities.

@ruouttaurmind I was reading about the plan to have all your prime orders delivered once a week. The promo was “going green” to save boxes and the energy costs for multiple deliveries. It sounds like a huge savings for Amazon and reduced benefits for paying members to me.

@ruouttaurmind @speediedelivery

I was reading about the plan to have all your prime orders delivered once a week. The promo was “going green” to save boxes and the energy costs for multiple deliveries. It sounds like a huge savings for Amazon and reduced benefits for paying members to me.

This would kill off my interest in Prime.

@f00l @speediedelivery The other options being discussed include Free Prime shipping becomes “best way” (read: slow sampan) for orders less than $25. Also possibly a “Prime Premiere” (speculative title) upgrade subscription which maintains 2 day shipping services and commercial free Premier Video.

@ruouttaurmind @speediedelivery I just saw something about this, it’s where you can pick a day to be Amazon day and that is the day all your packages are delivered. That helps with a lot of things, like not having packages on your porch when you’re not home so they can be stolen, or not having your packages delivered when your husband is home so you can be caught. It would save delivery fees for Amazon but what I read didn’t say it was mandatory.

@ruouttaurmind @unksol they already reduced prime from 2 day to whenever we feel like shipping while removing the free month if the package is after the date they told you it would show up… no prime in my future by the sounds of it.

@sohmageek @unksol @mehbee @f00l @speediedelivery This is Amazon’s promo video for “Amazon Day” deliveries. I love how they tout this as a “free feature for Prime subscribers” then go on to describe how your items are “delivered for FREE” if you use this feature. Uh… Amazon… it’s ALWAYS free if you’re a Prime subscriber. Stop trying to increase your profit and act like you’re doing us a favour!

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/dex/video/AmazonDay-EN-US.CB1540410561.mp4

@f00l @mehbee @ruouttaurmind @sohmageek @speediedelivery @unksol I actually liked the idea of having everything delivered on a single day. Only one day to worry about packages on the porch, and, hopefully, less packaging to recycle. So I tried it this week by having three separate orders rescheduled for a Thursday delivery. All three orders are scheduled for delivery on Thursday - one by FedEx, one by UPS, and the third by USPS. sigh

@mehbee @ruouttaurmind @sohmageek @speediedelivery @unksol

Stop trying to increase your profit and act like you’re doing us a favour!

I notice, Amazon doesn’t really listen …

@f00l @mehbee @ruouttaurmind @sohmageek @speediedelivery @unksol
Or their reply is, “Sorry, I’m not sure about that.”

@mfladd Fair one.

@aetris I’ve become an expert with those Amazon Giveaways. Last year I won 261 prizes worth a total of $4,444.14. I’m no longer trying as that really hurt my tax situation and they do send a 1099 for your winnings if you win more than a particular threshold (not sure where that is). Instead of getting a $1,500 refund, I have to pay $750. That’s over 50% tax for those crappy products. Most of the products were given away and there’s no way I would have even paid 20% of the retail price for them. Most people probably wouldn’t have to pay 50% but due to my taxable situation it was (don’t want to go into why it was so high).

Anyway, about the videos that you have to watch, if they are a youtube video, you don’t need to watch any of it. Just sit there for 15 seconds doing nothing. I usually have 20 or so tabs open and by the time I go back to tab #1, it timed out and you can then enter the contest without ever watching that video.

If it’s an Amazon video instead of Youtube, you do need to play it; however, you don’t need to watch it. Just turn the volume down real low (cannot mute) and start playing it while loading up other contests in other tabs. Then when you go back to the first tab again, the contest is ready for you to enter. This technique does not work if there is no embedded audio in the video because most modern browsers will pause any programming such as Javascript on tabs you are not using unless it’s retrieving information from the network. Amazon videos without audio doesn’t seem to continue playing in the background either but there were so few of those that I didn’t encounter many – just a couple each week.

@cengland0 - I never won a single one of those giveaways (though admittedly I’m picky) - what’s the secret?

@aetris First you should use a site that accumulates all the contests for you so you can filter by the odds. I used this one because you can filter by the odds column: https://giveawaylisting.com/index2.html

I don’t mind giving away my secrets now that I don’t want any of those products – even for free – especially if I’m going to be paying that much in taxes on it.

You need a plan. I created an Excel file that uses the current date and time to tell me which contests to enter into. If the contest has variable odds, you can enter at any time. I’d do it ASAP as some of those terminate before the end date if a lot of people enter.

The contests with odds like “The 2000th person that enters will win” are important to not enter them too early as you could be within the first hundred and not even close to the 2000th entry.

My strategy was:
odds are 3000 or more, wait 3 days before entering.
odds are 2000 or more, wait 2 days before entering.
odds are 1000 or more, wait 1 day.

If it’s less than 1000, then the time of day makes a difference. I look at the time the contest was created and the current time and will wait 1 hour for every 100 in odds. So if the time is currently 2pm pacific, I will subtract 1 hour and enter any contests created between 12 noon pacific and 1pm that is the 100th entrant. If it’s the 200th entrant, I will enter those created between 11am and noon pacific.

This is what my spreadsheet looks like. I had to convert from eastern to Pacific time because that’s the time zone listed on the giveaway site.

@cengland0 OMG that is a lot of work to win stuff you then have to pay taxes on if it wasn’t something you’d want to buy anyway. Hope there were at least some things you won that you wanted.

@cengland0 @Kidsandliz I was wondering the same thing. I understand you didn’t benefit overall, but were there at least a couple of gems in the mix?

@Kidsandliz @ruouttaurmind yes there were a few nice things I kept and liked but if I knew ahead of time that Id pay 50% of the inflated retail price, I wouldn’t have tried for the prize.

See, many of the contests are really advertisements. If you don’t win, they offer you to buy it at a reduced price, many times for up to 30% off. The 1099 you get shows the high MSRP value and not the sales price. Also, after winning prizes, you can look at it again later and see it has been reduced but your 1099 still shows the price at the time you won.

To be clear, the 1099 was not itemized but the website linked above does keep track of your winnings for you and the 1099 matched what the website showed.

@cengland0 So can’t you screenshot the “new improved prices” and attach that to your 1099 and argue when you get audited?

@Kidsandliz possibly. I have an EA (Enrolled Agent) do my taxes because they are somewhat complicated. I doubt she would allow me to report anything diferent than the 1099 only because I have audit insurance. The EA will represent me in court if I ever get audited and Amazon does report the 1099 number and Im begging to be audited if I claim a smaller number.

@djslack Agreed. I’ll be even less excited when it’s interrupted five times throughout with YouTube style ad blocks.