Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

So long, so slow

Boy, that was a long January. At least it was to me. Yesterday a coworker remarked that January went by in a flash, and I had to politely disagree with him. What was 31 days felt like 60 days. I mean, shouldn’t we prefer that our days go slowly? The whole life is short thing, right? What we don’t want is the sensation that time moved by in a flash. The that felt like it was only yesterday. I guess I’m doing something right: I didn’t speed-run through January.

I got an email yesterday from Amazon notifying me that in 2022, I’ve earn over $300 in cash-back from my Chase Amazon rewards credit card (the card earns a whopping 5% on purchases if you are an Amazon Prime member). That amount easily offsets the annual $139 premium for Prime membership. In fact, $300 would cover the membership fee for this year as well. It’s spending neutral, so to speak, for me to keep Amazon Prime.

My friend did some quick math, and figured out that $300 in 5% of rewards equals to about $6,000 of spending last year. Since I’m notorious for buying lots of books, the friend quipped, “How much are these books that you buy?” Honestly, I was a bit surprised at the $6,000 figure. Granted, about $2,500 of that was spent towards an LG OLED TV and a set of speakers. The rest of the $3,500 is simply the spending of daily life. The books, the supplements, the health products, etc. Since I do get 5% cash-back in return, I try to do as much shopping with Amazon as possible.

Shoutout to the delivery guys and gals.

I certainly don’t plan to buy a TV this year or anything too spendy. I’m at the stage of life where it’s all about buying high-quality things and using them for a very long time. For example, this Herman Miller Aeron chair I’m currently sitting on, I’ve had since my college days. I endeavor to have this sort of longevity with the things I own now, and the stuff I buy moving forwards.

Movie rentals

I’ve been an Amazon Prime subscriber probably since inception. Back then they offered discounts for college students, something like 50 bucks a year for free two-day shipping. Obviously nowadays it’s far more expensive - $139 annual - and I’m no longer in college.

With the accompanying Chase Amazon Prime card giving me 5% cash back on purchases at both Amazon and Whole Foods (there’s one a few blocks from where I live), I make back that annual fee in no time. The card also gets you 2% cash back at gas stations, which is lovely. Last year I got back over $300, which is more than comfortable enough to continue my Prime membership.

There are times I really don’t need to receive an item in two days or less. Amazon gives me the option to forgo the standard two-day shipping. In return, it gives me a dollar or two of digital spending credits. What I do with those credits is rent movies on Prime video. Often times that rental comes out to be free. It’s how I’ve been watching movies at home for quite some time now.

I can’t remember the last time I actually bought a movie. With mountain of books taking up shelf space, I don’t have any left for Blu-ray discs and DVDs. Besides, I’m not the type of person to watch movies a second time, so physical copies of movies would literally be decoration after the first watch. This is why I rent digital versions as well, instead of purchasing outright.

Besides, whatever is stored on Amazon servers doesn’t really belong to me, does it? Who do I make a claim with if those servers go down? Do I get mailed a copy of all my digital purchases on a hard-drive?

(Often free) renting movies is the way to go for me.

Waiting for QR

Yesterday I was at the local Whole Foods doing some grocery shopping during lunch (as one does). I got to the self-checkout terminals and the first thing to do is scan the Amazon Prime QR code. That lets the system know I am a Prime member and to give me my 5% cash back and other associated discounts. But there was a problem: my iPhone did not a have a strong enough network connection to load the QR code in the Amazon app. Apparently two (out of five) bars of 5G cellular is insufficient.

To load quickly, anyways. The loading circle kept spinning, so I just stood there waiting for the QR code to pop up. The people flow during that hour was slow so I was not holding up anybody. Honestly I think Whole Foods should make sure there’s solid network connection in their stores, especially now that everything is on our phones - including our credit cards. Gone are the days of Safeway where you bring a tiny card with a barcode to scan as confirmation of membership. Even Costco have migrated to digital ID cards on the Costco app. I never bring the physical card with me these days.

Soon as California allows for digital driver licenses in smartphones, I won’t bring a wallet with me ever again.

After a few minutes of waiting, the QR code finally appeared. I simply refuse to give up the 5% cash back (that is, if you have an Amazon Prime Visa card). Amazon Prime membership is not cheap these days, and I need to “make that money back” as fast possible so that I’m in the green. I bet the security guy was looking at me really funny, though. What is this guy doing staring at his phone and not scanning any items?

Price of the brick

Amazon Prime is raising its membership fee for the first time in four years. The service goes to $139 per year, up from $119. The slow boil of the frog that is inflation continues unabated. Netflix also recently hiked its rates; the top 4K tier of service is now $20 a month. I sure hope your account gets shared between four people to lessen the cost burden. Have you ordered food from DoorDash recently? The prices of every restaurant has gone up. Though here in San Francisco that may have something to do with the minimum wage increase too.

The $20 increase is not going to make me cancel my subscription. Amazon knows this, of course. I bet the vast majority of Prime users will simply shrug off the price hike like its nothing. With about 150 million subscribers, that’s a quick and handy profit (150 x $20) of $3 billion dollars. Just a figurative flick of the switch. The law of large numbers is indeed amazing.

The reason I’m not cancelling is because I make the annual fee back in credit card points. The Amazon Prime Visa card gives 5% back on all purchases done on Amazon (and Whole Foods) - so long as you are a subscriber to Prime. WIth the large amount of spending I do with Amazon, I make more than enough money back to at least break even on membership fee. All the while I’m enjoying the benefits of free two-day shipping, and the vast catalog of shows on Prime Video.

That said, it’s certainly not great to see the price going up, not only with Amazon Prime but seemingly everywhere. I’ve certainly used DoorDash way less these days. Order of a single item is at least $20 dollars now, once factoring in all the fees and tips. It’s really handy to live within walking distance to a mall with decent food options.

Amazon shipping

In strange bit of irony, ever since I suspended my Amazon Prime account about a month ago, I’ve been doing more shopping on the website than ever. Honestly, it would have been nice to receive some of my recent purchases more quickly with the free two-day shipping offered by the Prime membership - such as the portable air-conditioning machine, but alas I had to make do with waiting the few additional days. I’d also forgotten that for non Prime customers, each purchase needs to be over $25 dollars in order to get free (slow) shipping, so sometimes I’ve had to think of more essential items to buy just to get me over that hump.

I am of course quite okay with slow shipping speeds; I wouldn’t have cancelled the Prime account if I didn’t. However, I’ve noticed that the only difference between standard and two-day shipping is a built-in delay for the former. Amazon would hold off shipping items until two days before scheduled, then it gets released to the carriers. Effectively, it’s still two-day shipping, but with a waiting period. My guess is it’s most optimal for Amazon to send all items out via two-day speed, no matter if the customer have paid for it or not. For a customer who doesn’t pay for it, the extra wait is artificial and not caused by anything logistical.

I’m old enough to remember when slow shipping on Amazon actually meant a package a physically took the extra few days to reach my home, and not because it is sat in a warehouse waiting for release. Standard shipping was ground shipping, instead of delayed two-day shipping. I reckon it’s a good tactic to get people to sign up for Prime; like blank buttons in the interior of a base-model car reminding customer of options they didn’t buy, Amazon shows non Prime shoppers like me the power and speed of two-day shipping, and it would be so easy to pay the extra money for a Prime membership to get rid of the artificial delay.

Sorry, Amazon: I’m still not going back to Prime.

No more Amazon Prime

After nearly a decade of subscribing to Amazon Prime, starting with a measly student account way back when, I’ve recently decided to not renew my membership with the online shopping giant. Including taxes, the annual fee for the privilege of having items shipped to my doors for free in two days (among other perks, admittedly) have ballooned to $120, and in this year of all years (hello, coronavirus), I am not seeing the value in paying that.

Ever since the pandemic started, I’ve been super conscious about spending, so my Amazon account is sort of just languishing, with hardly any purchases made. Even at the times I did purchase something, I’ve selected the slow shipping method, out of some sense of moral obligation to not further overload the surely massively overloaded system. If I didn’t need something absolutely right away, then I can wait the few extra days. These warehouse workers and delivery persons have a tough enough job without me adding any additional unnecessary burden.

Hashtag virtual signal.

So with utilization having gone way down, and getting comfortable again with slow shipping, (I was never a big watcher of Prime video) the forces combined to allow me to stop subscribing to Amazon Prime. The clock has turned back to the early 2000s, and I have to accumulate over $25 dollars worth of product in order to get free standard shipping. No more impulse purchases or last minute buys like a box of paper clips shipped to me on the same day, which is quite okay and not really problem in the grand scheme. How’s this for a novel idea: if I need a particular item immediately, I can physically go to a store!

In the beguiling voice of Stefon: these days, Target has everything.

Amazon makes it so easy

Amazon keeps making it easier to continue to do business with them.

Just last month, my annual Prime membership with Amazon got renewed, and every year like clockwork I would agonize at how much it costs (nearly $130 now with tax), come to a realization that I wouldn’t want to live without “free” two-day shipping (you pansy), and resign to continue the subscription. I don’t even watch Prime videos that much; it’s purely for the shipping convenience, which is difficult luxury to break away from.

Recently I’ve come to recognize the human toll it takes to ship an item to me so quickly from Amazon: from the overworked pickers at the distribution warehouse, to the freelance delivery person driving their own personal car to carry the package on its final miles. Ignorance is indeed bliss because it all works wonderfully from the customer’s perspective, but once you understand how the sausage is made, it’s very hard to turn the other cheek. This is why as much as possible, I choose the slow shipping option.

Though sometimes I really need an item in haste, so retaining the two-day option is nice. Perhaps one day I can forsake the Prime membership entirely, but as it stands, I am re-upped for yet another year.

This past week I had to return something I bought from Amazon, the first time in a long time. I was all ready to pay for return shipping cost when I was pleasantly surprised with a new option that Amazon now offers: one can simply drop off items to be returned at a local Kohl’s, whereby they will package and ship it back to Amazon for absolutely free. I’m sure there’s further labor exploitation going on here as well to facilitate this, but for me as a customer, this method to return merchandise cannot be more convenient. Plus, it’s far more pleasant to visit a Kohl’s store than the local post office.

Surely the next innovation is flying drones to pick up our return packages, right?