It sounds like you get something out of this more than stuff, you get the fun of gaming the system.

> Another key is to order stuff that weighs a lot (40lbs+). Last time I did FBA the UPS rate for Amazon shipping was ~50 cents / lb . So if you're getting a 40lb item (especially if it has weird dimensions) they're likely not paying much lower than $15-20 to get that to your door in 2 days.

This is like overeating at a buffet to feel like you got your money’s worth.

When companies become openly consumer-hostile, we should expect consumers to become company-hostile. It's true that this leads to an antagonistic race to the bottom, but the alternative is a leisurely stroll to the bottom as one party pulls the other along by the neck. I don't know of any way to really reconcile this; trust is easy to lose and hard to earn, and in an environment of perpetual betrayal no party is eager to be the first to risk having their trust be taken advantage of.

My point is that Amazon or the buffet owner will not be brought down by a few customers who are a net loss to them shipping wise. They have already done the math.

You can either use amazon because you’ve decided you need it or you can actually stop giving them money and recommend others do so. That is a much bigger threat to them. Continuing to use prime and buying things you don’t need from Amazon isn’t being “hostile” to Amazon.

Well it's even easier than that. They'll just ban you.

http://time.com/money/5288702/amazon-return-policy-ban/

It's like card counting at a casino. Even if you're technically within the rules, you'll still get walked to the door.

As an aside: I canceled prime long ago. Couldn't be happier. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16937290

It's gotten harder to get a free month of prime (I used to take advantage of that, whenever a package was late). Now they tend to just apologize, when before they offered you compensation immediately.

I've found that now what they do is just give you delivery dates that aren't 2 days in the future, even when in stock. Sometimes I've had orders on Monday with ETAs of Friday, with prime, in stock (no notice on the page saying extra processing or out of stock).

This is what drove me to cancel Prime. After having this happen to me three times (adding Prime items to cart and getting all the way to the end of checkout before noticing the lack of two day shipping).

A few bucks either way on price (including shipping costs) don't matter much to me either way. What I do value is my time. And that is what missed delivery dates and time on the phone both cost me. "Spend time dealing with customer service" is another cost with no associated value to me.

That might be why it is so hard to complain.

Amazon lost one of my packages (they were delivering it themselves).

No biggie by itself, but the apology mail did not lead to a reimbursement. Instead, I had to go to the website, and go through a dozen of steps that really felt like they were here to make me decide it is not worth my time.

Great way to lose my confidence in the company ..

This approach would seem to negate the whole "convenience and simplicity" motivation behind using Amazon Prime.

> Plus it feels like every day is Christmas when a new random Amazon item is coming in.

I feel bad doing this, because I know these packages are coming in via air, truck, boat, etc and batching is significantly more efficient.

If too many people try to abuse a service like this, it is likely the benefit will be taken away.

https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/amazon-stops-giving-a-free-mon...

I don't know that I'd call it abuse. I'd expect Amazon to fall afoul of advertisement and consumer protection laws in many jurisdictions if they claim "guaranteed" delivery times, and their response to missing said guaranteed times is "do nothing".

I'm in the UK, and we get free next day delivery with a Prime sub.

In 3 years, we've had only a handful of deliveries that haven't arrived on time. I only cared about 2 of those, and on both occasions they gave me a free month of Prime after I sent a single, short email saying delivery was late. Pretty amazing customer service, especially for the UK!

Amazon isn't always the cheapest (altho they usually are, or are very close), but their customer service is great, and if I have issues they make returns really simple. This is the reason I buy more stuff from Amazon than from anywhere else.

I should add, I've never (knowingly) had any counterfeits from Amazon, and don't personally know of anyone who has, but it seems from HN it's a much bigger issue in the US than in the UK.

I pretty much solely buy things from Amazon when their algorithm screws up and chances of counterfeits are low. I've bought several metal cabinets by a major manufacturer with free shipping for a price that had to be lower than the cost of shipping itself; much less the cabinets.

Were they beat up in transit, and take forever? Oh most definitely, one was even lost somehow; however they were so undervalued it was worth the fact they were bound to screw up.

> complain and get a free month of Prime added ad infinitum

They will only do this 12 times a year. You can also request that they give you the late item for free.

Prime may be "2-Day Shipping" but they state in their TOS processing time may make an item take longer than 2 days to get to you. I've have "2-Day" shipping items take a week to get to me and they just point to the TOS.

They changed that policy last year. You're no longer guaranteed a free month of Prime to compensate for shipping failures. CS reps can still give you this if they choose, but people are now being denied, especially if they've already been given free months before.