Prime Day! 2023 Edition

[Moonface]

So once again I ordered all of my items within the "Order in the next ____ for one-day delivery" window... and Amazon once again cannot do anything right. Not only did my stuff not arrive in the one day (which would have been yesterday, the 11th), it's looking like they won't be here until tomorrow. So... I'm paying Amazon almost $150 a year for the perk of 1/2 day shipping, only to still get all of my packages 3-5 days after I've ordered them. Nice.

Think it's finally time to cancel my Prime membership.

I wish Amazon had something in place for compensation when this happens. Domino's for example will give a free pizza if they don't get your order delivered to you in the timeframe they claim they will, and that doesn't even require any subscription service to get that.

[Dragon Lord]

I 100% agree. If they want to charge so much for Prime every year, with out of the BIGGEST SELLING POINTS BEING PRIME-EXCLUSIVE SHIPPING SPEEDS, but then fail to deliver (heh) on those delivery dates consistently, which this has been happening to me for months now with every purchase I make on Amazon, then they need to compensate Prime Members in some way. Either by refunding a percentage of the purchase as an apology, by giving store credit for future purchases on Amazon every time it happens ($10-$20) or by covering 3 months of their next Prime subscription (a one-month subscriber would get three months free).

It's ridiculous that the cost of Prime has continued to go up, but the benefits have gone down and now the quality of the service has gone to absolute shit. There's no reason to miss the promised delivery date, especially when Amazon is doing a lot of their own delivery now.

[Moonface]

It's ridiculous that the cost of Prime has continued to go up, but the benefits have gone down and now the quality of the service has gone to absolute shit.

As someone who isn't super versed in what a Prime offers besides faster shipping and the deals this thread is focused on, what other benefits did Prime have that aren't the same as they were?

[Dragon Lord]

When I first signed up with Prime, it's because they offered a lot of great benefits for gamers. They had deals on new games for all Prime members and some other stuff, I forget what it all was. Guaranteed release date delivery, I think something like 10% or 15% (maybe even 20%) off pre-orders. Eventually they got rid of all of those benefits, and it's just gotten worse from there. They've gotten rid of some other Prime related programs too over the last few years, but I don't remember what they all were because I had never paid attention to them.

I actually started to buy my games from Best Buy after that, because they still had their Gamer Club or whatever it was at that time, and they offered pretty much all of the same perks that Prime had, but it wasn't too much longer until Best Buy axed that program too.

But yeah, Amazon either needs to pull their heads out of their asses and get the quality of being a Prime Member back up to snuff, or they need to drastically reduce the cost of Prime, because we're definitely not getting our money's worth any more.

[Moonface]

When I first signed up with Prime, it's because they offered a lot of great benefits for gamers. They had deals on new games for all Prime members and some other stuff, I forget what it all was. Guaranteed release date delivery, I think something like 10% or 15% (maybe even 20%) off pre-orders. Eventually they got rid of all of those benefits, and it's just gotten worse from there. They've gotten rid of some other Prime related programs too over the last few years, but I don't remember what they all were because I had never paid attention to them.

I actually started to buy my games from Best Buy after that, because they still had their Gamer Club or whatever it was at that time, and they offered pretty much all of the same perks that Prime had, but it wasn't too much longer until Best Buy axed that program too.

But yeah, Amazon either needs to pull their heads out of their asses and get the quality of being a Prime Member back up to snuff, or they need to drastically reduce the cost of Prime, because we're definitely not getting our money's worth any more.

Ah. I wonder why (besides greed) Amazon felt the need to remove the discount on games since it isn't like every Prime member is gonna be buying games (nor enough games to start hurting Amazon). I won't put it past them to try and remove the free Twitch sub you get with Prime although I'd expect the backlash would quickly nip that in the bud.

Best Buy ditching their program isn't going to have mattered in the long run anyway after they announced a couple days ago that they'll be removing all physical media from their stores starting next year. Not that the one by me ever has any games in stock anyway for me to notice the difference when the time comes.

[Dragon Lord]

They really announced that? I missed. Dear god, just go out of business already, Best Buy.

Apparently Best Buy is infected with the "we have our heads shoved too far up our asses to ship things in a smart manner" disease too. I pre-ordered Lords of the Fallen through them because they had a Steelbook Case as a pre-order bonus. So instead of shipping the game and steelbook together, they decide to ship them through two different companies. So now the Steelbook is arriving today (FedEx), while the game itself isn't arriving until Monday (UPS). I'm also miffed with UPS right now because the game arrived at their sorting facility at 4:43 AM this morning, and apparently that was after the cut-off for being put on trucks, because now it's going to sit in their facility, located 30 minutes from me, until Monday. I'm just like, are you kidding me? I have to wait two extra days to get this game because it didn't arrive 20 minutes earlier to your sorting facility?

That feeling when Gamestop of all companies is the only one who can not be complete dumbasses when shipping something.

[Moonface]

You might have already seen the news by now @Dragon Lord but turns out Best Buy are only ditching everything except games when it comes to carrying physical media. Not that it's necessarily a huge relief given your troubles with them in your post.

[ShiraNoMai]

As for Prime Day, I ended up getting:

Senheisser HD599 SE Open-Back Wired Headphones (Normally $200, on sale for $80)

I did a LOT of research into what headphones were good and whether or not these two pairs of cans were worth even for the sale price. In the end I came to the conclusion that trying to look up whether or not headphones are good is a complete waste of time because everyone is going to hear things differently and give you vastly different opinions, and it was just better for me to get one of them and try it for myself... except these two were on such good sales, I couldn't choose which one I wanted to try... so I got both! I figured I can try each one out for a bit, and decided which one I like best and then either return the other or see of my mother likes it and give it to her. I spent SO much time going back and forth figuring out if I should get the 599 SEs for the sale price, or just pay more because a bunch of people say that the HD 560 S is a better pair that has better whatever. I just got to the point where I'm like... you know what? I probably wouldn't be able to hear a difference in how they sound in the end. I could use a pair of $100 headphones and a pair of $5,000 headphones and good chance that I wouldn't hear much of a difference at all. So I went with the ones that were on sale for a good price and I should be more than happy with either pair. I just got both because I want to compare the comfort mostly, and see which one feels better to wear for long periods of time.

Yeah I pointed out before that I could vouch for the 599's. They're my go-to headphones at work and are perfect in every way (except the fake leather eventually peeling away, but that's fixable)

I didn't wind up getting anything this time around for the Prime Day sales. There was a few things I could've dipped into but they weren't anything that was really necessary so I opted to save my money.

[Dragon Lord]

Ah, so you did. You'll have to forgive my old man memory for forgetting that you had vouched for them previously, haha. I have definitely enjoyed them while using them, though right now I'm giving the Phillips pair a run. I actually really like both and it's hard to decide which I like more. As I mentioned before, I'm not an audiophile in the slightest, so the sound profile between them doesn't sound much different at all to me. Comfort-wise, I definitely give it to the 599s, the pads are super soft and the headband doesn't cause any soreness on the top of my head with prolonged use. The only thing I can really knock them for is how small the stock pads are, which is an area that the Phillips pair wins in. The pads are much bigger which feels better around my ear. I just wish the pads on the Phillips wasn't so... coarse/scratchy.

I know Wicked Cushions has replacement pads for the 599s, so I might pick up a pair of those and see if they are a little bigger than the stock pads or not. I really like the pads I got for them for the Maxwell headset, so I don't think I could go wrong getting a pair for the 599s.