THE AMAZON CON

They look at me like I am boring them to death with my purchases. They drone to the air somewhere near my face, "Are you a Prime member?" I say "No." with a cheesy smile. Whole Foods used to be a place to buy groceries. Now it is a hybrid buyers' club without benefits. 

Today I went to my local CVS. It used to be a safe space. I had joyfully stuffed a 20% coupon into my wallet on my way out of the house. One of my accidental collection of chronic diseases requires daily use of medical supplies which are costly. That 20% coupon comes in the mail every so often and saves me between $10 and $20 per use. When you live on Social Security, that's not chump change. 

The cashier tried to describe to me the new CVS version of The Amazon Con. All I would have to do is give CVS permission to take $5 a month from me every month ... for no product. Just to have access to "membership benefits", like the discount my coupon already gives me without being a member. I refused after checking that my IQ was still above 80.

My first encounter with The Amazon Con occurred several years ago when I wanted to stream a TV series I fancied. I took the offered free 30 days of Amazon membership to access Prime Video. Unlike my long-time streaming service, Netflix, Prime confronted me with a massive library of pay-per-view and a small library of no-extra-fee quality viewing. I cancelled my Amazon Prime membership immediately. Why pay $100 annually to then pay piecemeal as well? Made no sense. It was, and still is, a con game.

The Amazon Con is the bastard child of Cable TV and discount merchandising clubs, like Costco and BJ's. These establishments found that suckers would gladly pay an annual fee to shop in a drab warehouse for bulk supplies of toilet paper and disposable diapers. Just another example of the deterioration of American standards in commerce ... The China Effect. We have been encouraged to become pre-apocalyptic hoarders. 

But I am not desperate. I know all too well that these con games come and go. They go when enough suckers wake up and find an outlet which offers them the same benefits without the recurring fee for no tangible product. That is why consumers ran from Cable TV to streaming. They will eventually walk away from The Amazon Con when Amazon goes the way of all empires, invaded and outpriced by wily competitors.