Day: January 30, 2022

I just cancelled Amazon Prime.

I was paying 12.99 per month since about mid 2019.

In that time I’ve had four packages delivered and watched 25 movies.

For ballpark comparison, let’s just call it 380.00 over the time I’ve had the service. None of the packages arrived via anything except the free UPS delivery. Apparently the stuff that I wanted from Amazon was not available to ship via Prime.

As to the movies…

Well 380.00 / 25 = 15.58 Per Movie. I know that more than a few of those movies were 3.99 rentals.

As a point of comparison, I won’t pay 14.99 for movies on Apple TV. I’ll wait till a movie I want is on sale for some price below 10.00. And I have the rights to view that movie as many times as I want.

Yes, there were some movies that were available on Amazon Prime and nowhere else. But those movies have become fewer and some of them are no longer available in the Amazon catalog.

I’m not saying that Prime is a bad deal for everyone. But it was a bad deal for me. It duplicated what I already had as far as music went. I use Apple Music. The video quality of some of the movies was poor and I, as a rule hate commercials before actually getting to the movie. I hate commercials on paid services in general. Amazon wasn’t as bad as Hulu has become it was just more expensive. Hulu is next on the agenda, I’m not watching much on their service either.

I had maintained Amazon Prime for the series, The Expanse. Funny thing about it was that with the character Alex being killed off at the end of last season, I couldn’t muster enough interest in watching this season to actually sit down and watch it. The actor that played Alex was accused of sexual harassment and was therefore immediately removed.

Having been sexually harassed by women, I take claims of harassment seriously. I also believe in due process, and let’s face it men don’t get due process ever. Even if the charges are completely dismissed, the accusation lingers, forever coloring everything they do and profoundly affecting their careers. Accusations of sexual harassment leveled against women on the other hand, are largely ignored. They are just as damaging to male victims but nobody cares.

I don’t know if Cas Anvar was actually guilty. The accusation alone is enough to destroy a male actor these days. In the series of books, Alex wasn’t killed off.

The whole cast is great, I’ve enjoyed their performances. But for some reason, I just completely lost interest in the story. Perhaps it was end of series malaise, perhaps it was something more. I own the first four seasons, I don’t know if I’ll spend the bucks to add season 5 and 6 to the collection or not.

I find that my interest in movies, TV, and even music is declining. I suppose it’s just that I’m not in any mood to sit down for two or three hours of haranguing about social justice, the end of the world, or whatever the cause de jour may be. Give me a good book instead and I’ll be happy.

In any case, I just cut 155.88 per year out of my budget. I guess I can apply that toward my gas or grocery bills.

I’d say, for everyone to take a look at parasitic monthly billing. It’s really easy for that stuff to accumulate and be forgotten about. It’s probably not going to put a lot of money back in your monthly budget, but these days every little bit helps.