Fee for Service

Before you let your brain wander on the title, this is not about sex. Keep reading anyway. I’ll give you a great, exciting, enticing, beautiful and everything you have ever dreamed, story, I’ll have get it to you in two days. I promise. I’ll need you to pay for this privilege, a once a year fee of $140.

Ridiculous right? Yes it is. I can’t guarantee any of my writings will amuse you, and I surely can’t get a story out to you in two days, unless you want mediocre work.

To top that off, I require $140.00 a year to do that. Imagine paying that for mediocrity.

This is the Amazon conundrum. They have long had a policy of getting a package to you in two days with free shipping. This was the appeal. During, covid, Amazon exploded because you had a world where we were forced to stay home on house arrest. That meant we had to find a way to get stuff, all kinds of stuff.

Amazon became so big that they could now offer one day shipping or even same day and that just shot the company into another stratosphere. So what on earth has happened to their promises? You pay for a service and then don’t get it and there is no apology, no compensation for their breach of contract (promise). You can’t speak to anyone in our own country, you can’t get an answer, and yet every year they add another $10 to your fee for their crappy service.

Now some will argue that they give you a lot of perks for that yearly stipend. I will argue that too. Amazon Prime Video, for instance, is nothing stellar. Tired reruns, obscure movies, and now all with the added bonus of freaking commercials. For that, you watch regular television. You will get bombarded by ads for crap you don’t need or want, the same worn out lineup, and it’s free.

The commercials on Prime video are a slap in the face. Initially, Prime Video, like all other streaming services, had NO commercials. But the rent for service craze has gotten every industry on board. They saw that the customer would take it and so they all began to shaft us. The fact that every service now requires additional payment each month to remove the ads is a punch to the gut. Corporate greed never ends.

The reason all of this began was simple. Americans were sick and tired of paying over $200 a month for cable or satellite, so they decided to piece out what they actually did watch on the regular and not pay for the 99 percent trash they were being handed by companies like Cox, Direct TV and Comcast, all companies that do not in any way care about you. They care about their stockholders, and those shareholders are the most greedy bunch. They want high yields for the use of their money, by the companies they have stakes in. Instead of explaining to the shareholders that this economy is keep Americans extremely tight, and inflation is out of control, they devise more and more ways to pick our pockets.

So, Americans were leaving cable in droves and the individual corporations for each channel decided, that if you wanted to still watch their channel, they would cut out the middleman and let you buy streaming subscriptions. Within a couple years, they all went the way of the streaming services and now you have a la carte service. Now, I ask each of you to add up what you pay monthly for the channels you contract with, and I am willing to bet, it is the same or more than you paid for cable. Ever.

Back to Prime Video, after this short ad. (insert ad here) If you pay me an additional $5 a month, I’ll remove the ad so you can partake of my service with no interruptions. Look familiar? Of course it does. Once one, two, three, and more people, agreed to pay it without griping, the Frankenstein’s monster was created. Of course we paid it. What choice do we have?

We should have the right to refuse ads for free! It is why we had cable to begin with, back in the day. You didn’t have to watch local channels with 16 commercials every hour of programming. Mark my words, and they will be forever here in black and white. The ads you are not seeing, are short in duration and only one or two, but as the lemmings accept this practice, the adds will increase, the interruptions will increase, and eventually you will have what looks like old local network programming templates.

Marketers know how to ease you into compliance. How to make the pain not seem painful, when all the while you bleed out. Corporations do not give a crap about you, as long as they can suck your teat dry. And that is where we are with Amazon and just about every other fee for service industry.

We pay for the service of getting goods to our doorstep in two days. Amazon sweetens the pot, buy giving you “free” Prime Video, and nothing they promised you is coming to fruition, because they want more and more and more of your money to give you what you contracted with them.

I use prime weekly, sometimes daily. I order a lot of art supplies, staples for the pantry, dog supplies (because Princess Lola needs her bling), garden supplies, games, toys, even clothing these days. I always seek the prime options, so I can have it within the two day promise. Mind you, the prime price for a good is higher than the non prime price for the same good. Test that revelations now. You’ll see.

Anyway, I am a decent customer and I spend a small fortune with them. Every year the price for their service goes up and every year I pay, like an idiot. Most of the items I buy, I can get locally, and yet I use the convenience of not having to go out to buy things. But in the last couple of years, I’d guess since Bezos sold Amazon, I have not been receiving what I pay for.

Get this. I see something I need, a few somethings, I make sure I can get them for two day delivery, and I put them in my cart. I then check out, see that the items are all going to arrive in two days and it is confirmed on the page right before you hit pay. I get the email confirmation as well to that effect. And then I wait. Without fail, the day before or even the same day, that I am to receive said order, I will get an email saying my items are delayed. They more times than not, will split up an order they enticed me to allow them to conserve packaging, giving me a lame digital credit of, get this, $1.50. For that $1.50, they will not get you your package in two days, but you will have to wait for “prime” day delivery, which seems to be every day of the week, who knows the algorithm for that mess.

Did you notice the bait and switch? Let me draw you a picture. $140.00 for yearly stipend, for a contract. And extra $5 a month for not commercials, or even additional fees for some programs or movies not currently in their catalog. Those pay to view shows or movies are mostly old things you would not even have paid blockbuster to rent, but there it is, rent this, rent that, buy it and have it in your virtual storage. Then instead of making good on their promise, they bait you with $1.50 reward for letting them be environmentally conscious with less packaging. But, there is always a but. But then you get emails they can’t get your packages to you in time. Then they spilt the order, so you will get it piecemeal. Basically, for $1.50 you sell your benefit back to them so they can get it to you when they want and how they want, anyway.

Please know, I am not talking about third party vendors, or all the marvelous goods we have to have from China. You get what you get with that. I am only discussing the “prime” items that give you specific dates of arrival, because they are in stock, in a behemoth factory warehouse, near you.

Here’s a secret, that means nothing. AT ALL! I have purchased things that are in stock, only to get their dear John email that the item will arrive in 10 days. I call, tell them it was an in stock item, to which they say it wasn’t. I go to the item by searching for it, while on the phone with amazon, and i see it is still available for two day delivery and it is in fact IN STOCK! Explain that one to me, because they sure cannot. Or at least the person in some country around the world earning a measly $2 a day, can’t

By the way, that is another way they fatten the wallets of shareholders. Jobs are outsourced to nations with very slack employment regulations, pay peanuts on the dollar and pass the profits to the shareholders.

I know I have used Amazon for the example for this article, but they are by no means the only ones. They just happened to have done all of the above this week and quite frankly I have had it. I am sick of paying for a service and not getting it.

I’d love to hear your stories so, leave a comment or message me, when you have the spare time.