We've been talking here on Computer!Total more than once about Amazon Prime Video, Amazon's streaming service for movies and series. There's a lot that goes into an Amazon Prime subscription. Here's what an Amazon Prime subscription can offer you, as well as its drawbacks.
Amazon Prime Day 2020 starts tomorrow on Tuesday, October 13. On this day, a large number of deals can be scored in the tech area via the Amazon webshop. These deals are exclusive to Amazon Prime members.
The biggest disadvantage of Amazon Prime is of course that it costs money, because you pay monthly for this service. You can first use Prime for free for a month, but then you pay 2.99 euros per month. An interesting amount, because it is lower than both Netflix and Disney+. Moreover, Amazon Prime is not only the video streaming service, because that monthly six euros also includes a Prime subscription to shopping platform Amazon and more. What exactly, we'll explain first.
Shop with Prime
That Prime subscription to the Amazon web store means that many items (more than 1 million, recognizable by the Prime logo) that you buy on Amazon can be delivered within 1 day in the Netherlands. Moreover, there are no shipping costs involved, which makes ordering one thing more attractive. In addition, you get access to Lightning Deals half an hour earlier, which are a kind of daily deals from Amazon. On Amazon's special Prime Day, you can also count on Lightning Deals, exclusively for Prime members. Please note: you do not shop on Amazon.nl (although that is also possible, but that mainly focuses on ebooks), but go to amazon.de/nederlands. It is the German Amazon that is set up for the Netherlands, which is why the delivery of non-Prime packages usually takes 2 or more days.
Gaming with Prime
The other advantage is that you can use Twitch Prime for free. Twitch is a game streaming platform bought by Amazon where famous gamers like Ninja started their careers. With Twitch Prime you get free game goodies and surprises. You can watch streams on Twitch without ads, you don't have to pay any money to subscribe to channels, and you get a discount on physical games on Amazon.
Saving photos with Prime
You can also use Amazon Cloud Drive. It comes with Prime and you can store unlimited photos on it. There is a limitation, which is that the video or documents may take up a total of 5GB. Amazon Prime Photos is therefore mainly intended for snapshots. Unfortunately not to store your own films and series.
Series and Movies with Prime
One of the best deals is that Amazon Prime comes with Prime Video (or vice versa, it just depends on where you buy it). This Netflix-like streaming service has its own successful series and films in its library, but also a lot of films and series from other art houses. There is a lot to see in terms of content and Netflix may be the king of streaming services, but Amazon Prime Video also has a library that will take you months to complete. You can also use this service via the app on your smartphone, but also via the browser or special smart TV apps.
It's a comprehensive bundle, that Amazon Prime. So extensive that even Apple is now planning to offer a similar bundle that consists of Apple News+, Apple Music and Apple TV+. In the Netherlands, daily delivery with Prime is a good move, because it is the way to ensure that online department stores such as Coolblue and Bol.com no longer have an advantage by being able to deliver everything from their warehouses in the Netherlands. Both stores still have that speed, but Amazon can still deliver very quickly from Germany to our country.
Cons
Although such a subscription is very useful, there are also disadvantages. One of the biggest disadvantages of Prime is that the 0 euro shipping costs ensure that you proceed with an order earlier. That's positive for Amazon and convenient for you, but not as sustainable. You can even have one thing of a tenner delivered for free. Another disadvantage of Prime in the Netherlands is that you can't use Prime Music, for example, which American Prime subscribers do get for free. That service is not (yet) live in the Netherlands, which makes it unreachable.
Another localization downside is that when you shop as a Dutch Prime user in the store that is open for Dutch speakers, you notice that a lot is poorly translated or is German. That's because the Dutch Amazon is a kind of translated version of the German Amazon, from which it also ships. Sometimes you have to struggle with a product description.
There's a lot to get out of Amazon Prime, so it's not surprising that it has over 100 million subscribers worldwide. Prime has been around in other parts of the world since 2005. What you can expect from the service depends a lot on your location. For example, Londoners have free delivery to Amazon's restaurant delivery service if they order over £15. And in America, you have free one-day delivery on more than 10 million products. However, for many Dutch people Prime, just like Amazon in (semi-) Dutch, is still fairly new. Whether you find the subscription worth exploring will mainly depend on your shopping behavior on Amazon and the extent to which you would like to watch the exclusive series and movies on Amazon Prime Video.
