[HN Gopher] After price update, Amazon Prime members call Amazon...
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After price update, Amazon Prime members call Amazon Music
"unusable"
Author : bubblehack3r
Score : 39 points
Date : 2022-11-08 17:09 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.businessinsider.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.businessinsider.com)
| ozzythecat wrote:
| Having worked at Amazon for well over a decade, here's more or
| less what happened:
|
| 1. Product, in alignment with directors and VPs, have an
| overarching 3-5 year vision document
|
| 2. The document talks about "customer obsession" and a 2025
| vision for "delighting customers"
|
| 3. Document has mostly fluff ideas, written by some MBA grad, on
| an H1B visa, who is feeling pressure to deliver a grand vision.
| Both to get promoted (eventually) and mainly to keep their job.
| If they get fired, they have 30 days to find a new company that
| will employ them with visa sponsorship. Or they have to move back
| to Hyderabad or whichever Indian city.
|
| 4. Document goes through several rounds of review, where this
| poor PM gets ripped a new one, many many times. In 1:1 with their
| manager, they are coached on having a thick skin and being able
| to handle verbal abuse and being made to feel small. Keep in
| mind, this person doesn't really use Amazon Music themself. They
| just want to turn in their work, get paid, and go home.
|
| 5. Eventually, the product team aligns on increasing
| subscriptions X% YoY and increasing revenue Y%, by end of 2023 or
| mid 2024. Since we have some agreement already about to go in
| effect which will expand the music catalog, let's leverage that.
| We'll restrict the non-paid streaming option, and sell it as
| offering our premium customers (since that's the metric we care
| about) more variety. Indeed we are "delighting customers" and
| "streamlining the music listening and discovery journey" <--- I
| shit you not. This is exactly how these docs are written.
|
| 6. This is reviewed and signed off by layers of directors and
| VPs. Keep in mind none of these people use Amazon Music. If
| anything, some of them might even have disdain for music.
|
| 7. The changes roll out. There's an A/B test, designed in a way
| to not completely obscure reality but still give us what we want.
| End customers unhappy.
|
| 8. Product team works with technical team to look at specific A/B
| test results. Results show subscriptions are actually up. The
| measured increase is statistically significant. Music listening
| time is overall flat or increased slightly as well, but
| definitely not a regression.
|
| 9. Product team celebrates. Product team knows the product is
| worse off, customers are unhappy, etc. but the "metrics" we have
| show a win.
|
| 10. PM hangs out for several years. Realizes they can't get
| promoted to a principal and leaves for another company, or they
| get annoyed with the whole visa back and forth process. They move
| to Canada and find some other Amazon team there, or they just go
| back to India once the initial stocks vest.
|
| 11. Cue the next round of MBA talent, looping through step 1.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Does someone cancelling prime send a message or does that blame
| fall to a different team?
| julianlam wrote:
| Yup, a couple of mind-boggling changes to Prime music here.
|
| Skip limits, inability to rewind, and for some reason the app
| keeps nagging me to grant control over Bluetooth on my device,
| which I keep saying no to.
| gigel82 wrote:
| I was using Amazon Music on my commute. No ads and nice selection
| (often updated), plus included with Prime (which I'm paying for
| anyway).
|
| Removing the ability to skip really sucks but my commute is not
| long enough to justify paying for Spotify or for the premium
| Amazon Music thing. I'm using a few limited playlists on Amazon
| that still allow skipping but may just go back to FM radio.
|
| At this point there are very few benefits we're getting with
| Prime aside from shipping (I watch a couple of shows like The
| Boys, Peripheral, etc.) so I really hate they don't have an
| unbundled Prime just for free shipping.
| themoonisachees wrote:
| Installing YouTube vanced (and yt music vanced) on my phone and
| using YouTube music in the browser with ublock origin has been
| free and fantastic user experience (browsers now support dbus
| commands, so media keys work without needing to install the app
| on desktop). Highly recommend.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Now if they can just bring back two day shipping Prime might be
| worthwhile.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| It never left? I still get next-day most stuff and even same-
| day shipping for some things.
| andrewnicolalde wrote:
| Did Amazon actually drop this? I haven't used prime in a very
| long time but this was pretty much the only reason I bothered.
| TingPing wrote:
| All shipping for me is 2 day. They probably just don't
| explicitly promise it for all regions.
| filoleg wrote:
| Yeah, it seems to be very regional. Here is my personal
| experience over the past year.
|
| In downtown Seattle/SLU area (aka "Amazon rainforest", due
| to that whole area having a very heavy concentration of
| Amazon offices), most packages take around 2 days. In
| Atlanta area (midtown and closeby sorta-suburban areas like
| Little Five and Edgewood), most packages take between same-
| day to 1-2 days (usually a bit less time than in Seattle).
| In NYC (Manhattan specifically), it takes 3-4 days (am yet
| to find a single item on amazon that has a delivery
| estimate less than that for this area).
|
| I bet it has something to do with distribution
| centers/warehouses/last-mile delivery infrastructure. But
| that difference in delivery times between those three
| regions seems to be pretty consistent, from what I've
| observed so far in 2022.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| They quit trying to get me packages in 2 days sometime in
| the pandemic despite being just a few hours away from a
| fulfillment center where some relatives work.
|
| Oddly around the same time shipping seemed to speed up from
| other retailers like Best Buy, Target, Adorama, etc. I buy
| things from Japan on Ebay and get them more quickly than
| packages from AMZN. Every other retailer sees shipping as a
| way to impress me, AMZN takes me for granted because I've
| been paying for Prime for 10 years.
|
| There are accounts that people in the same ZIP codes as
| AMZN fulfillment centers aren't getting 2 day shipping. I
| guess these are rural areas with poor shopping options and
| AMZN doesn't need to be competitive. I'm pretty sure though
| that my congressman gets next day or same day shipping in
| Washington, DC.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Two day shipping expected and several hours away from a
| fulfillment center! Wow.
|
| I agree not to pay prime if they can't deliver. That
| said, I get 0/1/2 day delivery most of the time, but I
| live in a city.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| They have become much more unpredictable for me, some Prime
| items will be delivered same-day, others might take 3-4
| days, my impression is that they expect only a small subset
| of customers to bother complaining, in which case they'll
| be "very sorry" and offer an extra month of Prime or
| something else which doesn't really cost them anything...
| Beaver117 wrote:
| If you aren't already getting regular two or one-day shipping
| it's not cost effective to pay for prime.
| xg15 wrote:
| So to get this right, am Amazon Prime membership will get you
| basically Spotify's free tier, while you need Prime + additional
| $9 a month to get service equivalent to Spotify Premium?
| withinboredom wrote:
| I hate that prompt from Alexa and I'll never pay it. Like why on
| earth would I pay for yet another streaming service?
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(page generated 2022-11-08 23:02 UTC)