100 Million Prime members (disclosure: I'm one.)

[fjtorres]

As to 5G bandwidth capabilities and usage caps, to be commercially viable 5G will be expected to support 4K HDR video streaming. Today that requires a sustained connection, per customer, of 25Megabits per second:

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/13444

That works out to 3.125 megabytes per second and 11.25 gigabytes per hour.
A customer streaming a two hour movie each evening will be consuming over 20GB daily and well over 600GB a month.

This does not require 5G but represents the floor that any 5G service will have to exceed to be competitive in the next decade. Yes, this will require massive investments and deep pocket players but there is no shortage of money. Existing wireless providers are already spending tens of billions upgrading and the ones unable/unwilling to do so (T-mobile) are looking to sell to those willing to ante up before their current infrastructure investment is devalued.
There will be consolidation just as there is consolidation in publishing.
It is the inevitable result of all tech disruptions.
Just as avid reader adoption to ebooks is disrupting the tradebook industry, the transition to streaming as the *primary* means of video entertainment consumption is disrupting the TV and movie industry.

In the next decade Amazon's investment in Prime video will be seen as prescient as their investments in Kindle, AWS, and Alexa. Mostly because the 100 million subscribers are financing and justifying the billions Amazon is pouring into Amazon Studios for movies and TV series they control instead of just licensing them from Hollywood.

They're not alone.
Netflix is doing it.
Hulu is doing it.
Sony is quietly doing it. (Check out CRACKLE originals.)
Disney and TimeWarner (regardless of who ends up owning them) are doing it.
Even Apple is (belatedly) getting into it.

Expect more mergers between content owners and tech companies.
Facebook and Google will need to buy up the likes of Discovery, Lifetime, and Hallmark if they are to compete.

Whole new ballgame with less room for middlemen and pilot fish.
Just like publishing.

[alism]

Amazon is raising their price for Prime from $99 to $119 starting May 11.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by alism

Amazon is raising their price for Prime from $99 to $119 starting May 11.

Still a fairly good deal, I think.

EDIT: I just looked at my account and it said I would be charged $99 in mm/dd/2019 (Month and Day redacted). I don't see any notices on a price change. Do you have something to support this?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by alism

Amazon is raising their price for Prime from $99 to $119 starting May 11.

Details:

https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-to-...o-119-from-99/

If your renewal is before june 16th you're safe for another year.
But no prepayments allowed.

Edit: I'm July.

[Apparition B5]

With the monthly price increase back in February, it was only a matter of time.

[tubemonkey]

If Amazon spins Prime Video out as a separate service, I'm cancelling.
.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by alism

Amazon is raising their price for Prime from $99 to $119 starting May 11.

Yep, I just saw it.

Amazon hikes Prime fee to $119

amazon announced a 20% price increase in its annual Amazon Prime fee, from $99 to $119, beginning May 11 for new customers. Existing customers renewing will begin paying the higher fee in June, the company said on its quarterly earnings call.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Details:

https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-to-...o-119-from-99/

If your renewal is before june 16th you're safe for another year.
But no prepayments allowed.

Edit: I'm July.

Yeah, I saw that after I posted my question. $99/year is better, but I think $120/year is still a reasonable price to keep my unlimited photo storage, music service, free video, family account sharing, etc. I think I'd rather have a price increase than a cut in services.

At what price does it become untenable? I'm not sure, but for me, it isn't $120.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

If Amazon spins Prime Video out as a separate service, I'm cancelling.
.

Yeah, that's my feeling too, but I haven't heard any rumors to that effect.

[issybird]

I don't have Prime nor do I shop at Whole Foods (none here), but I've been told that Whole Foods is cancelling its affinity program which included on-line coupons and making it a Prime-only benefit.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Yeah, that's my feeling too, but I haven't heard any rumors to that effect.

It's the other shoe that'll drop. I have no proof, but I can "feel" it about to happen.

[Catlady]

I'm not happy about a price increase, but it translates to $1.67/month more. Not a dealbreaker.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I'm not happy about a price increase, but it translates to $1.67/month more. Not a dealbreaker.

I can live with the price increase just as long as Amazon doesn't remove any of the current services that are available to Prime members.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I can live with the price increase just as long as Amazon doesn't remove any of the current services that are available to Prime members.

I would think they would add services. The whole point of Prime is to hook the customer into the Amazon ecosystem.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I'm not happy about a price increase, but it translates to $1.67/month more. Not a dealbreaker.

Yeah, but it's like the frog in the pot. A 20% increase is significant and parsing it in terms of monthly cost when you have to pay it all at once is playing Amazon's game for them. Why not put it on the basis of less than 6¢ a day? All those literal nickels and dimes do add up.

I already don't have Prime so clearly I didn't see the value at $99. But presumably each Prime member has their personal line where the value would no longer exist. However, inertia and the slowly hotter water will keep a lot of people from taking a hard look at it.