I like Prime. It's a pretty good deal if you happen to order a lot of stuff from them. I had 22 orders last year. Shipping costs 7-8 bucks a pop, so I would have ended up spending close to 200 extra bucks just on shipping .vs using Prime. Not to mention it's 2 day shipping .vs 3-5 days with standard ground shipping. But, there's always a catch.

If you share a Prime account, don't expect extras - for example, my wife is the "owner" of our Prime account and I'm in the "family". I get 2-day free shipping, but that's it. No video, no music, no kindle lending library, nothing extra.

I've noticed Amazon becoming less and less forthcoming about items being sold by third parties up until you check out. So, that's extra neat thing you added to your order will arrive 3-4 days later than everything else you ordered. Oh, and you have to pay for the shipping too.

On occasion, other sites are plain cheaper, no matter if you have Prime or not. monoprice.com beats Amazon for USB cables, HDMI, pretty much all cable-flavored things. It's saved me 40% over Amazon, even accounting for paid shipping. Bookmark that site. You will need it.

Some of their other programs are still for-pay, no matter if you have Prime or not. Kindle Unlimited (a godsend to heavy readers like me) is still 10 bucks extra a month, no matter if you have Prime or not.

So, you take the good with the bad. At the moment it's mostly good.