Marco Arment commenting on Amazon Prime and larger issues:
In the last few years, Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter have all made huge attempts to move into major parts of each others’ businesses, usually at the detriment of their customers or users.
This is one of Arment’s best posts in a while. His analysis of Twitter and Facebook is especially spot on. Good read.
I don’t agree with his notion that Amazon is going to make it harder to be a retail only customer, but I agree that certainly don’t want you to be a retail only customer.
I largely don’t care about the price increase to Prime, and have never used the video services — but I would use the video services if they were a channel on my Apple TV. I think the key that Amazon is missing right now is ease of access. People don’t use things that are hard to use, but Amazon keeps thinking they will, so they pump out tablets and video services that no one really pays attention too. ((Yes, you see people all the time with Kindle Fires, I’m sure.))