The secret is, we all still pay for shipping somehow - Amazon is just huge enough that they can dollar-cost-average the transactions where they lose money on shipping with the ones where they make money on shipping. They can also take less profit per-item since their volume is so huge. And as long as they come out ahead overall, they’re good.
They actually did that with Kindle ebooks for a long time. They’d sell any NYT bestseller for $9.99. Even the ones where their cost was more than $9.99. They just applied the extra profits from the ones they could get for substantially less than $9.99, and dollar-cost-averaged across the category. As long as they were making money overall, they were good.
all kindle books were $9.99 in the beginning. thats all they are really worth as you don’t really own them. when the publishers forced amazon to charge more, I quit buying kindle books.
Were they? I seem to remember more varied pricing, even in the beginning. Either way, the NYT bestseller thing was definitely the case as I remember reading an article about it. Somebody interviewed an exec from a publishing house and asked them how they felt about Amazon’s ebook pricing, and the exec said “well, they don’t sell our books for $9.99 - we charge them more than that”. The reporter then showed them Amazon’s site where that exact book was $9.99.
I started with the 2nd gen kindle so maybe I missed the very beginning. I remember never paying more than $9.99 and it was huge deal when Hatchett and the other publishers strong armed amazon into raising the price. they lost my $$ with this move. Im not going license electrons for more than $10
Thought I would add my Subscription review process.
I create a Reminder that will pop up 7 days prior to the Subscription renewal date, giving me time to make a decision on whether I will continue or not.
Here is the code, you will need to Create a “Subscriptions” Reminders list.
####################################################################
# Title: Create New Subscription Reminder
#################################################################################
#
# Iain Dunn
# Logic2Design.com
# logic2design@icloud.com
#
# Inspired by code written by Michael Kummer michaelkummer.com
try
set defaultReminderTime to "9"
# Reminder Name
display dialog "What is the Subscription you want to be reminded about?
(leave blank to use clipboard)" default answer ""
set reminder_title to text returned of result --get input
# Reminders List
set RemindersList to "Subscriptions" as text
#Follow up Time
(choose from list {"1 Month", "3 Months", "6 Months", "12 Months", "Custom"} default items "12 Months" OK button name "Create" with prompt "Set follow-up time" with title "Create Reminder")
set reminderDate to result as text
# Exit if user clicks Cancel
if reminderDate is "false" then return
if reminderDate = "1 Month" then
set remindMeDate to (current date) + 23 * days
set time of remindMeDate to 60 * 60 * defaultReminderTime
else if reminderDate = "3 Months" then
set remindMeDate to (current date) + 83 * days
set time of remindMeDate to 60 * 60 * defaultReminderTime
else if reminderDate = "6 Months" then
set remindMeDate to (current date) + 173 * days
set time of remindMeDate to 60 * 60 * defaultReminderTime
else if reminderDate = "12 Months" then
set remindMeDate to (current date) + 358 * days
set time of remindMeDate to 60 * 60 * defaultReminderTime
else if reminderDate = "Custom" then
set remindMeDate to (date (text returned of (display dialog (localized string "Enter the due date (e.g. 1/4/2017):") default answer ""))) - 7 * days
set time of remindMeDate to 60 * 60 * defaultReminderTime
end if
# Set Reminders Note
set dueDate to (short date string of (remindMeDate + 7 * days))
set reminder_note to "The Subscription will renew on " & dueDate
# Save Reminder
tell application "Reminders"
activate
tell list RemindersList
set reminder_id to make new reminder with properties {remind me date:remindMeDate, name:reminder_title, body:reminder_note} --create reminder
end tell
end tell
#Error Message
on error
display dialog "Oops, something went wrong." --throw an error if something goes wrong
end try
I decided to cancel my Mind Node subscription. I’ve tried several times to make mind maps work fo rme. They look pretty but they take far too much time to create and I can’t keep them accurate. I just don’t think that way. After triing several mind mapping tools thinking the issue was with the tool I’ve decided nope, the issue is me. I don’t need a mind mapping tool at all.
I try to avoid subscriptions as much as I can but I STILL have 14 of them!
I never embraced Mind Mapping either. I think the schema works well for things like networking topology or circuit design but the human brain within the limitation of “branches”
I think modern tools are trying a more human centric design of vast interconnections and make sense of the important stuff.
Canceled:
AppleOne Premier
Drafts
SiriusXM
DayOne
SkillShare
FeedWrangler (service died)
Added:
Fantastical
Still going:
Apple Music
2TB iCloud Storage
Apollo
TextExpander
1Password
Fiery Feeds
Radarscope
Airmail
Copy Em
Backblaze
Mullvad VPN
Usenet
Carrot
Adobe CC (tried to cancel but they gave me $15.99 deal)
Envato Elements
