Amazon’s Primevil

Jerk of all trades, master of none.

Today, Amazon is releasing Prime Music, a new music subscription service tied to the (now) $99 per year Amazon Prime service.

I hate the use of the word “evil” when it’s used to describe corporations. I’d prefer to reserve it for things, like decaf coffee, or people, like Justin Bieber.

So, no, Amazon isn’t evil in the all-too-common sense of “I don’t like Amazon, so they’re evil.” Amazon is a company trying to make money. Unscrupulous maybe, but not evil.

Unless you’re a content provider. In that case, Amazon Prime might be considered evil in a very Kevin O’Leary kind of way: Jeff Bezos is using your content to sell Amazon’s services.

This is why Amazon is currently fighting with Hatchette and playing hardball with Warner Home Video.

Here’s what the Verge has to say about the newest Prime offering:

Prior to the service’s launch, reports claimed that Amazon’s streaming service wouldn’t be offering current hits. I mentioned this to Boom, and he confirmed that you won’t hear the latest releases on Prime Music. His justification was that today’s pop often doesn’t hold much staying power, and he seemed confident that customers won’t complain about the selection they’re greeted with.

1 MILLION DOESN’T SOUND LIKE MUCH, BUT WHAT IF IT’S JUST ENOUGH?

The reason 1 million doesn’t sound like much is because it’s 1/20th of what Spotify offers. It’s because it’s a small subset of the larger catalogues of the music corporations that did sign deals. It’s because Universal (the largest music corporation in the world) has (thus far) refused to sign a deal of any kind.

I’m not sure any company in the world gets away with these compromises more than Amazon does, but that’s because everyone looks at Prime from the wrong perspective:

“I already pay $99 for Prime to get free shipping, so the fact that I now get 1 million songs for free means I can overlook the 19 million songs I don’t have access to.”

Leaving aside the difference between “a good deal” and “free,” the counter argument is: “You get what you pay for.”

The fact is, Amazon’s services are all limited precisely because the $99 we’re paying for Prime is so low. Amazon can rationalize the gaps in the Prime Music catalogue all they want, but there’s no way to argue that “less choice” is better for consumers. (Don’t ask me why an outlet like The Verge is making Amazon’s rationalizations for them, though.)

Meanwhile, Amazon — despite the fact that they love you and have nothing but your best interests at heart and live to please you—cannot escape the fact that they’re a publicly traded company that has to answer to shareholders, and they’ve backed themselves into a negotiating corner with Prime.

This means that until prime is $199 (or more) a year, you’re never going to get the best services from Amazon. You’re always going to get a compromised version of a better competing service, because the content providers aren’t in business to sell Amazon’s services.

Maybe for consumers that’s enough: A small taste of the good life. The trouble is, as Amazon adds more and more bundled services to Prime, they’re more and more constrained by that $99 per year per customer revenue. At some point, the services either get worse, or the price goes up.

Even when it comes to books, historically one of Amazon’s strongest offerings, publishers are starting to call bullshit on Amazon’s tactics. I would argue that Amazon’s all-in strategy with Prime is starting to bear fruit in the worst possible way.

You may love Amazon, but content providers love money and, for them, giving it away to benefit another company is evil.

Keep an eye on the sky because, at some point, that other shoe is going to drop.