Get Thee Behind Me, Amazon Prime

There's no doubt about it: Jeff Bezos and his demonic minions know exactly what they are doing.

I've asked you guys to do your book ordering from Barnes and Noble, rather than Amazon.com. I do it myself, but sometimes I stray from the path of righteousness.

I've never been tempted to join Amazon Prime, but I know about it. Just as you probably do. Prime is a program where the customer gets free two day shipping on all qualifying purchases. This includes basically everything that Amazon stocks and does not sell through second party vendors.

When I saw that I had an opportunity to get a free month of Amazon Prime, I could not resist. I signed up and I immediately went into my preferences and disabled the automatic charge of $79.00 for a year of it.

I know that authors and publishers don't like to hear this, but I'm cutting waaay back on my book buying. I've spent way too much cash in my life on them, and in many, too many, cases, I never even read the books.

Still, it's hard to resist for a guy like me. A guy that practically worships the printed word. And recorded music. Movies.

They have it set up so that you can order with One Click. Add the quick shipping to Amazon's already desirable discounts and I see that this Prime thing can be dangerous. It's a constant temptation that I, for one, do not need.

I did order a couple of books this weekend. Though I am cutting back, I still read new fiction and support certain writers. I bought trade editions of Brian Keene's Take the Long Way Home, and Edward Lee's Going Monstering. Sure enough, like clockwork, they arrived today. Just in time.

Like I said, these people know what they are doing.

Amazon makes things easy. Easy for customers, and easy for authors to get their books up on Kindle. Relatively easy, anyway. Ever hear of that saying about how the road to damnation is a smooth path that is ripe with forbidden fruit? And how the path to Paradise is rocky and arduous?

I think things are getting too easy for everyone. A little effort is good for people. So many young adults I know have such a sickening sense of entitlement. Their attitude is, I want it and I want it NOW. Gadgets and 'apps' for everything.

A click and a mail dropoff will never take the place of a family outing to a bookstore. It's nice to search online for records and CDs, but I much prefer digging through stacks of dusty old record albums. It's harder, sure, but when you make that awesome find, it's sweeter because you accomplished something difficult. You worked for it. The satisfaction is greater.

At least I think it is. Probably a lot would disagree. Most people I meet are ridiculously lazy.

Now Amazon has announced its latest attempt to take over the world. It's the Amazon Cloud Player. Five GBs of free music storage that is easily accessed anywhere there is a computer. Which is everywhere these days. And, of course, when you buy MP3s from Amazon, you get more storage. I, of course, will be passing on this wonderful new app. I'm going back to vinyl records.

I'm not getting Amazon Prime either. I'm only human. I don't need that kind of evil temptation in my life.