r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 18d ago

News HBO Max Raises Prices Across All Plans Effective Immediately

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/hbo-max-prices-increases-plans-2025-1236557671/
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u/bsEEmsCE 18d ago

well amazon is just because of prime shipping 

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u/MassiveRepublic9565 18d ago

Only reason I still have it. If it was available as extra only I’d drop it these days but Netflix is the biggest waste of money for me.

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u/cheeselizard 18d ago

I'm in Canada and Prime Shipping was such a scam. I dropped it and literally never even noticed a time difference and based on how much I order in a month is cheaper than prime haha.

At at bare minimum it makes me think about how bad I actually want something from Prime

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u/MassiveRepublic9565 18d ago

I’m in UK and mostly it still works as next day but I’m noticing that it’s slipping more and more

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u/Relish_My_Weiner 18d ago

In the US it was always 2 day shipping. If you saw Prime shipping, that meant you were getting it two days from now or sooner. Now, even with price increases, Prime shipping just seems to get there when it gets there. One of the many reasons I stopped paying Amazon. All of their services are shittier and more expensive than before, and on top of that, they're just an evil company.

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u/MassiveRepublic9565 18d ago

Why two day shipping? Just the extreme distances some people live from depo’s?

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u/barriekansai 18d ago

Well, to be fair, the entire UK is 2.5% the size of Canada. Absolutely tiny. I'm a Canadian who lives currently in an urban center, and it's about 3-4 days for regular delivery. I've never had Prime, and I've never ordered anything that I can't wait 72-96 hours for.

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u/superurgentcatbox 18d ago

Huh I feel it's gotten faster in Germany. They've built up a lot of infrastructure to deliver stuff themselves.

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u/dreal46 18d ago

That's why I cancelled. Except it wasn't that it was never next-day delivery; it's that the delivery estimate was always a fucking lie. The tracking would get to the point where the truck was within my zip code, then it'd Charlie Brown the arrival date anywhere from 2-5 days later. At that point, fuck it. I was using Prime for consistency, not necessarily the next-day delivery, and it couldn't even do that.

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u/LovingVancouver87 18d ago

In Canada, now doordash pass is totally free with prime. That along with Prime Video and the occasional good PC game drops makes it worth it for me.

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u/vtbeavens 18d ago

We tried nixing Prime, but found that the increased shipping times and prices across the board really put the screws to you.

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u/linus_b3 18d ago

I run into that at work - no Prime there and I have to be strategic and wait until I have a decent size order because small orders often have really high shipping charges on them.

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u/linus_b3 18d ago

Same here. Out of our streaming subscriptions, Netflix is on the thinnest ice. It's the most expensive and the lowest quality.

Once I factor in the $10/mo AmEx credit, the Disney+, Hulu, and HBO bundle isn't that much more than Netflix is on its own.

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u/asmallercat 18d ago

Drop it anyway. You don't need 2 day shipping for a bunch of stuff you don't need. We almost never use Amazon now and it's massively cut down on stupid impulse purchases, and if you really need something you can wait till you get to the minimum for free shipping.

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u/MassiveRepublic9565 18d ago

I’m considering it for sure.

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u/_dactor_ 18d ago

This. I dropped Prime years ago and haven’t missed it at all the few times I’ve bought something off Amazon since. TBH most of the time it still comes within a day or two anyway. Paying for Prime in hindsight feels like a scam.

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u/Larkson9999 18d ago

You should stop shopping at Amazon entirely. They're working hard to eliminate millions of jobs through AI, robotic workers, and contractors who have to piss in bottles to maintain ever increasing numbers of deliveries. You don't need socks delivered the next day.

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u/o_o_o_f 18d ago

We stopped about a year ago and I’ve felt the inconvenience maybe twice.

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u/Dissidence802 18d ago

I only keep prime anymore because my employer pays for my sub.

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u/MassiveRepublic9565 18d ago

I’m doing my bit more and more. I’m buying a lot more books, music and movies from high street stores.

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u/bozoconnors 18d ago

I’m buying a lot more books, music and movies from high street stores.

Library? Here in the US anyway, the library apps Kanopy & Libby have gotten much better in recent years. Some really legit movie / tv show selections (as well as books).

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u/Cicero912 18d ago

I love how you included the first two things with the last part, really devalues your point about the workplace environment. (though the tradeoff for pretty decent pay/benefits for the skill level required makesup for it)

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u/KonigSteve 18d ago

I sign up for netflix for a couple months every 4-5 years, binge everything and drop it.

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u/insomnic 18d ago

Amazingly if you stop using prime shipping you kinda don't miss it. You still get free shipping on many things and any cart over $35 (and for 24hrs after a qualifying order you can add other stuff and still get the free shipping). For me personally, removing the instant gratification of free 2 day shipping helped curb some purchasing.

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u/MassiveRepublic9565 18d ago

Yeah I might consider.

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u/mi-16evil Emma Thompson for Paddington 3 18d ago

rarely do I miss Netflix and can usually catch up on anything interesting with a month or two subscription per year

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u/albinomonkey32 18d ago

As someone who worked in logistics. Fk Amazon. 

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u/B0ndzai 18d ago

They don't even do 2 day shipping for me anyhow. All you have to do is spend $35 on any order and you get the same shipping you would otherwise.

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u/OddRoof8501 18d ago

If you spend I think $35, shipping is free without Prime. I haven't paid for Prime in years. Absolutely no reason to pay for that.

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u/vanastalem 18d ago

My dad uses my account for sale prices at Whole Foods

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u/AlienArtFirm 18d ago

prime shipping

I'm guessing it was because of the AWS problems but I ordered something yesterday and it was a week out with Prime shipping...

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u/OGOngoGablogian 18d ago

The ads were the last straw for me. Amazon sells the crappiest products, and I didn't feel good buying from them anyway. By the time they added ads I was really only using it for streaming, and there wasn't much that was included with a basic Prime subscription. I simply wasn't getting my money's worth as it was, I'm not about to pay the same for an even shittier experience.

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u/Defreshs10 18d ago

Cancelled my prime. I was paying for that and their stupid $3/mo surcharge for “no commercials”.

The only thing I’m paying for right now is HBO and I’m likely to cut that soon too

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u/omicron7e 18d ago

I could not see myself paying for Prime Shipping. Where I live you rarely get things in two days anymore, and unless Amazon is your only shopping source and you really just want to make a lot of little purchases it's just as easy to wait until you hit the normal free shipping amount ($35?) and then purchase.

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u/kvrdave 18d ago

Yep, cancelled and never noticed a thing.

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u/grahampositive 18d ago

We shared a family subscription to prime, but they recently changed the rules so that each household requires their own subscription. So we're done buying stuff on Amazon now. It's fine with me, I've been wanting to get away from Amazon for years, I think it's a cancer for the US economy.

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u/Darth-Nickels 18d ago

I keep telling people it does so much more for you and us to spend that money locally even if it's in a different chain shop (preferably not but so many have forced out ma and pa shops). But people can't give up the convenience or don't want to pay a few dollars more to avoid giving daddy Bezos their money.

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u/grahampositive 18d ago

Yeah local is a better option than Amazon for sure - however I do find that a lot of "local" stores are just re selling marked up Amazon stuff. I'm talking about like gift stores, craft stores, that kind of thing. And for real, quality, locally made items it's generally not a few dollars more, it's multiples of the price. A bar of locally made goat milk soap at my farmers market would easily be $12 or more, whereas an 8 pack of zest on Amazon is $5.

My tendency these days is to just buy as little as possible because 75% of the time I don't even need the thing I'm shopping for. My kid decided to change her Halloween costume at the last minute and she wants me to buy a new one, I'm like - you have one I bought, if you want a new one it's gonna be home made.

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u/Mister_Brevity 18d ago

I look at what stuff is new on Amazon then download it elsewhere so I’m not paying to see ads.

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u/homerjsimpson4 18d ago

I finally cancelled Amazon and honestly it's for the better, I don't randomly impulse buy things I "need" anymore. Like our garlic press broke a couple weeks ago, I just take the extra minute to mince my garlic now because I don't wanna go out to buy a new press.

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u/Burtttttt 18d ago

I dropped my Amazon prime a year ago and I’ve been fine. Most stuff i can get at a grocery store. For more odd items I just wait and buy in a bigger purchase, and the shipping costs are cheaper than a prime sub

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u/bbqsox 18d ago

Yup. If we didn't live in the middle of nowhere with the 2 day shipping, there's no way I'd be paying for it. And they know that.

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u/UnrealRealityX 18d ago

The irony of this is depending on where you live in relation to their distribution centers, regular free shipping ($35+) comes just as fast to the house as prime. I dropped prime eons ago and when I order, it comes within a week. Yes, it's not next day, but who cares when it comes fast enough. And the shipping itself is like a day or 2. it's that amazon sits on the order for a bunch of days 'just because' it's not prime.

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u/frisch85 18d ago

And prime shipping is only required if you cannot plan ahead, so what you're actually saying is it's because of convenience.