Last night I was surfing Amazon MP3 for some new music, nothing exciting really. While extremely rare, I decided to splurge and buy an entire album. Before I had even begun the track downloads, I had a new email from Amazon. To be exact, it was an email stating:
Your recent order entitles you to a promotional code that you can apply on your next qualifying order.
Now, I get these promotion emails on a fairly regular basis from Amazon, but this one caught my eye. Since I spent more than $7.99 on Amazon MP3, I have received a $4.00 promotional code towards
Amazon Video On Demand. I have not used VOD and I have no intention of doing so. If I’m going to spend money on something, either it is a service (like internet access) or a tangible product. MP3s are tangible in my book, but streaming on demand is not, so I will not buy it.
That being what it is, $4 from an $8 order (granted mine was $10) is a 50% kick back. While this isn’t the largest credit I’ve gotten, it certainly is the highest percentage. The last promotional code I received was $5 in MP3s for a $60 video game. I like the credits that stay in the same categories (new video game gets you a discount on a future game or game related purchase), but I seem to get a lot of them for their Video On Demand service. Maybe I’m misreading it, but I think there is desperation in Amazon’s pushing of VOD.
Maybe they need to be desperate. Maybe they are having a hard time selling you something (say Fringe Season 2 in HD) you don’t own for $47.99, when you can actually own it (Fringe Season 2 on Blu Ray) for $48.99. As much as it pains me to say this, I’d rather use iTunes for my video needs. At least that way I have the content on my own hard drive (though having it DRM’d isn’t of much use).