Amazon Prime Day Is a Rip-Off, but Amazon Prime Isn't

The beauty of a deal is in the eye of the beholder.

This is never more evident than on Amazon’s yearly “Prime Day” — an opportunity for the e-commerce king to offload inventory and slash the price of its own products in an effort to pad its Prime memberships.

To some customers, a $79.98 hammock — marked down from $120, mind you — is a complete waste of money. To others, it’s a can’t-miss bargain. Scan Amazon today, and you’ll see a flood of these moderately priced frivolous items.

Also Read: Amazon Wants to Pimp Your Home With Its Own 'Geek Squad'

For the most part, the deals are marginal at best. Only 64 of 8,000 “deals” last year were worthwhile last year, according to research from The Wirecutter. The best buys you’ll find on Prime Day are on Amazon devices, as you’d expect.

The company’s Echo home speaker system is half off today, and readers can grab Kindles at a healthy price.

But to reap the rewards of Prime Day, you first need to pony up for Prime. For $99 a year, members get free two-day shipping, access to Amazon’s catalog of movies and TV shows, and unlimited photo storage — among other perks.

Also Read: Amazon to Charge Nearly $3 Million for 30-Second NFL Ads (Report)

For Amazon, Prime Day is genius.

As far as CEO Jeff Bezos is concerned, the name of the game is simple: Acquire as many Amazon Prime members as possible. Preferably, the entire human race. After that, Amazon will look to sign up well-trained dogs and the robots from “West World.”

A decade from now, you’ll be telling your Amazon Echo to summon your Amazon Sedan to shuttle you off to Amazon Whole Foods – and if going outside is too much of a drag, no sweat, because Amazon Drones will deliver your order straight to your house.

The Seattle-based monolith wants everyone inside the Amazon ecosystem of products, and making sure customers are signed up for Prime is the best way to accomplish that goal. It’s what makes Prime Day a no-brainer move. The company has approximately 65 million members, and flashing pseudo-deals is a great way to add more.

Also Read: How Amazon's Whole Foods Deal Is Like Its Entertainment Business

From an entertainment perspective alone, Prime membership will be worth it for many people. Members have access to Amazon’s slate of original shows, including acclaimed series like “I Love Dick,” “Mozart in the Jungle,” and “Transparent.” As Amazon continues to invest in content, these offerings will only expand. And on the music side, Prime members have a million songs to stream.

Factor in the free two-day shipping, and for households that are even moderate Amazon users, Prime starts to look like a solid deal.

'Minority Report' and 18 More Movies That Accurately Predicted Future Tech (Photos)

Steven Spielberg's tech-heavy "Minority Report," starring Tom Cruise, is now 15 years old. Considered one of the most prescient sci-fi movies to grace the big screen, it predicted multiple future innovations, including facial recognition, personalize advertising and predictive crime fighting. In honor of the movie's anniversary, click through here to revisit 18 more movies that accurately peered into the future of technology:
20th Century Fox
We're so used to touch screens at this point -- we use them every day on our smart phones, and even at McDonald's -- that it's easy to forget that Tom Cruise used the technology in "Minority Report."
20th Century Fox
Long before Siri, there was HAL. The ominous yet soft-spoken computer system was the antagonist in 1968's "2001: A Space Odyssey." Stanley Kubrick's sinister talking computer ended up turning on its crew in a Siri user's worst nightmare.
MGM
Tech giant Elon Musk is at the helm of SpaceX, which will send two tourists to space in 2018. But "2001: A Space Odyssey" imagined commercial space travel decades ago.
MGM
Elon Musk, Google and Uber have been duking it out to bring self-driving cars to the masses, but Arnold Schwarzenegger might have jumpstarted the competition when he took a robot-controlled ride in 1990's "Total Recall."
TriStar Pictures
"The Terminator" predicted military drones in 1984 -- long before they were introduced to police forces and militaries.
Orion Pictures
Virtual reality is taking over the tech scene. You can play games in VR, watch movies and experience Coachella all from the comfort of your living room. But Hollywood predicted we'd have VR more than 20 years ago in 1992's "Lawnmower Man."
New Line Cinema
The 1982 cult classic "Blade Runner," starring Harrison Ford, predicted digital billboards, which you can see now all over the country, from Times Square in New York to the Vegas strip.
Warner Bros.
Remember when the TSA rolled out invasive body scanners and a lot of people freaked out? "Airplane II: The Sequel" imagined airport scanners that revealed a person's naked body to agents.
Paramount Pictures
Just like other industries, robots are taking over jobs in the military, too. There are even listicles outlining the "coolest" military robots. "Short Circuit" predicted this technology with the prototype robot Number 5.
Tristar pictures
Woody Allen's "Sleeper" had robots assisting surgeons by offering advice during surgery. Today, doctors use robotics to add precision to procedures.
United Artists
The beloved 1960s cartoon "The Jetsons" -- which was made into a movie in 1990 -- predicted the use of robots to clean homes. They had a robotic vacuum and a robotic maid. Can you say Roomba?
ABC
In vitro fertilization and at-home genetic testing are common place these days. "Gattaca," with Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, predicted this tech in 1997.
Columbia Pictures
3D printing is used today in industries ranging from aerospace to medical. In "Weird Science," the boys 3D printed an actual girl.

Also Read: From ‘E.T.’ to ‘Explorers': When Kids Ruled the Big Screen (Photos)
Universal Pictures
We know how dangerous cyber warfare is, and countless companies have been hacked recently. 1983's "WarGames" with Matthew Broderick is all about a kid who walks the line between gaming and reality.
MGM
FaceTime, and Skype before it, are commonplace today. But it was cool new technology in 1989's "Back to the Future Part II."
Universal Pictures
There are a ton of different options out there for smart watches. This was predicted in 1990's "Dick Tracy."
Touchstone Pictures
It's so easy to order Domino's online -- you can even watch how far along in the process your pizza is. In 1995's "The Net" with Sandra Bullock, they showed ordering pizza online for the first time.
Columbia Pictures
Tinder, Bumble and OKCupid are only a few of the many, many online dating options out there. But Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks were on the forefront of the online dating trend in "You've Got Mail."
Warner Bros.
VR porn is growing in popularity. Or as it's called in 1993's "Demolition Man" -- "digitized transference of sexual energies."
Warner Bros.
The 1929 movie "Woman in the Moon" predicted space travel. Obviously, we hit that milestone decades ago. And hey, they even got the shuttle shape right!

Also Read: ‘Top Gun': 30 Things You Didn’t Know About the Tom Cruise Classic (Photos)
Fritz Lang Film

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From robotic vacuums to smart watches, Hollywood got these tech trends right

Steven Spielberg's tech-heavy "Minority Report," starring Tom Cruise, is now 15 years old. Considered one of the most prescient sci-fi movies to grace the big screen, it predicted multiple future innovations, including facial recognition, personalize advertising and predictive crime fighting. In honor of the movie's anniversary, click through here to revisit 18 more movies that accurately peered into the future of technology:

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'Minority Report' and 18 More Movies That Accurately Predicted Future Tech (Photos)

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