Since several of us commented on this topic in another Prime thread, I thought I'd start this thread.

I haven't checked out Amazon in a couple weeks, but from what I've gleaned from other threads, they're continuing their apparently somewhat randomized Prime Exclusive nonsense, where some stuff you go to buy say you have to have Prime to buy it (at all, at any price).

That seems like a pretty bad tactic to me. I assume they're trying to convince people to join the Prime subscription, but it makes them look like a bully or extortionist. It's turning me off to them, and even pushing me toward wondering whether I should start moving from buying and owning so many discs to instead streaming most things. Ironically, that could actually nudge me toward subscribing to Prime. Could they be that devious?

Fortunately, everything I've seen has only been Prime Exclusive for a temporary few hours or days, so if you're patient you can get around it. But it still leaves a bad taste in many of us.

the lumpen proletariat can gaze with longing through the bars surrounding the palace, as the elite buy grave of the fireflies for 9.99 and dance with wild abandon.

let them eat cake!

Cool it, the French Revolution didn't work out that well for anyone.

Amazon once used media to lure certain demographics and grow their customer base. If they could get away with it without causing an uproar, Amazon likely would drop their media sections. They go out of their way to hide the physical music section these days and that will soon happen to DVDs and Blu-rays. They eye Apple and their closed ecosystem with lust. They want rich customers watching their Amazon Instant Video purchases on their Kindle, while eliminating the vestiges of media sales.

More troubling is that Amazon basically killed off all Internet competition for physical media. If they decided to drop it the landscape would change overnight for the worse. There are no alternatives, physical brick and mortar retailers continue to drop physical media.