One of my first encounters with this type of service occurred back in the early 2000′s, when I signed up for a free Xdrive account. This now defunct service was one of the initial pioneers in online data storage, offering consumers free online storage space to house their data. Xdrive provided software that integrated with Windows Explorer, allowing for a seamless user experience. The online storage simply showed up on the PC as an additional drive letter, the X drive. It was easy to use and worked relatively well.

Interestingly enough, I didn’t use Xdrive for file sharing, data backup or any of the other most common modern day uses for online storage. Years ago, we didn’t have Terabyte hard drives available and purchasing additional storage was expensive. I used my Xdrive simply to add additional storage space to my PC.

Advances in online data storage and cloud services

These days there are a plethora of online storage, backup and cloud services that you can use to store your data. Many of these are cross-platform, providing access to your files across your entire range of computing gear; PCs, smartphones, tablets and other devices.

The most common use for online file storage is data backups. Personal computers utilize hard disk drives and flash storage disks for housing local data and these storage devices have limited lifespans. A hard drive will always fail, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. And when your hard drive does fail, do you want to lose those priceless family photos or your other important documents stored on the local drive? Subscribing to an online backup service can ensure that your data is kept safe. Many of these services provide software that will automatically backup your data for you, making it dead simple to protect your files from local drive failure.

Additional advantages to using online storage services include the ability to collaborate with multiple users, document versioning, file sharing and access to your data from any Internet connected location.

Visit http://filestorageonline.net/ to learn more about online storage providers for you or your business.

It’s a disturbing new trend in the world of technology retailing — Rebates — but these aren’t the rebates from years ago… these rebates come in the form of prepaid credit/debit cards.

No longer will you receive that fancy paper check in the mail that can be deposited directly into a bank account.

The old paper rebate checks were a treat to discover in your mailbox, as if you were getting a paycheck back for making your tech purchase, albeit a small one. But alas, these days that doesn’t happen anymore, as most rebates now come in the form of a square piece of plastic that is “preloaded” with your rebate dollars. I’ve seen Visa, MasterCard and American Express prepaid cards.

What’s wrong with a debit/credit card pre-loaded with funds? You ask…

Well, you might think that a debit card loaded with funds would be more convenient to use compared to a paper check, but in most cases, I’ve found the opposite to be true. With a paper check, you deposit it and you’re done. Quick and easy. Refund received and added to your account balance.

With a prepaid card, you can run into all sorts of little snafus. I’ve found that many retailers and registers can have trouble processing these prepaid cards. Sometimes they can’t use them at all, other times they can only charge a certain amount to the card even though you might have more funds available on it. There are many hassles to be had.

If you don’t spend the entire amount of the card funds in one transaction, you’re then inconvenienced with trying to remember what the remaining balance is and to find a place to use that balance. It’s easy to forget what the remaining balance is and also easy to forget to even use the card again.

Why the switch to prepaid rebate cards?

So why have all these companies switched to using prepaid cards versus paper checks for rebates? It’s gotta be more expensive for the fulfillment of a prepaid card versus just mailing out a plain ole paper check, right? Initially, yes, but you’ve got to look at the entire picture of consumer behavior. I believe that many of these prepaid cards are getting lost, aren’t getting used or their entire balance is never fully spent. When you don’t spend the entire balance, the issuing company can recoup some costs, because it is as if they never paid you that amount. It’s a clever strategy by the rebate issuers to try and reduce their payout costs.

How do you get the most out of your prepaid rebate cards?

Spend them and spend them right away! Try not to leave a balance on the card. Use it at a gas station to fill up your vehicle in order to use up all the funds in one go. Keep track of your balances and be diligent about utilizing the entire amount.

I certainly wish that paper rebate checks were still the norm, but since they are not, I’ll be making the best of these pesky prepaid rebate cards.

Update: As @rax0r pointed out on Twitter, it might be worth it for you to get a free Square card reader and account to cash out your prepaid cards on your own. Square charges a fee of $0.15 + 2.75% per transaction.

Prepaid rebate card solution. Get a Square account and pay yourself the cash (less the transaction).

— raxor (@rax0r) May 14, 2012

The online streaming behemoth Netflix has recently forayed into new territory: exclusive, original programming. With content licensing fees continuing to climb and cable networks frightened of Netflix cannibalizing their bread and butter (pay TV subscriptions), Netflix has been prudent to explore alternative content acquisition options.

It’s no doubt that creating good content can be a pricey proposition, but if you requisition your own content, you get the bonus of exclusive availability, with the content only being available to Netflix customers. This situation, in effect, puts Netflix head to head with other entities seeking content, such as the cable TV networks. Netflix is even outbidding some of these networks on acquiring the rights to this new exclusive content.

I was intrigued and curious about the new exclusive content, so I checked out Netflix’s first offering, the show “Lilyhammer”.

Lilyhammer stars ‘Steven Van Zandt’, well known for his wise guy roles, as the character Frank Tagliano, a New York City Mafia “fixer”. Frank is quite happy with his place in the Big Apple organization until his boss bites the dust and a “bean counter” becomes the new head honcho. After Frank narrowly survives an assassination attempt, he decides to roll over on his new hefe, testifying for the Feds in exchange for a relocation to the sleepy, snow-covered town of Lilyhammer in Norway.

Frank brings his big city ways and Mafia attitude with him to Lilyhammer and it’s not long before he establishes himself as an important figure in town who can make things happen (mostly for his own benefit).

My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the Lilyhammer series. It had me laughing a LOT more than I expected it would. We’re now hoping for a season 2!

More Netflix exclusive content is on the way!

Netflix will be continuing this exclusive content trend, bringing some compelling new shows to its subscribers in the near future, including House of Cards (a political drama starring Kevin Spacey), Orange is the New Black (a comedy from Jenji Kohan, the creator of Weeds), Hemlock Grove (a horror series directed and produced by Eli Roth) and a brand new season of the show Arrested Development, which will only be found on Netflix.

All of this exclusive content has rekindled my interest in Netflix, but the question is, how will the Hollywood movie and TV studios react? Netflix is now analogous to a premium pay TV channel. Will this new angle of competition make it tougher (or more expensive) for Netflix to acquire the rights to stream Hollywood’s content? At this time it’s not clear, but this is certainly causing quite the battle on the “pay TV” and content access front. It will be interesting to see how Netflix, the pay TV providers and the Hollywood studios duke it out in the coming years.

You can check out a trailer for the Lilyhammer series in the YouTube video embedded below.

The good folks over at Corel sent us over their new Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus product to review. Yes, you read that right, Corel now owns Roxio consumer software. This hardware & software combo package allows you to capture and transfer analog video from sources like a VCR or an old camcorder, converting them into a digital video format.

There are many reasons for converting old analog video to digital. Doing so allows you to retain video quality, as analog video tapes continually degrade when they are played. They even lose quality when they aren’t used, as aging & environmental factors can cause tape to deteriorate. Converting to digital allows you to preserve these videos without having to worry about the source tape media wilting away and becoming unplayable.

Converting video to a digital format also provides you with the flexibility to copy your video to a USB storage device, a DVD, a Blu-ray Disc or upload it to a website such as YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo or countless other streaming video websites. This allows for portability and playback on computers, smartphones, iPods and other modern devices.

Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus review – features

Roxio advertises the following “Video and DVD” features for this product:

New Automatically split home movies too big to fit on a single disc and burn across multiple DVD discs
New Reduce video noise common to old VHS tapes
New Stabilize shaky home videos
New Improve color balance and lighting
New Add transitions between videos
New Add rolling credits to movies
Go from VCR to DVD in a few clicks – the fastest way to create a DVD from your VCR home video
Burn DVD discs from your VCR or camcorder videos
Produce Hollywood-style DVDs with navigation and professionally designed menus
Trim and cut video clips

In addition to these core Video and DVD features, Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus also includes Music, Disc Label Creation and Sharing features, which are detailed here.

Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus review – What’s inside the box?

The product ships in an attractive looking retail package, which includes the Roxio Video Capture USB device, a software CD and a “Getting Started Guide” instructional booklet. Kudos to Roxio for including a physical paper booklet. Many products that include software CDs are skimping on physical user manuals these days, instead opting for instructions stored alongside the software as a digital file on the CD. A paper booklet is much easier to reference and provides for a better end user experience.

Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus review – Connecting the device

To test out the product, we dug out an old Emerson VCR and some old VHS tapes that we could convert to digital formats.

The Roxio Video Capture USB device is extremely easy to connect and use. On the source side, whether that be a VCR, a camcorder or another output device, you connect a set of RCA video cables to the device’s output ports. These cables then plug into the corresponding Red/Yellow/White RCA inputs on the Roxio Video Capture USB device. The Roxio Video Capture USB device then plugs into a PC via a standard USB plug. Easy peazy! Scroll down to our image gallery at the end of this article for more photos of the Roxio Video Capture USB device, the cables and the connectors.

Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus review – Installing & using the software

We popped the Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus software CD into our optical drive and easily installed the software on our PC running Windows 7. The software install did require a reboot to complete, which is a minor inconvenience. After rebooting, we launched the software and witnessed it performing some video tests, with windows resizing and flashing on screen. The software also prompted us to register for free technical support and communications from Roxio.

Above: The Roxio Easy VHS to DVD Plus 3 interface, showing a Record DVD session completing successfully. Click the image for the larger, full resolution version.

Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus review – Record DVD mode

To start off my tests, I selected the Record DVD mode and went about the process of transferring some VHS footage to DVD-R.

My first attempt at doing a “Record DVD” resulted in the very first few seconds of my video being cut off on the resulting disc. I found that there is a freeze or delay in when the software starts the actual recording from when you first click the record button. This is reproducible. To account for this, I advise that you click the record button in the software 5 seconds early, at the least, to avoid having the very beginning of your video not getting recorded to the DVD.

Another option is to pause your VHS tape at the point at which you want to start recording, then click record in Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus, wait for the software to provide confirmation on screen that it has started recording and then click play on your VCR. The downside to this method is that your recorded video file will show the paused screen to start with and it will also record the “PLAY” text that the VCR displays on screen after you press the play button. There is no reference to this recording delay in the Getting Started Guide, but I believe it should be added.

Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus review – Record, Edit and Save

The “pause” method mentioned above works great when you are in the “Record, Edit and Save” mode, because this part of the program also allows you to trim your captured video clips as well as providing additional video editing capabilities.

I found the “Record, Edit and Save” mode to be the more useful area of the software, but if you’re in a rush to quickly transfer an entire VHS tape to DVD quickly, you might use the “Record DVD” mode instead.

In the “Record, Edit and Save” mode of Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus, I found it simple to capture multiple clips, import existing video files, trim clips and even merge multiple clips into one big output file at the end if desired.

This mode also provides some advanced features such as Denoise, Stabilize and Color Correction. The Denoise option says it will reduce grain and noise from the video, the Stabilize option offers up the ability to stabilize shaky video taken with a handheld camera and the Color Correction option purports to correct color balance, brightness, contrast and saturation automatically.

I used the Denoise option on all my video captures, but I couldn’t really detect any improvements in video quality for my particular videos. I didn’t test the Stabilize option as I didn’t have any shaky clips to import. I tested the Color Correction option on one video capture and it really distorted the colors on the recorded video clip, so I didn’t try it out again after that. These type of advanced video enhancements are always hit or miss depending on the source video feed, so even though they might not have provided significant quality improvements for my particular videos, I’m still glad to see that they are included in the software as I’m sure they will help improve the captured videos in some cases.

Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus review – VHS tapes with recording breaks

I did encounter a snafu when attempting to record a VHS tape that contained breaks in between multiple video clips. In this case, the Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus software will report “no signal” at the break points and it won’t allow you to record, greying out the button. It will also automatically end recording if there is a break in the video signal, which can derail your recording plan.

In order to record a VHS video clip that has a break inserted just before the clip starts, you have to pause the VCR at the exact second that the clip starts playing, then you have to hope that Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus detects a video signal, and if it does, it will then make the record button available to click. This issue should be resolvable via a software update and I recommend that Roxio enables recording whether or not an input video signal is detected. I also advise against automatically ending the recording if it detects no video signal or at least making an option available in the settings to turn it off.

Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus review – captured VHS video example

Embedded below you can find one of the VHS video clips that I captured with Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus. The software captures VHS video at 640 x 480 resolution with 29 frames per second, saving it as a video file with the MPG file extension. The video file was then uploaded to YouTube and embedded below.

The resulting video captured by Roxio Easy VHS to DVD Plus looked just about identical to the video displayed by the VCR.

On one captured video clip, I did notice that the recorded video file did show a bit more distortion at the very top of the video compared to what I viewed on the source video feed, but the source video feed did have distortion at the very bottom and I think this transferred to the top of the recorded video clip.

Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus review – more photos

Check out the gallery below for more images of the Roxio USB capture hardware, the connectors, the cables and the VCR used.

Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus review – summary and conclusion

In this review, we pointed out a lot of little subtleties and nuances that you might encounter while using this product, but transferring video from analog to digital is always a tricky endeavor.

Overall, we feel that the Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus package is a good product. It does what it advertises, it’s easy to use and it provides some advanced features for power users.

If you’re interested in purchasing this video capture solution, you can buy it on Amazon or directly from the manufacturer.

Kaleidescape has been under the gun on the legal front lately, and they’ve also been beaten up by online streaming services too. The former problem is up to the court system of California, but Kaleidescape is tackling the latter by getting in on their own online retail store. The store will be accessed at store.kaleidescape.com.

The details are not in yet. All I know so far is that the storefront is being tested for release soon. But based on my knowledge of Kaleidescape Systems, I think I can make some safe predictions.

Kaleidescape is a very emphatic supporter of owning content. I can assume with great certainty that the store will provide purchases of movie titles which will be stored on the local hard drive of the Kaleidescape System.

The service will probably have the same limitations Amazon and Vudu has as it relates to obtaining titles. A few new titles will be available, but most of them will be lesser-known catalog titles.

The video quality will be high-def, and the cost will be slightly more than a similar purchase from Vudu.

I’ll have more information on this online storefront soon.

With all this talk about cutting the cable subscription out of our lives for good, the cable conglomerates seem to be trying to claw back some of that business. The New York Post has reported that Hulu may require users to authenticate their accounts to prove they’re a paying TV subscriber of cable or satellite.

This change would follow a larger trend asking for consumers to authenticate their subscriptions. Recently, NCAA March Madness was available online only to cable subscribers. Cable operators have also been pushing a new model that would provide “TV Everywhere” (as Comcast calls it) as long as you pay for your cable subscription on top of your internet package. Comcast is expected to use this model with the upcoming Olympic Games, and they’re in talks with media providers such as Fox to bring more content to TV Everywhere.

The cable operators are very powerful forces holding natural monopolies in many markets. They’ve been lobbying Congress to allow them to throttle certain web content to the end user, or sell these channels as an add on deal to the internet. Over the past decade, cable operators have been quickly turning into internet service providers while the cable subscriptions have been fading. Instead of adapting to the new reality, they’re trying to hold onto their cable profits and also take internet profits.

Time Warner Cable and Comcast have asked to sell tiers of service where basic internet is one price, but accessing unlimited streams of video from Hulu or Netflix would be premium services much like HBO, Starz and Showtime are for cable television. There has been immense consumer push back on that idea, not to mention from Silicon Valley who sees it as a way to squash innovation and kill upstart companies. This new move to require authentication seems like a backdoor approach, requiring their subscribers to pay for a cable service they otherwise wouldn’t get in order to receive the content over the internet that is also available on cable television.

I don’t want to seem alarmist. All of the inside sources indicate this migration for Hulu would take years to implement, and then may only provide different levels of service – perhaps providing TV shows just after air date for authenticated subscribers, and a longer wait time for unauthenticated subscribers.

Hulu is a joint partnership between NBCUniversal (owned by Comcast), News Corporation (parent of Fox), The Walt Disney Company (parent of ABC), and Providence Equity Partners. Providence Equity Partners has asked the other partners to purchase their shares for $200 million recently. While the buyout of NBC by Comcast came with restrictions concerning Hulu, the negotiating between content providers and cable operators has grown increasingly tense in the previous several years as subscriber fees have fallen and content owners ask for greater retransmission payments while ad revenue is also falling.

Business requires risk, and these companies are simply looking to minimize risk. Of course they could just put pilot seasons on Kickstarter and fund new show development off of niche audiences (seriously, if that happens I hope I get my royalties).

We have previously talked about replacing cable or satellite television with internet streaming on-access video. While the majority of households aren’t ready to replace their traditional television service, new research from the Leightman Research Group has found that 38% of households are now streaming video to their TV via the internet. This is up from 24% just two years ago.

The most commonly used device for video streaming is a video game system, totaling 28% of households. (That’s how I deliver internet video to my TV.) Only 1% of households use Roku or Apple TV, while 4% use internet-capable TVs.

Netflix is far-and-away the leader in streaming video, with 35% of Netflix subscribers streaming video from the Internet weekly – totaling 16% of all adults, compared to 5% weekly use among all non-Netflix subscribers. Two year ago, only 4% of adults used Netflix’s Watch Instantly.

So is America ready to cut their cable? Not quite. Only 13% of Netflix subscribers would consider cancelling their TV provider, which is down from 21% last year.

Have you cancelled your television provider?

I have cancelled my provider. The reasons are varied, but came mainly through life changes in the form of three preschool-aged children. I don’t have time to watch very much television anymore, so it was a waste of money to continue paying for a service I don’t use. And the shows I enjoy watching the most are available on Hulu, Amazon or Netflix, so I can watch on my computer or through my PlayStation 3.

I haven’t felt like I’ve missed out on current TV programs at all. I’ve kept up with all the new episodes of the shows I love: House, White Collar, Fringe, and 30 Rock are all on Hulu. Mad Men and The Walking Dead are available on Amazon for a charge, but combined are much less than a cable subscription. Netflix provides me with past shows I’ve missed further out, and more movies than I can shake a stick at so I can’t really complain about the lack of choices. Generally, new releases are something I want to see in the theater anyway, and if they’re not I don’t need to watch them right away.

But the biggest advantage I’ve had using Netflix instead of cable is for the children. Netflix has a children’s menu that allows my kids to pick which shows they want to watch, and there are no commercials and they don’t have to tune in on the top of the hour. They’re so spoiled in this regard that when watching normal broadcast TV they get upset when a commercial breaks in, and they start asking to watch their show.

As far as live events, I’m not much of a sports guy, but I do watch the occasional football or soccer game over-the-air with rabbit ears.

My experience this past weekend is a typical example of how Google TV just doesn’t have its act quite together.

While using my smartphone, I often see an interesting video posted on Facebook or Twitter. If the video sounds interesting enough for me to watch, I’ll typically send the video link to my Google TV using the “Share with Google TV Remote” option on my Android device. This works great for “beaming” video content to the big screen in our living room.

I tried this twice this weekend, and both times, I got a big fail from Google TV.

You can’t load QuickTime on Google TV

The first occurrence happened when I saw a tweet stating that the full trailer for the new Total Recall movie (remake) had been exclusively posted to Apple.com. I’m a big fan of SciFi flicks, so I wanted to check out the trailer from my Google TV. Unfortunately, loading the URL on my Google TV resulted in an ugly error message that I need to install Quicktime for Chrome in order to view the video. The problem is, it’s not possible to install QuickTime for Chrome on Google TV. Usability fail #1 of the weekend for Google TV.

Flash video incompatibilities surface often on Google TV

The second occurrence happened when I attempted to watch a live stream of the Phx AM skateboarding contest. The stream was available at PHXAM.com and was embedded in a Flash video player. I thought, great, Google TV should be able to play the video fine since it’s Flash. Wrong. It showed up as a black box on my Google TV and would never load. I’ve seen this happen with other Flash videos in the past as well. I don’t know what the specific incompatibility is or what is tripping up Google TV, but yet again, the end result is another video that you can’t watch on your Google TV.

Google claims that Google TV has the web as it was intended to be

If we take a look at the features page on the official Google TV website, the very top listed feature is:

“Google Chrome browser
The web as it was intended to be. Watch online video, update your status, watch what’s viral in real-time, and even check your fantasy scores.”

Really Google? The web as it was intended to be? I’d say web video was intended to be viewed and since I can’t do that often using my Google TV, it’s not as it was intended to be.

And don’t forget, many TV networks block Google TV from accessing their online video content, as well as Hulu.

All of this leads to a very poor user experience for the Google TV user. You’ve got this supposed fully featured browser on your HDTV, yet you still can’t access the video content that you want to.

Google should install the QuickTime plugin for Chrome on Google TVs

Google really should preload the Chrome Quicktime plugin on all Google TV’s to resolve the first issue I brought up above. There are many videos around the web that use QuickTime and Apple.com routinely hosts exclusive movie trailers that aren’t found anywhere else. I’ve got to wonder if the exclusion of the QuickTime Chrome plugin on Google TV is a conscious decision by Google due to a pissing match between the 2 companies. After all, they are now fierce competitors in the mobile phone arena and on the home theater front, Apple has their rival Apple TV platform. There’s also no way that Apple is ever going to release a Quicktime app for Android.

I’m hoping that Google TV can improve further to provide a better end user experience, but I’m not sure if it will ever get to where it should really be. I’ll be anxiously awaiting the next major Google TV update. Until then, I’ll continue to get frustrated when videos won’t play on my Internet TV.

If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you probably know all about unlimited Prime Instant videos. If not, here’s your wake-up call: you’re missing out on tons of awesome movie, television & documentary film content that’s available to you for free as part of a paid Amazon Prime membership.

When Prime Instant videos first launched, it essentially fell into my lap as I was already an Amazon Prime subscriber for the 2 day shipping benefits. More recently, I’ve found that I don’t really need Amazon Prime for the shipping benefits, as they have a warehouse here in Phoenix and I get deliveries from them very quickly, with or without Prime 2 day shipping. With that in mind, the Prime membership is really only valuable to me now for the additional benefits; unlimited Prime Instant videos, Kindle book loans and other such perks.

The Amazon Prime benefit earned through Amazon Mom doesn’t allow access to Prime Instant Videos

Unfortunately, I’ve recently run into a bit of a snag with my Amazon Prime membership. I’m a member of the Amazon Mom program (it should really be named Amazon Parent), which is a free program that gives you discounts on baby supplies and other benefits, such as free Prime 2 day shipping. The more you spend on baby products, the more months of free Prime 2 day shipping you get. Thanks to all of my infant paraphernalia purchasing (I have twin baby boys), I have maxed out that benefit and have earned 12 months of free Prime 2 day shipping.

Before I joined the Amazon Mom program, I linked my account to my wife’s Amazon Prime membership, as she had paid the $79 annual fee. The Prime program allows multiple members of the same household to utilize the benefits. At the time, I was able to access Amazon Prime Instant Videos using my Amazon account and everything was just fine and dandy. After joining Amazon Mom, however, all was no longer well in Prime Instant Video land.

Amazon Prime Instant Videos require a paid Prime membership

You see, access to Prime Instant Videos requires a paid Amazon Prime membership. The problem is, now that I’m an Amazon Mom member, I apparently have “non-paid” Amazon Prime shipping benefits. When I try to watch a Prime Instant Video now using my Amazon account, Amazon tells me I need to “upgrade” to a paid subscription before I can view the content.

Amazon: lose the free Prime shipping months you’ve earned or no Prime Instant Video access for you!

This poses multiple problems for me (as well as other Amazon customers in a similar situation). The first being that I have many months of “free” Prime shipping benefits earned through the Amazon Mom program, which Amazon says I would lose if I “upgraded” to a paid Prime membership. The second is that my household ALREADY has a paid prime membership, so why is Amazon trying to charge me? I verified that my account is still linked to my wife’s paid Prime membership, but apparently my Amazon Mom membership status confuses their system.

So what should Amazon do? Amazon Mom “earned” Prime shipping benefits should be tacked on or banked on an account so that they can be used after a paid Amazon Prime membership period is over. This would allow the Amazon Mom customers to continue earning their benefits as well as utilize paid Prime membership benefits. Amazon also needs to fix their system to recognize that accounts that are part of Amazon Mom can also be part of a paid household Prime membership so that Prime Instant Videos and the other benefits are available to the account. There’s no way Amazon is getting another $79 a year out of us for a paid prime membership when we already subscribe. I also don’t want to quit the Amazon Mom program and lose the baby product discounts, so I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place it seems.

Please fix your stuff Amazon!