Is Amazon desperate?

     I was surprised to get a letter from Amazon today.  Yes, that’s right.  Amazon sent me snail mail.  Naturally I was curious, although I suspected it to be some sort of marketing ploy.  But I wasn’t entirely sure about that.  Why wouldn’t they just send something like that with email?  Wouldn’t that be more environmentally friendly not to mention more cost friendly?  Then again, I thought that maybe they were going the snail mail route because the message would stand out more.  How many emails does the average person get?  Many of them are marketing emails from businesses looking ot generate sales, and people get so many of them (I know I do) that they all just become noise.  Sending the message by another way increases the likelihood it will be seen as signal rather than noise.

---

     But that wasn’t to be.  Here’s the letter they sent me.  They’re concerned I haven’t watched anything on their streaming service.  Now, if you read my recent post detailing why I ended my Amazon Prime subscription, you may be wondering what exactly is going on here.  This letter wasn’t sent by mistake.  Let me explain.
     As I explained in my earlier post, I did cancel my Amazon Prime subscription.  Then the semester started, I needed a textbook for one of my classes, and the bookstore did not have the book in stock.  I checked Amazon just to see how much they were charging, and I saw an offer for a free student subscription to Amazon Prime.  For six months, I would pay nothing, and I could cancel at any time.
     I decided that if they wanted to give me a benefit without me paying for it, I’d be OK with that.  This is probably a marketing ploy on their part.  They think that if they get a customer “addicted” to their service that they will gladly pay Amazon in the future, and the sum of that future revenue is much greater than what they sacrifice on the free subscription period.  Unfortunately for Amazon, I’m not that customer.  I’m going to take their benefit and cancel the subscription before I have to pay them a single penny.

     What I didn’t expect to see was what now looks like an act of desperation.  Apparently Amazon monitors the accounts of their customers to see what they are and are not using, and if there is something that bodes poorly in their estimation, they take action to nudge the customer back “in line” with their desire.  Of course, all of this is automated.  I’m sure they have some AI algorithm identifying the “out of line” customers and then sending out a form letter like the one I received.  What I find really interesting is the role their streaming service appears to be playing in their revenue model.  They wouldn’t be nudging me in this direction if it didn’t matter to the bottom line.
     Of course, as the letter I received shows, I haven’t been using their streaming service, and I don’t plan on it.  As I posted earlier, I’ve been reading more from my library.  I’ve also ordered some new DVDs from a different site to have an occasional movie night.  I wasn’t expecting them for another couple of days (learning the package would take about a week to get here didn’t bother me in the least), but the package actually arrived yesterday.  So this letter I received from Amazon doesn’t change what I was going to do in the least.  But I do find it interesting.  And I wonder what would happen if millions or even just hundreds of thousands of other people would take the same action I took.  What would Amazon’s response be?  Would we see them in desperation?